Christopher Madrid | PantherNOW Staff Writer FIU alumni Barbara Balmaseda was one of approximately 1,583 rioters pardoned by President Donald Trump’s clemency Balmaseda, a former GOP Strategist, was indicted on all charges by a grand jury on May 22nd and a judge officially set her trial on March 25 Due to President Donald Trump’s pardons, which also commuted the sentences of 14 additional January 6th rioters, Balmaseda will no longer be charged with numerous felonies. Miami Lakes native Balmaseda was known for interning for Marco Rubio in 2018 – 2019, assisting Ron DeSantis’s 2018 campaign, and being closely associated with the Proud Boys.  Her charges included: corrupt obstruction of an official proceeding, knowingly entering and remaining in a restricted building, and engaging in disorderly conduct in a Capitol building with the intent to impede a session of Congress.  The January 6th riot pardons included pardoning those responsible for the injury of 140 police officers as well as pardoning those responsible for the deaths of five other officers.  FIU Student Media includes PantherNOW Magazine and PantherNOW.com, which are edited and produced by students at FIU. We publish every Wednesday during the regular academic year. We also publish daily online content. The Roar (WRGP) is the student-run radio station, which operates 24 /7 on 95.3 in Miami, 96.9 in North Miami and 88.1 in Kendall/Homestead area. after a prolonged illness that limited his artistic creation in the final stage of his life Cuban actor Luis Alberto García paid an emotional tribute to his professional colleague and dear friend recalled Balmaseda's prominent career in film and theater on the island He expressed his admiration for him and described him as "one of the greatest Cuban actors of all time." The publication is accompanied by several photos of both Cuban actors one of the greatest Cuban actors of all time affectionately recalling the nickname he gave to Balmaseda His message resonated deeply among followers and colleagues who also took the opportunity to remember the most iconic roles of the legendary Cuban actor he stood out in film and theater productions portraying characters that left an impact on several generations of viewers Among his most remembered works are his performances in the films "Se permuta" and "Cecilia," and in emblematic plays that solidified his reputation as a master of acting Balmaseda was a reference in Cuban television especially due to his ability to master silences and pauses in his performances He remains alive in the memory of all who enjoyed his art More than 1,400 people have been charged with federal crimes as a result of the January 6 But one lucky defendant who was indicted in May is getting a nice overseas vacation The Miami New Times reports that Barbara Balmaseda District Judge John Bates to go on her honeymoon to Spain and Italy for two weeks beginning on August 29 and ending on September 13 Balmaseda was arrested in December and indicted by a federal grand jury on May 22 on five charges related to the riots including corrupt obstruction of an official proceeding knowingly entering and remaining in a restricted building and engaging in disorderly conduct in a Capitol building with the intent to impede a session of Congress “Particularly relevant to the Court’s conclusion are (1) the uncertain status of defendant’s sole felony charge … (2) defendant’s ties to the United States and apparent lack of ties outside the United States; and (3) defendant’s compliance with her conditions of release to date,” wrote Bates noting that Balmaseda did not have to post bail and is under neither home detention nor a GPS monitor and that other January 6 defendants have had overseas travel requests denied Balmaseda’s honeymoon abroad would be a nice trip to celebrate her marriage but that does not mitigate the severity of Ms 2021 and the interest in having recourse if Ms Balmaseda violates her conditions,” prosecutors Matthew Graves and Taylor Fontan wrote in a motion to deny Balmaseda’s request Balmaseda created a Telegram chat that included Florida state Senator Illena Garcia and some Miami-area Proud Boys in the months before January 6 climbed on equipment set up for President Joe Biden’s inauguration while wearing a pink gaiter So why was Balmaseda’s request granted? Is it because Balmaseda is well connected? What Bates didn’t mention is that, despite having ties to the Proud Boys, Balmaseda also interned for Senator Marco Rubio from 2018 to 2019 helped to organize Ron DeSantis’s 2018 run for governor of Florida and was a campaign manager for Garcia’s successful Florida state Senate run in 2020 Other January 6 defendants can’t say they similarly got to go on their honeymoon abroad. Maybe Balmaseda will also try to use her connections to escape serious punishment or, if Donald Trump wins in November, will try to score a pardon Rupert Murdoch is sending Donald Trump a hidden message through his editorial boards: Trump Through his media companies the New York Post and The Wall Street Journal, the billionaire business magnate seems to be trying to communicate to Trump that his 2024 campaign isn’t looking so hot. Though Murdoch himself isn’t penning any op-eds, his newspapers’ headlines highlight anxieties from inside the backrooms, The Daily Beast reported “Trump Is Looking Like a Loser Again,” editor-at-large Gerard Baker wrote in a column on Monday “The Trump of the past few weeks has looked and sounded more or less exactly like the Trump of nine years ago Trump who lost the House in 2018 and the Senate in the Georgia runoff election in January 2021.” Even though Fox was later forced to pay up big time with a $787 million defamation for parroting Trump’s false election claims, Trump continues to bash Fox News whenever he gets the chance As Murdoch showed face at the Republican National Convention last month, Donald Trump Jr. took the opportunity to slam him, telling Axios “There was a time where if you wanted to survive in the Republican Party you had to bend the knee to him or to others Donald Trump is still obsessed with his crowd size—and his buddies are only too happy to back him up Trump claimed that 60 million people were listening to his one-on-one conversation with Elon Musk despite the livestream’s own data tracker indicating that just a fraction of that—roughly a million people—had tuned in Musk amended Trump’s verbiage to project that 100 million people would listen to the glitched-out interview “over the next few days [and] weeks.” Trump’s allies took the crowd space lie to the moon “The president going on X with Elon Musk last night—which got almost, I think, 1 billion views now, is a perfect example of how you combat the disinformation being pumped out by the Democrat media cabal and the Kamala Harris campaign,” conservative strategist Roger Stone told Newsmax Tuesday they're a couple hours away from claiming 10 billion people listened to Elon Musk fluff Donald Trump last night pic.twitter.com/blFJQTkehd It’s possible Stone was referring to a stretched data point elevated by Musk late Monday night claiming that the discussion’s audience had reached one billion people—if you lumped in the livestream audience with the aggregate views of every single post made in relation to or mentioning Trump’s talk In 2016 and 2020, Trump relied on the visual logic of his loaded rallies—and, by extension, the lackluster crowds attending his opponents’—as evidence of his titanic popularity among everyday Americans. But Harris’s ability to meet and even exceed Trump’s numbers has really rattled him, along with the conservative establishment. Late last week, news of Harris’s massive crowds reached the top of the Drudge Report the most heavily trafficked conservative news aggregator paired with the headline: “HARRIS CROWDS ROIL MAGA.” Vance helped to fund a startup that was supposed to make things better for working people in eastern Kentucky causing employees to flee in droves—only to be soon replaced by migrant workers CNN reports that in 2017 in the wake of his successful book Hillbilly Elegy Vance was hired by AOL co-founder Steve Case to invest in underserved markets the founder of a startup called AppHarvest AppHarvest’s plan was to create an indoor farming operation growing fruits and vegetables in eastern Kentucky an economically distressed region close to much of the U.S population with plenty of land and water nearby Webb had already drained his savings and maxed out his credit cards to run the startup with other investors chipping in $50,000 each While Senate disclosures say Vance was named to the company’s board of directors in March 2017 AppHarvest’s security filings say that he joined in 2020 had AppHarvest as one of its earliest publicly disclosed investments Vance helped the startup get millions of dollars in capital AppHarvest was hiring eastern Kentucky locals to help with its crops having pledged to bring thousands of jobs to “high unemployment areas,” according to a presentation it gave to investors in 2020 He said his hours as a crop care specialist were manageable and that the benefits were better than anything else in the area production fell behind and workers were put under pressure The company cut employee health care benefits along with other costs that meant longer days in a very hot greenhouse “I think about the hottest that I experienced was around 128 degrees,” Morgan told CNN you’d have an ambulance show up and you seen people leaving on gurneys to go to the hospital.” Morgan organized a sit-in to demand better conditions and was later fired after he took time off to get treatment for an injury that he suffered on the job Morgan’s issues were shared by other workers at the company said that the company didn’t provide masks for employees to deal with mold and other contaminants in the greenhouses Hester corroborated Morgan’s account of workers experiencing heat stroke symptoms and added that managers disregarded doctor’s notes as a reason to miss work With native Kentuckians leaving their jobs their positions were soon filled by migrant workers coming from countries like Mexico and Guatemala only for the migrant workers to be sent away so they wouldn’t be seen The company went bankrupt in 2023 with $341 million in debt, dealing with millions of dollars in lawsuits. Vance left the company’s board in April 2021 before his run for the Senate in Ohio but still had $100,000 invested in the company. With Vance touting his business record as the Republican vice presidential nominee, AppHarvest is another big strike against him and the campaign State Republican candidates in North Carolina are hopping onto a nationwide Bible bandwagon that’s pushing for the religious text to be a mandatory instructional element in public schools She revealed that she has similar intentions for the Tar Heel State “I absolutely believe that we need to get elective Bible classes back in every middle and high school—in our schools,” Morrow told the incognito operative adding that she “absolutely” meant in public schools Morrow had previously gained national attention for her questionable social media history which included espousing QAnon conspiracies and calling for the “pay per view” executions by “firing squad” of several prominent Democrats including former President Barack Obama and Joe Biden shortly after he won the 2020 presidential election But the GOP state superintendent nominee’s political platform is similarly alarming Morrow advocated for an amendment to get the state Board of Education abolished a move that would effectively hand the power to craft school policy to the superintendent—and the state’s GOP-controlled legislature Donald Trump’s campaign has hired Taylor Budowich a former Trump aide who has been running the super PAC MAGA Inc Budowich was a spokesperson for the Trump 2020 campaign and has found himself embroiled in Trump’s classified documents case and implicated by Congress’s January 6 investigation In June of last year, he testified before a federal grand jury in Trump’s classified documents case. “America has become a sick and broken nation—a decline led by Joe Biden and power hungry Democrats,” he said at the time, per CBS “I will not be intimidated by this weaponization of government the need to unite our nation and make America great again has never been more clear than it is today.” Budowich was subpoenaed in 2021 by the House Select Committee to Investigate January 6 which claimed it had reason to believe he had directed roughly $200,000 from undisclosed sources to fund an ad campaign encouraging people to attend the rally that would transform into the deadly riot at the U.S When JPMorganChase Bank complied with Congress’s request he filed a complaint and restraining order against former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi the House Select Committee and its members His complaint was dismissed by a district court judge the case was dismissed again by an appeals court in March 2023—three months after the January 6 committee shuttered its 18-month investigation Budowich’s rehiring is the latest in a series of plays by the Trump campaign that signal panic in the former president’s team which has spent the last month scrambling to mount a solid opposition to Vice President Kamala Harris’s new campaign Donald Trump is already receiving pushback after threatening striking workers in his trainwreck interview with Elon Musk on Monday night “I mean, I look at what you do,” Trump told Musk the United Auto Workers on Tuesday morning filed federal labor charges against Trump and Musk calling the two “disgraced billionaires.” The UAW accused the men of “illegal attempts to threaten and intimidate workers who stand up for themselves by engaging in protected concerted activity When we say Trump stands against everything our union stands for this is what we mean,” said UAW President Shawn Fain workers cannot be fired for going on strike Threatening to do so is illegal under the National Labor Relations Act “Donald Trump will always side against workers standing up for themselves and he will always side with billionaires like Elon Musk who is contributing $45 million a month to a Super PAC to get him elected,” said Fain “Both Trump and Musk want working-class people to sit down and shut up and totally predictable from these two clowns.” Democratic vice presidential nominee Tim Walz will speak to AFSCME union members in Los Angeles in his first solo campaign stop on Tuesday Roger Stone’s email account was broken into by suspected hackers to try to gain access to the accounts of senior Trump campaign officials Multiple sources confirmed to CNN Tuesday that the adviser who’d been hacked was none other than Stone a longtime GOP operative and self-proclaimed “agent provocateur.” A group of hackers were able to break into Stone’s email account in June with the hopes of accessing his vast network and using phishing emails as a means of entry into the Trump campaign’s inner workings—and it seems they were successful and Politico have all reported receiving stolen files from the Trump campaign but as of yet have not reported on the contents of their bounty Stone was contacted about this matter by Microsoft and the FBI and continues to cooperate with both,” said Grant Smith Stone will have no further comment at this time.” In a brief statement Stone told the Post that he’d been informed by authorities that “a couple” of his personal email accounts had been accessed by the hackers Donald Trump, for his part, has blamed the hack on Iran, citing Microsoft’s report as its evidence. Microsoft declined to comment to NBC citing its policy of not sharing client details without permission While Iran has denied allegations that it was connected to the incident the techniques associated with the hack are consistent with those used by Iranian hackers it seems like Stone should’ve known better It has been theorized that Stone allegedly knew about the 2016 hacking of emails from the Democratic National Committee and Hillary Clinton’s campaign chairman John Podesta before they were ever published by WikiLeaks thanks to his “backchannel communications” with Julian Assange The day after Minnesota Governor Tim Walz was announced as Kamala Harris’s choice for vice president Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell told a crowd of lawmakers in Louisville that a Harris administration would spell certain doom for the Republican Party “Let’s assume our worst nightmare—the Democrats went to the White House, the House, the Senate,” McConnell said during his keynote speech at the National Conference of State Legislators Legislative Summit last week, according to Spectrum News. “The first thing they’ll do is get rid of the [Senate] filibuster That’s four new Democratic senators in perpetuity.” Puerto Rico will vote on a nonbinding ballot measure in November to determine the territory’s future political status all of which would change its official status: statehood It will be the seventh time that the island’s 3.2 million people vote to define their political relationship with the United States Harris has not yet taken an official stance on the vote McConnell insisted that next on the historically moderate Democrat’s agenda would be to place as many liberal justices on the Supreme Court as possible noting that doing so would be “unconstitutional”—while apparently ignoring the fact that that’s exactly what Donald Trump did to achieve SCOTUS’s current conservative supermajority “If they get those two new states and pack the Supreme Court they’ll get what they want,” McConnell said McConnell believes that the Harris-Walz ticket “represents the far left of the Democratic Party Kentucky Senate President Robert Stivers broke down the Republican perspective on why Harris turned to Walz as her right hand “They’re trying to appeal to a rural voter that they have not appealed to in years,” Stivers said, reported Spectrum and I think that will be based on the policies that they put forward Donald Trump told Elon Musk during their livestreamed conversation on X Monday night that if the election goes poorly “we’ll meet the next time in Venezuela because it will be a far safer place to meet than our country.” Trump made the statement after mentioning that “crime rates all over the world are going way down,” an odd statement to make before bringing up Venezuela, where postelection protests have left 23 dead and more than 2,000 people arrested Trump says he'll flee to Venezuela if he loses the election and invites Elon to visit him pic.twitter.com/z0gvN6ugI7 Volume 11 - 2024 | https://doi.org/10.3389/fmars.2024.1456013 This article is part of the Research TopicDemonstrating Observation Impacts for the Ocean and Coupled PredictionView all 18 articles This study aims to evaluate the impact of the in-situ ocean observations on seasonal forecasts A series of seasonal reforecasts have been conducted for the period 1993-2015 in which different sets of ocean observations were withdrawn in the production of the ocean initial conditions while maintaining a strong constrain in sea surface temperature (SST) By comparing the different reforecast sets it is possible to assess the impact on the forecast of ocean and atmospheric variables Results show that the in-situ observations have profound and significant impacts on the mean state of forecast ocean and atmospheric variables which can be classified into different categories: i) impact due to local air-sea interaction as direct consequence of changes in the mixed layer in the ocean initial conditions and visible in the early stages of the forecasts; ii) changes due to different ocean dynamical balances most visible in the Equatorial Pacific in forecasts initialized in May which amplify and evolve with forecast lead time; iii) changes to the atmospheric circulation resulting from changes in large scale SST gradients; these are non-local and they are obvious from the visible impact of the removing in-situ observations on the Atlantic basin only in the global atmospheric circulation; iv) changes in the atmospheric tropical deep convection associated with the structure of the warm pools The ocean observations have also a significant impact on the representation of the trends of the ocean initial conditions which affect the trends in the seasonal forecasts of ocean and atmospheric variables The impact of the ocean observing system in the Atlantic and extratropics appears dominated by Argo but this is not the case in the Tropical Pacific where the other ocean observing systems play a role in constraining the ocean state who report the impact of ocean observations on subseasonal time scales This is the methodology followed in this work we pay special attention to how the ocean initial conditions impact the forecasts of tropical SST To quantify the impact on the seasonal forecasts of the global atmosphere of observations in basins outside the Pacific removing all the in-situ observations in the Atlantic basin The assessment in this paper focuses on changes in the mean state and linear trends The mean state is important because often these initialized forecasts are used to evaluate coupled model errors and these errors may depend on the ocean initialization The analysis of trends is relevant for two reasons: i) the current calibration of seasonal forecasts assumes that the errors are stationary and changes in the ocean observing system may affect this assumption if the ocean observing system impacts the trends; ii) in a changing climate it is important to quantify forecast and understand how the climate changing is evolving in response to greenhouse gasses and the ocean observing system plays a pivotal role Assimilation of ocean observations also impacts forecast skill but as discussed in Methods below that is not the focus of this study The paper is organized as follows: section 2 describes the experimental set up and describes the evaluation methodology; section 3 presents the resulting impact of withdrawing subsurface observations in the initial conditions and how this affects the mean state and trends of seasonal forecasts of ocean and atmospheric variables The ORA-OSE experiments are the same as those reported by Zuo et al. (2019), and Balan-Sarojini et al. (this issue). They are produced with the same ocean and sea-ice model versions (NEMO v3.4.1 and LIM2), forcing fields from Era-Interim (Dee and co-authors, 2011) 3D-variational assimilation procedure and ensemble generation method as ORAS5 but at lower horizontal and vertical resolution: the ORA-OSEs use the ORCA1_Z42 levels which is has an approximate horizontal grid spacing of 1 degree (with meridional refinement at the Equator where the latitudinal grid refinement is about 1/3 degree) with upper ocean level thickness of 10 meters Another important difference with ORAS5 is that in these experiments the bias correction and assimilation of altimeter sea level has been switched off This allows cleaner interpretation of the impact on ocean observations since both the bias correction and altimeter assimilation indirectly require information from the in-situ observations to assimilate sea-level anomalies ancillary information about the mean dynamic topography (MDT) is required The MDT field in ORAS5 is obtained from by temporal averaging of the sea surface height field from a reanalysis experiment where in-situ observations have been assimilated This implies that the information from in-situ observations is indirectly used when assimilating altimeter data The same argument applies for the bias correction applied in ORAS5 which is obtained from the assimilation increments of a previous experiment that assimilates all in-situ observations but this is the first time that results are presented for the seasonal time scales The trend and its significance are estimated using a simple regression model The significance of the differences in mean and trend is obtained via a paired t-test from the samples of simultaneous pairs of differences between the OSE and REF experiments For the ORA-OSES we analyze the impact on variables with potential to impact the SST in the coupled forecasts via a variety of processes: depth of the 20 degree isotherm (D20I) as a proxy for thermocline depth in the tropics which is relevant for equatorial wave propagation and ENSO prediction; depth of 28 degrees isotherm (D28I) as a proxy for the depth of the warm pools which may affect deep tropical convection at short and long lead times; mixed layer depth (MLD estimated as the ocean layer where the differences in density with respect the ocean surface exceeds the 0.001 kg/m3) since it affects the exchange of air-sea fluxes; ocean heat content in the upper 300m (OHC); barotropic stream function (BarStf) which illustrates changes in circulation likely to affect timescales longer than a few months; and sea surface height (SSH) which encompasses changes in upper ocean heat content thermocline depth in the tropics and circulation changes In keeping with our focus on low-frequency changes statistics from the ocean reanalyzes are shown in terms of annual means the ensemble mean of FC-OSES is used to evaluate the statistics for each starting month (November or May starts) and for each lead season (one and two seasons ahead) separately For the atmosphere we analyze temperature at 2m above the surface (T2m) geopotential height at 500hPa (Z500) and zonal winds at 850 hPa and 200 hPa (U850 and U200 respectively) We conduct three different perturbation analysis: ● The main analysis uses the pairs (NoInsitu-REF yielding a sample size of 69 (3 pairs x 23) the results mentioning perturbation analysis refer 3-pair set to explore the role of the ocean observing system in the Atlantic basin in the context of the observing system in other basins This yields very similar values to the main one in terms of patterns and explained variance in order to explore the role of the ocean observing system in the Atlantic in isolation which also displays the impact of removing all in-situ and Argo observations on the seasonal forecast ENSO in the experiments from this paper: the NoInsitu experiment showed degradation of skill of ENSO indices with respect to REF although there was not obvious signal in the NoArgo experiment Because the time period is short and the errors are non-stationary these results will not be discussed further here Zuo et al. (2019) reported on the impact of observations from the ORA-OSEs above regarding fit to observations and impact in ocean heat content in the upper 700 meters Removal of Argo floats (ORA-NoArgo) degraded the ocean state almost everywhere except for the tropical Pacific and Indian Oceans The tropical Atlantic seemed to be generally more sensitive to the removal of in-situ observations than the other tropical ocean basins They also reported on results from complementary ORA-OSEs in which Mooring array and the XBT/MDT and CTDs were removed They concluded that the impact of removing all the in-situ observations was not simply the linear combination of the impact from individual observing systems Removing all in-situ observations from 1993 significantly affects the large scale zonal and meridional gradients of SSH the depth of the tropical thermocline and ocean heat content It also leads to shallower mixed layers almost everywhere with notable exceptions: i) at high latitudes over the convective areas in the North Atlantic subpolar gyre and along the edges of the Antarctic Circumpolar current and ii) along the Equator if all the basins underneath the edges of the atmospheric tropical convergence zones Removing all in-situ observations also produces a shallower warm pool in the Western Pacific as the reduced values of the D28I indicate Impact of removing all in-situ ocean observations on the 2005-2015 mean state of the ocean initial conditions as measured by the differences between experiments NoInsitu – REF MLD and barotropic stream function (BARSTF) Dotted areas indicate where the differences are significant at the 90% level The impact of removing Argo on the ocean mean state (Supplementary Figure S3) is broadly similar to removing all in-situ which suggests the profound impact of Argo on the large-scale ocean state and circulation This is especially true for the mid latitudes and the whole Atlantic basin There are visible changes in the Atlantic barotropic circulation which seem to be mostly due to Argo: removing the observations induces an increase of the anticyclonic gyre in the North and south Atlantic poleward of 30° as well as a weakening of the subtropical gyres There are also circulation changes along the paths of the main boundary current systems as well as the Equatorial Pacific The impact of Argo in Western tropical Pacific differs from that of all in-situ with visible differences over the warm pool (removing Argo produces shallowing of D28I only on the northern part) which do not show as stronger cooling/shallowing/decrease as when removing all in-situ The impact of removing all in-situ in the Atlantic is confined to the Atlantic basin with patterns similar to those in NoInsitu over the Atlantic (not shown) which shows timeseries of the globally averaged accumulated heat flux from the SST relaxation and the ocean heat content in the different experiments This implies that the in-situ observations have a strong impact on the estimations of heat absorption from ocean reanalyzes The ocean observations also have an impact on the estimation of the mean SSH which points towards the complementary role of in-situ and altimeter observations casting doubts on whether the assimilation of sea level information from altimeter would be possible without the in-situ observations constraining the vertical ocean structure The removal of ocean observations has also an impact on the estimation of linear trends in ocean reanalysis, as can be seen in Figure 2 Removing all in-situ observations results in stronger deepening the thermocline in the Western Tropical Pacific Northern Indian Ocean and Tropical Atlantic which results in heat accumulation in the upper ocean removing the observations (either all or only Argo not shown) leads to strong trends on the North Atlantic barotropic stream function with a tendency towards weaker subtropical gyres and enhanced anticyclonic trend between 30N-50N which also has a signature on upper ocean heat content tendency There is also a visible impact on the shallowing of the mixed layer The combined contribution of changes in stratification and circulation trends result in changes in the trends of SSH Figure 2. As Figure 1 but for the impact on linear trends The mid-latitudes exhibit a seasonal response: the wide-spread weak initial cold perturbation in SST amplifies in the winter hemisphere but largely disappears over the summer hemisphere the observations also impact the mean SST over the gyres the OHC forecast differences largely resemble the initial perturbation as expected from the large thermal inertia of the ocean; but in the Equatorial Pacific there is an obvious eastward propagation of the initial perturbation anomaly The MLD initial perturbation has different behavior: it seems to decrease with forecast lead time and largely disappears over the summer hemisphere Impact of in-situ ocean observations in the mean state of seasonal forecasts of SST OHC and MLD as measured by the experiments NoInsitu – REF (top/middle/lower rows of each individual plate) Shown are the results for forecasts initialized in May (top plate) and November (bottom plate) The differences in the initial conditions are shown in the left column and the forecasts for the first and second seasons are in the central and rightmost columns respectively The dotted areas indicate where the differences are significant at the 90% significant level The impact of Argo and Atlantic in-situ in the forecasts of ocean variables is shown in Supplementary Figures S5, S6 respectively The evolution of initial conditions differences in these experiments also shows rapid local and seasonal dependent growth/decay of SST/mixed layer perturbation and slower growth of SST forecasts differences associated with differences in OHC at initial time which in the Equatorial Pacific are non-local Removing the in situ observations in the Atlantic basin has a significant and lasting impact on the forecast of ocean variables in the whole basin which for SST forecasts manifest on a characteristic pattern of warm equator colder subtropical gyres and warmer subpolar gyre forecasts initialized in November The in-situ observations in the Atlantic also seem to have some remote impact on other basins an aspect that we will be discussed further below the forecast SST are correlated with the initial SST and MLD This correlation largely disappears in the second month A weak local correlation also remains in the Eastern Equatorial Pacific the correlation between δFc(SST) and δIni(OHC) grows with time being negligible in the first month and most intense in the second season Local correlation between the SST in δFc at different lead times with δIni in different variables averaged over the Equator (top) and at the date line for forecasts initialized in May The local correlation has been averaged over 5S-5N (top) and over all the longitudes (bottom) where there is a growing cold/warm signal along the Equatorial Pacific/Atlantic Ocean associated with an east-west dipole in OHC in the Pacific and positive OHC in the Atlantic there seems to be a relation with shallower Pacific warm pool (-ve values of D28I) in the far western Pacific is associated with the interannual variability and trends of SST with the final perturbation displaying a westward propagating SST anomaly which originates near the South American coast This is associated with small initial uncertainty in SST confined in the Equatorial Eastern Pacific and a hint of initial westward shift of the warm pool (increased D28I and MLD around the dateline) 1st (top plate) and 2nd (bottom plate) modes of the singular value decomposition between δIni (SST,OHC,D28I,MLD) and δFc(SST) in the first month The perturbations are from the experiment pairs (NoInsitu-REF Each plate shows the spatial structure of the initial/final perturbations (top/bottom rows) and the associated timeseries for which the sample time (1-69) corresponds the different pairs of perturbations: NoInsitu-REF (1-23) NoArgo-REF (24-46) and NoArgo-NoInsitu (47-69) 1st mode of the singular value decomposition for pair NoInsAtl-REF between δIni (SST,OHC,D28I,MLD) and δFc(SST) in the first month Each plate shows the spatial structure of the initial/final perturbations (top/bottom rows) and the associated timeseries. suggesting that small changes in trends of the zonal gradient of OHC (warmer west-colder east) and deeper and westward shift of the warm pool in NoInsitu are associated with the colder SST forecast trends we compute the correlation between the NoInsitu-REF initial conditions trend difference with the SVD The pattern correlation with the SVD2 mode is (0.8,0.7,0.6,0.7) for (SST,OHC,D28I,MLD) while the corresponding correlations with SVD1 are much lower (0.3,0.3,0.3,0.3) The NoArgo-REF initial conditions trends are equally correlated with SVD1 and SVD2 These results support the idea that changes in the observing system can lead to spurious trends in the seasonal forecast zonal gradients in the upper ocean heat content and the Equatorial upper ocean east of the Galapagos Islands appear associated with the developments of trends in the forecasts Impact of in-situ ocean (top) and Argo (bottom) observations in the linear trend of May starts seasonal forecasts of SST Western Pacific and poleward migration of the Intertropical Convergence Zone (ITCZ) there is increased precipitation over Atlantic Amazone and Caribbean (consistent in warmer conditions there) There are significant changes on the large-scale atmospheric circulation The zonal winds at lower levels (U850) show strengthening of the Equatorial easterlies especially for forecasts initialized in May which would contribute to the strengthening of the equatorial cold bias There is also a large-scale significant change on the distribution of MSL with higher values over the Pacific and lower values over the Atlantic consistent with the SST differences and more visible in the forecasts initialized in May Outside of the tropics there are also visible changes in the atmospheric circulation with shifts in the lower-level jets at mid latitudes and associated changes in MSL as well as changes in the precipitation patterns along the Atlantic storm track Impact of in-situ ocean observations in the 2005-2015 mean state of seasonal forecasts of atmospheric variables as measured by the differences between experiments NoInsitu and REF shown are forecasts are initialized in May for the first and second seasons into the forecasts (left and right panels in the individual plates) The different rows correspond to different variables T2m The dotted areas indicate that the differences in the mean are significant at the 90% level Impact of ocean observations in the 2005-2015 mean state of seasonal forecasts of atmospheric variables as measured by the differences between experiments NoInsitu- REF Shown are forecasts are initialized in November for the first season into the forecast mean sea level pressure (MSL) and zonal wind at 200hPa (U200) Figure 9 shows the comparison of the impact on the atmospheric mean state between the different FC-OSES this time for the first season into the forecasts Shown are the differences between NoInsitu-REF (left) NoArgo-REF (middle) and NoInsAtl-REF (right) for forecasts initialized in November The impact in T2m over the oceans is mostly local: in NoArgo it resembles that of NoInsitu and confined within the Atlantic basin in NoInsAtl the impact on atmospheric circulation is nonlocal consistent the atmosphere responding to large scale temperature gradients and the tropical convection linked to the structure of the warm pools Removing the in-situ ocean observations in the Atlantic leads to changes in MSL in other basins and at polar latitudes during the boreal winter the Aleutian Low is intensified in all three experiments NoInsitu The upper-level circulation (U200) shows significant changes in the position of the jets These results highlight the importance of representing correctly the large-scale SST gradients for which a uniform observational coverage is required The impact of observations on the forecast trends (1993-2015) of atmospheric variables is displayed in Figure 10 for May starts. Over the ocean, T2m trends are similar to those in SST in Figure 7 Central Europe and warmer values over Eastern Siberia They also affect the forecasts of tropical precipitation trends across the basins and the forecasts of the large-scale tropical circulation leading to patterns that resemble cold La Nina conditions Differences (NoInsitu – REF) in linear trends (1993-2015) of atmospheric variables in seasonal forecasts initialized in May Shown are the forecasts for the 1st and 2nd seasons (left and right columns) Dotted areas indicate that the differences are significant at the 90% level A series of ocean reanalyzes and seasonal reforecast observing system experiments has been conducted to characterize the impact of in-situ ocean observations on estimation of the ocean state used to initialize seasonal forecasts as well as their impact on the mean state and trends of the coupled forecasts of both ocean and atmospheric circulation The ocean observations have a profound impact on the mean state of the ocean circulation its removal leading to i) changes in the heat content and gradients in the tropics (shallow thermocline and weaker zonal gradients in the Pacific iii) widespread shallowing of the mixed layer (except for ocean deep convective regions) this impact is dominated by the Argo observing system The impact of the observations is also visible in the mean state of seasonal forecasts The shallower mixed layer impact is mostly local being short-lived in summer (about 1 month) at mid-latitudes persists during the whole winter season The impact of the subsurface temperature gradients in the tropics is nonlocal and amplifies with lead time being negligible in the first month and larger in the second season This amplification seems associated with a positive coupled feedback and there are suggestions that the structure of the warm pools may play a role either independently or in connection with a coupled growing mode removing in-situ observations leads to colder Western Pacific in the initial conditions which translates in colder SST along the Pacific in the forecasts Changes are also visible in the forecasts of atmospheric circulation affecting the structure of overall Walker circulation in the tropics mean sea-level pressure and tropical precipitation consistent with the existence of a coupled feedback producing colder T2m in the boreal winter over large parts of North America and Eurasia changes in the precipitation along the storm tracks and modifications of the jet structure and mean sea level pressure Some of these changes are visible even when the observations are withdrawn only in the Atlantic basin highlighting the non-local nature of the atmospheric response The removal of the ocean observations also affects the estimation of the long-term linear trends in ocean initial conditions in a non-trivial manner affecting the absorption and redistribution of heat in the ocean It also affects the trends in the seasonal forecasts of both ocean and atmospheric circulation which seems to occur via two different mechanisms: i) one of them is associated with progressive changes in the mean state since the removal of ocean observations progressively induces colder SST along the Central Equatorial Pacific; ii) the second one is related with changes in the trends in the initial conditions and this seems to be associated with colder Eastern Pacific and westward displacement of the warm pool The raw data supporting the conclusions of this article will be made available by the authors The author(s) declare financial support was received for the research This research was partially supported by the European Union H2020 projects AtlantOS (grant no EuroSea (agreement no 862626) and by the Copernicus Marine Environment Monitoring Service’s GLORAN tender The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher The Supplementary Material for this article can be found online at: https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fmars.2024.1456013/full#supplementary-material Balan-Sarojini B. 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This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY) distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted provided the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited in accordance with accepted academic practice distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms *Correspondence: Magdalena Alonso Balmaseda, TWFnZGFsZW5hLmJhbG1hc2VkYUBlY213Zi5pbnQ= Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher 94% of researchers rate our articles as excellent or goodLearn more about the work of our research integrity team to safeguard the quality of each article we publish As Milwaukee Public Schools reckons with revelations of financial mismanagement Alfredo Balmaseda told the Journal Sentinel that he was fired Tuesday confirmed Wednesday that the comptroller position became vacant Wednesday saying she couldn't comment on personnel matters The Journal Sentinel has requested records related to Balmaseda's departure The district's comptroller is responsible for supervising financial, accounting and reporting activities, according to a job description The comptroller is tasked with ensuring the accurate posting of MPS' fiscal records Balmaseda said there was no "mismanagement" or missing funds but he and others on his team had been "trying to fix severe issues with the district's accounting." Balmaseda was approved for the comptroller position, on the recommendation of the superintendent He said he was not given enough training on the accounting system the district used for year-end reports which he said was not compliant with generally accepted accounting principles A 2022 audit by Baker Tilly also noted that the district's financial statements were not in conformity with GAAP Balmaseda said he didn't believe any funds were misspent but that the district's system for year-end reports "blurred details" on funding sources and expenditures that the auditors needed He said the staffing turnover and vacancies made it difficult for him to navigate gaps in the accounting system MPS Chief Financial Officer Martha Kreitzman told the school board in December that the lack of staffing in the district’s finance office had made it difficult to complete financial reports "Staff that had left walked out with much knowledge that was not necessarily documented in a complete way," Kreitzman said at the time "There were clear gaps in what we thought was good." The district hasn't answered questions from the Journal Sentinel about current vacancies in the finance office or any changes made to the accounting system since the last Baker Tilly audit A more recent annual audit from Baker Tilly is one of the documents that the district still owes to the state Department of Public Instruction Balmaseda said he has worked through nearly every weekend in the last eight months as he attempted to get the district's financial accounting in order "This has been one of the craziest years I’ve ever had," he said You want it done for the kids; you want it done well." Contact Rory Linnane at rory.linnane@jrn.com. Follow her on X (Twitter) at @RoryLinnane MILWAUKEE — He was fired in the fall-out of the financial crisis at Milwaukee Public Schools and now he is speaking out to TMJ4 news blames understaffed departments and the district's accounting system for confusion and long overdue reports to the state The Comptroller is the person responsible for overseeing the district's accounting and financial reports Balmasedo tells TMJ4's Mariam Mackar he was working to fix what he called a messy and inefficient accounting system before he was fired "I'm so relieved in many ways because a huge weight has been lifted," he said He was in the role just shy of a year before he was removed from the post The former Comptroller tells Mackar he noticed right away that the accounting system the district has been using for years was hard to follow and didn't list key information about the funds listed "The organizational aspect that was put in place when the system was implemented was basically not good for accounting," Balmaseda explained Documents obtained by TMJ4 show that in 2022 auditors were having the same issues saying the district was "deficient in preparing financial statements a district leader wrote in a resignation letter to the board: "...There is no attention being given to the critical economic issues that the district is facing or will face in the near future." "[This former employee] outlines a lot of things we're hearing today would you have taken this position?" Mackar asked Balmaseda "If I had known everything— not what was going to happen but how things were organized— I probably would have stayed as a consultant." "If things are so disorganized that even professionals like yourself are having issues finding the correct numbers "I think that should've been handled more clearly In response to TMJ4's questions regarding the removal of Balmaseda MPS spokespeople replied that they do not comment on personnel matters Stream local news and weather 24/7 by searching for “TMJ4” on your device Available for download on Roku, Apple TV, Amazon Fire TV, and more. Report a typo or error // Submit a news tip Report a typo What first pops to mind is not a rum-and-Coke by the pool lime twist and tiny drink umbrella bobbing in the sunlight It’s not even the bucket-list trip to Istanbul to see the enchanted land of all my favorite Turkish TV series My first thought as I write my final column as a Palm Beach Post full-time employee is gratitude I’m thankful to the readers who welcomed and inspired this transplanted soul from Miami nearly 18 years ago I’m thankful to all who shared their stories with me — the happy stories the heartbreaking stories and every story in between — and trusted me to retell them in these pages I’m thankful to this newspaper and my editors for giving me the space and support to explore new areas of interest When I first arrived at the Palm Beach Post in late July 2006 somehow expecting to see Miami’s Freedom Tower a landmark that punctuated the downtown landscape of my former city But instead of the Biscayne Boulevard of my Miami Herald years (1980 to the early 2000s) I saw South Dixie Highway in West Palm Beach That beloved structure that welcomed Cuban exiles like my parents and me many decades ago is now overshadowed by a downtown clutter of newer high-rises there’s no longer a Miami Herald window for viewing the skyline because the iconic bayside building was demolished in 2014 But how was I to know that on the day I first peered out The Post window In the overly dramatic style of my childhood Hialeah I felt so horribly far from the place where I grew up the metropolis that grew fitfully before my eyes It stirred in me visions of memorized boulevards lawn shrines and the lechón we’d roast when we were all together again Had I been able to peer nearly two decades ahead instead of through that Dixie Highway window I would have seen something the luckiest of transplants might see: a new home My new homeMy new home would bring compelling new stories to report readers who loved to write us thoughtful letters new dear friends and unfathomable culinary adventures Two of the editors who had helped shape my career at The Herald the ever-inspiring Bill Rose and Bill Greer and they spoke lovingly of the newspaper and its devoted readership I found the community at large to be welcoming and readers to be solid enthusiasts of their local paper They loved their daily print newspapers and pen-and-paper letters Having arrived in Palm Beach County with my sweet American bulldog Lola dog parks and designated dog beaches in my new county These details spoke volumes about the way this community valued quality of life over politics and hype I loved hearing from readers seeking restaurant recommendations Their letters and emails told me about milestone events in their lives — a wedding anniversary As a former local columnist who had come here from an uber-political city I was familiar with the issues that divide us My years at The Post as a feature and a food-and-dining writer gave me the space and time to explore other topics some of the greatest blessings of my journalism years came into focus food is one of the things in life that brings us together A dish was not simply a stack of ingredients and instructions but a chance to relive moments and to reunite with loved ones This truth was powerful enough to launch restaurants many of them built on the desire to share one’s cuisine I was fortunate to report on the rapidly expanding dining world Indie chefs established roots here along with their restaurants They came together for charitable causes and forged a strong local culinary scene that would reach destination status That status was reinforced every December as the Palm Beach Food & Wine Festival showcased many of those destination restaurants alongside national food stars that included Michelin-starred chefs and James Beard Award winners there were stories not related to food that still resound in my memory A respected neurologist named Gus Castellanos told me his back-from-the-brink story He recounted how he woke up after a drug overdose to find himself strapped to a bed in the intensive care unit at Jupiter Medical the very hospital where he headed a sleep disorder clinic His story traced his journey to federal prison sobriety and a new life as a mindfulness instructor The late local news anchor Kristin Hoke shared with me the details of her breast cancer battle — the second round of it in 2007 She learned the news that her cancer had metastasized on the day her baby daughter Bella turned 3 months old years-long fight against a spreading disease but she always savored the joyful moments about 16 months before her death at age 42 she watched her toddler and her husband play on the patio of their Jupiter home “I realize now that having Bella was all for a reason,” she told me “She has given me the focus to keep fighting I don't know how it's possible to have so much joy But the story that keeps rushing to mind is one I wrote in 2017, one we dubbed The Paella Pilgrim It featured a former firefighter-turned-chef named Juan Montalvo and was fascinated by his paella catering business I thought a lot about his story as I planned my transition into retirement Juan is a wonderful photographer and he would capture the setting at each paella gig — and these were lovely settings What was it like to make the same dish every time I asked him this and many other questions over lunch at Padrino’s Cuban restaurant in Boca Raton one day in 2017 The pans and the prep work may be the same but the dish takes on its own personality with each sweep of the long spatula and every breeze that may disrupt the flames beneath the pan did not know it at the time as he dutifully followed the repetition of steps but each variation was nudging him closer to the next chapter of his life “But here's the thing: The Boca Raton chef known as The Hungry Cuban was all too familiar with new chapters after retiring from a nearly 30-year career as a firefighter I heard that from someone that RVs a lot,’ Montalvo's wife life responds to the unexpected elements and it can change in a breeze This truth crystalized before Juan Montalvo's eyes one day last year as he hiked with Mary in the Ozarks far from the waterfront scenes of his paella parties “‘I wish this could be our life,’ Mary said the color in her cheeks beginning to resurface from the pallor of cancer treatment That was the day he resolved to pack up his paella pans and embrace a new adventure “Flash-forward to today: Juan and Mary Montalvo spend many of their days and nights in an RV the traveling Montalvos inspire me to welcome change Their story nudges me toward something new I may not get there in an RV and I may not pack my paella pan But I will always carry with me a deep appreciation for my years at The Palm Beach Post for my readers and for all I could not see outside that window in 2006 I invite you to stay in touch and follow my continuing food adventures and life with my pandemic puppy Lenny. You'll find me on Instagram @silkpalm ◾ Acclaimed Palm Beach restaurant to bring its greatest hits to Miami area ◾ Day trip: A farm-inspired brunch in Stuart. A Tuscan wine shop in Hobe Sound. ◾ A fresh batch of places to eat and locally made treats ◾ New West Palm steakhouse restaurant kicks off Sunday brunch ◾ A favorite seafood restaurant gets a glow-up in the Gardens ◾ Where to find the best meatballs in town? Some favorites! Liz Balmaseda is a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist for The Palm Beach Post, part of the USA Today Network. She covers the local food and dining beat. Follow her on Instagram and Post on Food Facebook She can be reached by email at lizbpbp@gmail.com Get the best experience and stay connected to your community with our Spectrum News app. Learn More MILWAUKEE — It’s been two weeks since Milwaukee Public Schools (MPS) announced it’s working with the state’s Department of Public Instruction (DPI) to submit key financial data that DPI claimed is more than eight months late.  It led to a whirlwind of ridicule from Milwaukee taxpayers who narrowly passed a $252 million referendum for the district in the April election.   It also led to DPI withholding the district’s June special education aid payment of more than $16 million, pending the approval of MPS’s Corrective Action Plan (CAP).    The resignation of now former superintendent Keith Posley came Tuesday June 4 — the same day now former comptroller Alfredo Balmaseda said he got fired I’m concerned for the school district because I’m not there to keep fixing the problem,” Balmaseda said. “I was pretty close to getting it finalized; maybe a week away.” Balmaseda cited his 25 years in accounting before explaining an accounting system that even he had trouble figuring out at MPS.  “The person who’s responsible for setting up that system would be the person that should consider themselves responsible for this whole thing,” he said He called it “not efficient at all.” He also said it was not GAAP compliant which stands for generally accepted accounting principles.  He said he began noticing red flags shortly after he took the job in Aug “You have a lot of things coming from the previous year and that’s where the problems came from,” he said. “This isn’t about 2023’s accounting This is about finding a needle in a haystack of $400 million — $1.5 to $2 million.” Auditor Baker Tilly laid out those problems in a 2022 audit presented to the MPS School Board on May 18 2023. The auditors found the following issues: “Our evaluation of the internal controls over financial reporting has identified control deficiencies that are considered material weakness surrounding the preparation of financial statements and footnotes including the schedule of expenditures of federal and state awards adjusting journal entries identified by the auditors and an independent review of financial reports “Management has not prepared financial statements that are in conformity with generally accepted accounting principles or the schedule of expenditures of federal and state awards that is in conformance with the applicable federal or state requirements material misstatements in the general ledger were identified during the financial audit and subsequently corrected upon being questioned as part of the audit process it was also noted that inaccurate employee payroll deductions were being made Reports received from the payroll department showed participants with amounts owed that have no deductions set up or employees that currently had payroll deductions but were not included in any HR records as being enrolled in MPSU or through a partner university or college program.” The former superintendent’s update to those findings were presented to the board on Dec Balmaseda said there’s a possibility the issue goes back even further Balmaseda also cited severe understaffing at both his department and the auditor’s and we were understaffed,” he said. “I didn’t have a financial reporting manager and there hadn’t been one There wasn’t a comptroller before me to inherit anything from and this is a huge organization.” Balmaseda said DPI will not accept any of these financial reports. He said as far as he knows there is no timeline for when that certification will happen.  we were putting it on the DPI website and I know DPI needs a certification from the auditors,” he said. “DPI says ‘I don’t know if your numbers are right until the auditors say they’re right.’” He said an agreement could not be reached with the auditors on a path forward we’re talking about $1.5 to $2 million that we were off,” he said. “We could never come to an agreement and we had the auditors completely stop working with us from February through the middle of April.” Spectrum News 1 reached out to auditor Tilly and received the following statement: “Baker Tilly’s policy is not to comment on matters involving our clients.” Gov. Tony Evers called for instructional and operational audits of MPS as well.  “I’m not concerned for any mismanagement from the district and certainly not from me,” Balmaseda said. “The money is totally all there We just don’t know what bucket to put it in.” charged with five counts after FBI investigation identifies her at riot alongside Proud Boys A Republican activist with links to Florida’s Republican senator, Marco Rubio, and its governor, Ron DeSantis, has been indicted on charges relating to the 6 January 2021 storming of the US Capitol in an attempt to overturn Joe Biden’s presidential election victory. Barbara Balmaseda, 23, has been charged with five counts of being involved in the riot, including obstructing an official proceeding, knowingly entering and remaining in a restricted building, and engaging in disorderly conduct with intent to impede a session of Congress. Read moreThe indictment against Balmaseda, a former director-at-large of the Miami Young Republicans, follows her arrest on the same charges last December, after an FBI investigation alleged she had been communicating with members of the far-right Proud Boys organisation, which pledges allegiance to Donald Trump. It comes after investigators discovered a chain of mobile phone messages with a member of the group, including the potentially revealing information two days after the riot that he had her Taser. Balmaseda previously served as an intern in the office of Rubio, who voted to certify Biden’s election win, defying the then president, Donald Trump, and worked as an organiser for DeSantis’s 2018 campaign for governor. Nayib Hassan, Balmaseda’s lawyer, said she was pleading not guilty to the charges. “We look forward to presenting a vigorous defense on her behalf,” he said. Hassan added that he was awaiting the US supreme court verdict on an appeal against the conviction of another participant in the January 6 events, Joseph Fischer, saying it “may have a direct impact on Mrs Balmaseda’s case”. Balmaseda is accused of exchanging hundreds of texts with Gabriel Garcia, who was convicted last November of felony charges relating to the Capitol riot. According to documents submitted by an investigating FBI agent, Balmaseda’s messages were found on Garcia’s phone. Prosecutors say they identified the pair inside the Capitol building from January 6 footage, and allege that they had entered after they “climbed on equipment that had been staged in preparation for the presidential inauguration”. Two days later, Balmaseda allegedly messaged Garcia: “Hey! Good morning! You left a hat and a gas mask in Adolfo’s car, I also have your sunglasses in my purse and you have my taser.” The FBI investigator wrote: “As part of my investigation, I reviewed images sent in text and chat messages to Garcia’s phone, from a contact saved as ‘Barbarita Balmaseda’ in Garcia’s phone with the phone number XXX-XXX-4534 (the ‘4534 Number’). “In one text message thread, Garcia and ‘Barbarita Balmaseda’ exchanged hundreds of texts and images from August 2020 through January 2021.” A message in a separate WhatsApp thread on Garcia’s phone read: “My name is Barbara Balmaseda [I am] involved in local politics. id [sic] love to stay informed on the D116 race. Can you add me to the group chat?” A subsequent text showed a selfie-style picture featuring a woman, believed to be Balmaseda – wearing a Trump 2020 hat – posing alongside Garcia, who wore a hat sporting the words “Proud Boys”. “Happy birthday my dear,” wrote Aly Sánchez a few hours ago in an emotional tribute to celebrate the 47th birthday of her husband revealed the deep love and admiration she has for him the best husband and dad” for their family you have been more than my partner in life,” said the Cuban actress and you have been there with a strength and a love that never cease to amaze me,” she added emphasizing the essential role Balmaseda plays in her life the actress joked about her husband's youth: “How is it possible to turn 47 and still look the same as when I met you?” The message quickly generated hundreds of reactions with friends and followers joining in the celebration “Thanks for taking Migdalia off my hands”; Heydy González also shared some heartfelt words for Balmaseda: “The best of the best! Endless blessings”; and others like Dale Pututi and Rebeca Martínez added their congratulations and best wishes Aly's followers quickly filled the post with comments full of love and admiration for the couple "The handsome one looks just the same after all these years"; "What a beautiful family may their love last forever"; "Thank you for sharing so much love," wrote some of their fans delighted by the evident bond and affection they share This birthday dedication comes just a few weeks before Aly and Roberto celebrate another anniversary together love of my life," she said last year while celebrating the significant date every occasion is an opportunity to celebrate the love and family they have built together FIU alumni and Proud Boys-affiliate Barbara Balmaseda has been indicted by a grand jury on five counts for actions taken at the January 6th Capitol riots Balmaseda, a former intern for Marco Rubio, has been in legal trouble following her arrest in late 2023 as a result of the aforementioned charges The charges include obstructing official Congressional procedure and disruptive behavior on Capitol grounds among others Balmaseda sent over 900 messages in a Telegram group chat with members of the Proud Boys CCTV footage showed Balmaseda entering the Capitol building She was located near the front of the mob and assisted in breaching the Senate wing of the Capitol where she was later escorted out by police officers Read her indictment here FIU Student Media includes PantherNOW Magazine and PantherNOW.com which are edited and produced by students at FIU We publish every Wednesday during the regular academic year The Roar (WRGP) is the student-run radio station 96.9 in North Miami and 88.1 in Kendall/Homestead area A D.C. grand jury convened earlier this month indicted Balmaseda on all five charges presented to them which include felony and misdemeanor charges of obstruction of an official proceeding (the certification of the 2020 election) and entering restricted grounds The subsequent FBI investigation into Proud Boys who attended the Capitol turned up texts from Balmaseda on the phone of convicted Proud Boy and Miami-Dade GOP committee member Gabriel Garcia including a text sent two days after the Capitol riot where Balmaseda allegedly texted Garcia You left a hat and a gas mask in Adolfo’s car I also have your sunglasses in my purse and you have my taser.” Three years after the January 6 Capitol riot, more than 1,230 people have been charged with federal crimes, according to AP, as sleuths and the federal government continue to identify participants Balmaseda’s long-awaited indictment is a reminder that the wheels of justice turn slowly but grind exceedingly fine Donald Trump’s representatives are not happy about a new report from The Daily Beast of Trump allegedly bragging about sleeping with adult film actress Stormy Daniels On Tuesday, an unnamed celebrity athlete told the publication that Trump was boasting about his affair with Daniels during the 2006 celebrity golf tournament in which Daniels and Trump met The athlete said that those who heard Trump’s boasts could hear him saying he had slept with Daniels “It was clear to me and everyone who heard him that he was talking about Stormy,” the athlete said and added that Trump encouraged other celebs to try to have sex with Daniels which the athlete described as “crass,” “gross,” and “stupid.” the anonymous athlete also said he received phone calls from strangers asking him about the tournament shortly before the 2016 elections—around the time that Daniels’s hush-money payment was being determined The Daily Beast reached out to the Trump campaign for comment “The Biden campaign is in freakout mode and will try anything to cling to power,” said Trump campaign communications director Steven Cheung “Crooked Joe Biden is a failed president trying to distract from his disastrous tenure rumors and innuendos are the hallmarks of losing campaigns and desperate failing media outlets trying to stay afloat It’s time to Make America Great Again and re-elect President Trump.” Every political campaign will say that it’s important to stay on message, but blaming the Biden campaign for this type of bad news doesn’t refute the allegations at all. Trump has denied ever having sex with Daniels and didn’t testify himself possibly because he couldn’t refute any of the accounts from the defense’s witnesses while under oath making the campaign’s statement seem even more hollow Trump was also cheating while playing golf according to the anonymous athlete—a claim that surely irked Trump just as much Trump is on trial for allegedly paying off Daniels to cover up their affair before the 2016 election, and is awaiting a verdict from the jury after closing arguments concluded Wednesday. He faces 34 felony charges for allegedly falsifying business records with the intent to further an underlying crime Louisiana Governor Jeff Landry signed a law on Wednesday that has the potential to limit the ability to observe and record police activity Louisiana House Bill 173 will create a 25-foot buffer zone between civilians and police officers who are “lawfully engaged in the execution of [their] official duties,” stripping away possible accountability measures in the event of police brutality “No person shall knowingly or intentionally approach within [25] feet of a peace officer who is lawfully engaged in the execution of his official duties after the peace officer has ordered the person to stop approaching or to retreat,” the law reads While the distance may not seem unreasonable, human rights organizations such as the American Civil Liberties Union argue that the law is a massive breach of the U.S Constitution and the public’s First Amendment rights which the organization argued had criminalized the “public’s most effective tool for shining a light on police misconduct.” Washington Post columnist Phillip Bump recently assessed that Musk’s frequent contact with Trump and efforts to help the would-be dictator win the White House is simply a ploy to build his own power—a tactic that practically guarantees future tongue lashings from Trump the second Musk stops producing results Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito on Wednesday rejected a congressional call to recuse himself from lawsuits relating to the 2020 presidential election—specifically In a letter to Senators Dick Durbin and Sheldon Whitehouse Alito argued that his impartiality had not “reasonably” come into question and he therefore would not sit out from the immunity case that branched off of Donald Trump’s election interference trial But the details of the flags and their meanings don’t matter at all I had nothing whatsoever to do with the flying of that flag,” Alito wrote “I was not even aware of the upside-down flag until it was called to my attention can be chalked up to having a wife who is “fond of flying flags”—regardless of her political leanings or his affiliation to her her “reasons for flying the flag are not relevant” to his ability to weigh in on the immunity case “She did not fly it to associate herself with that or any other group and the use of an old historic flag by a new group does not necessarily drain that flag of all other meanings,” Alito argued “A reasonable person who is not motivated by political or ideological considerations or a desire to affect the outcome of Supreme Court cases would conclude that this event does not meet the applicable standard for recusal I am therefore duty-bound to reject your recusal request.” It remains to be seen what further actions might be taken against the conservative justice but it’s not the only formal reprimand on the table for Alito Representative Steve Cohen introduced the censure resolution against the Supreme Court justice for “knowingly violating the Federal recusal statute and binding ethics standards and calling the impartiality of the Supreme Court of the United States into question.” Outside of his hush-money trial as the jury weighed his fate Wednesday Donald Trump felt the need to compare himself to the late humanitarian Mother Teresa in listening to the charges from the judge Mother Teresa could not beat these charges,” Trump said Trump: Mother Teresa could not beat these charges pic.twitter.com/ioxDIRC36l The statement from the Republican presidential nominee immediately drew mockery and scorn especially since Trump’s statement could be interpreted as admitting there’s a strong case against him Of course, Mother Teresa wouldn’t have been in a situation like Trump’s: to have an affair with an adult film actress like Stormy Daniels and then see a need to pay her to cover it up Professors at the University of Texas at Austin are joining in on Texas’s anti-abortion legal efforts this time pressing back on federal privacy mandates so that they can punish students who have undergone the medical procedure In an amended complaint released earlier this month university professors Daniel Bonevac and John Hatfield claim that the federal government’s Title IX policies—which protect against sexual or gender-based discrimination in education—are “flawed from top to bottom” and overstep the state’s “sovereign interest.” According to the filing that includes limiting schools’ abilities to punish students who take time off to get an abortion even if that abortion is performed out of state and therefore infringing on the state’s abortion prohibitions The professors also bemoaned the requirement that schools treat abortions as “any other temporary medical condition” or else forgo their federal funding The lawsuit was originally filed in April by Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton and America First Legal a Trump-aligned nonprofit led by former Donald Trump adviser Stephen Miller But the anti-abortion details were crammed into a sprawling 66-page complaint that spends far more time framing Title IX as a pronoun-fueled bathroom battle with Miller claiming that the rule would “force girls in every public school in America to share restrooms “Texas is asking the court to put an immediate stop to Biden’s outrageous, unlawful assault on women’s rights,” Paxton said in a statement “Biden cannot violate the Constitution to subvert Title IX protections for women in his effort to accommodate the fringe demands of ‘transgender’ movement activists.” The judge presiding over Donald Trump’s classified documents trial seems to have a record of stumbling over her cases and failing to understand proceedings That’s the picture painted in a New York Times article published Wednesday The article pointed to an instance in the trial last week where a prosecutor in Trump’s case said that the Pinkerton rule which states that all members of a conspiracy can be held accountable for any crimes committed by their co-conspirators would apply to two of Trump’s co-defendants in the case Mar-a-Lago employees Walt Nauta and Carlos De Oliveira a former federal prosecutor and graduate of the University of Michigan’s law school what authority the Pinkerton rule would be applied on leading to Bratt having to explain the rule to her the Trump-appointed judge seemed to require elaborate explanations regarding simple statements or requests from attorneys on both sides of the case For example, Nauta’s lawyer, Stanley Woodward Jr., made a request for all of the internal messages from the prosecution that mentioned his name so he could try to prove that the case against his client was vindictive nearly shouted at Cannon when she seemed to fail to grasp the point he was making: that Woodward’s claims were without merit and that he wasn’t legally allowed to see the government’s private messages asked Harbach if the government didn’t have the messages causing him to get frustrated and repeat his explanation multiple times Cannon told Harbach he needed to “calm down.” After special prosecutor Jack Smith asked for a gag order due to Trump’s repeated comments, Cannon on Tuesday denied the request because it was “wholly lacking in substance and professional courtesy.” This move could help Smith build a case to get her replaced Trump faces 42 felony charges in the case related to illegally retaining national security documents and conspiracy to obstruct justice According to an exclusive report from Rolling Stone Supreme Court Justice Amy Coney Barrett’s husband is now repping Fox Corporation in a $3 million defamation suit raising questions about conflicts of interest and personal enrichment enjoyed by conservative Supreme Court justices tucked between defending a Berkshire Hathaway company in an employment discrimination suit and defending an event promoter from fraud claims The defamation lawsuit Jesse Barrett has taken on alleges that Fox 32—a Chicago-area local station for Fox—ran a hit piece about Lavell Redmond who in 2021 was hired by the mayor of Dolton to work as a building code enforcement officer The Fox report centers Redmond’s conviction for aggravated sexual assault of a minor for which he pleaded guilty and served 24 years in prison as the crux of the story while claiming Redmond was hired to enter “into Dolton homes and businesses to inspect them.” Redmond disputes this claim in his suit noting that his work entailed inspecting building exteriors The outlet later followed up on its reporting with news that Redmond had been arrested and may face new charges for violating the conditions of the sex offender registry—an accusation Redmond alleges is the direct result of Fox’s earlier misleading reporting on his job duties The motion to dismiss claims the suit was filed too late and that the corporation didn’t commit defamation because the “gist” of the reporting was “indisputably true” and characterized the central outrage of Redmond’s hiring—that a sex offender was entering people’s homes which resulted in his arrest—as “immaterial details.” While the relationship between conservative justices and right-wingers continuously raises ethical concerns, constitutional law professor Anthony Michael Kreis noted the odds of Fox Corporation’s case being kicked up to the conservative-held Supreme Court are slim given that Barrett would have to recuse herself from the case, winnowing the number of Fox News–brained justices on the court “You don’t hire the spouse of a Supreme Court justice to represent you in major litigation unless (1) you think they’re competent to do so and (2) you don’t foresee going to the Supreme Court where the spouse would have to recuse and you might really want/need their vote,” Kreis wrote on X (formerly Twitter) Regardless, it’s entirely too convenient that the husband of a conservative Supreme Court justice is representing a conservative media company, and poses curious questions as to why Barrett, who is based in D.C., was tapped to represent the media company based in New York City for a lawsuit filed by a man in Illinois Conservative Supreme Court justice Samuel Alito’s goofy excuse for flying an inverted U.S. flag outside his Virginia home—that his wife did it because she was upset about a neighbor’s sign—has deteriorated more swiftly than civil rights under the high court In an interview with The New York Times Alito neighbor Emily Baden detailed a series of disputes she had with Alito’s wife roundly debunking every part of the Alitos’ fascist flag-loving story Baden also revealed that Alito’s wife is a bit of a nightmare neighbor—yelling incoherently at her and sending a coded Christmas card to the family home According to receipts provided to the Times the core dispute that Alito claims instigated his wife’s decision to fly an inverted flag outside their home actually occurred nearly a month after the flag was spotted outside their home Baden’s then boyfriend called the police over harassment they were experiencing from Martha-Ann Alito “Somebody in a position of authority needs to talk to her and make her stop.” According to an interview Samuel Alito gave to a sympathetic Fox News face the Alitos were inexplicably harassed by a male neighbor who placed a sign outside directly accusing Martha-Ann Alito of inciting the January 6 Capitol riot Martha-Ann Alito regularly harassed her and her partner including glaring creepily from her car at their home the day after the Capitol riot “Trump is a fascist” and broadly criticizing Republicans who refused to condemn the riot with a sign that read also claimed a man hurled a vulgarity at his innocent wife as confirmed by both Baden and a neighbor who witnessed the dispute Baden is the one who shouted at Martha-Ann after she criticized a “Fuck Trump” sign placed in their yard You represent the highest court in the land Alito claimed the flag was placed “in response to a neighbor’s use of objectionable and personally insulting language on yard signs.” Baden and it’s not viewable from her mother’s home Baden further detailed instances of Martha-Ann lingering outside their home glaring at them for their yard signs the day after the Capitol riot received a Christmas card from the Alitos that included a handwritten note reading None of the Alitos’ thin story explains why they also flew a Christian nationalist flag outside their vacation home in New Jersey in 2023 A 23-year-old Florida woman was arrested last week on charges related to her alleged involvement in the Jan Barbara Balmaseda of Miami Lakes was arrested Thursday according to a release from the U.S. Attorney's Office of the District of Columbia She has been charged with the felony of obstruction of an official proceeding and four misdemeanors Court records included in the release show Balmaseda was an acquaintance of Gabriel Garcia, a member of the Proud Boys who was found guilty of two felonies for his involvement in the riots The two had previous communication and were shown together in security footage from the Capitol An attorney from the office representing Balmaseda responded to the charges on her behalf in a statement emailed to USA TODAY "It is our position that it was unnecessary for the federal task force comprising of the FBI and Metro-Dade Police to arrest her for essentially trespassing charges When the FBI contacted her over a year ago they were told that she would voluntarily surrender if they ever wanted to arrest her We are also disappointed that it took almost three years for DOJ to decide to charge her," Nayib Hassan said in the email "She is relieved this process will finally move toward a final resolution Her arrest was a waste of law enforcement resources." The statement also said that she has been in the federal "Quiet Skies" program for a year subjecting her to extra screening at airports Balmaseda made her first appearance in the Southern District of Florida, and bail was set at $100,000. According to the Miami Herald The case has been transferred to the District of Columbia Timeline: How the storming of the U.S. Capitol unfolded on Jan. 6 Looking forward: Jan. 6 Capitol riot's most serious offenders are sentenced. What that means for 2024 Balmaseda stepped into the Capitol building among broken glass and sounding alarmsAccording to evidence outlined in the statement of facts she had sent several messages to others stating her belief that the election was stolen and demonstrating she knew the certification process was scheduled for Jan Allegations show Balmaseda climbed the equipment that had been staged in preparation for the upcoming inauguration then scaled the stairs to get to the terrace of the Capitol Security footage showed Balmaseda enter the building approximately four minutes after rioters first broke in and an alarm blared near the doorway," the release states down the "OAP Corridor" and to the Rotunda joining crowds that confronted officers on more than one occasion The case is being further investigated by FBI Field offices in Miami and Washington Attorney’s Office for the District of Columbia and the Department of Justice National Security Division’s Counterterrorism Section are prosecuting her case Balmaseda was once the director at large for the Miami Young Republicans according to a Facebook post by the organization "This individual is not a current member of our organization," Miami Young Republicans said of Balmaseda in an emailed statement to USA TODAY "Our organization is focused on supporting young professionals in our community." According to the Miami New Times She joins more than 1,230 people across almost all 50 states who have been charged in connection with the riot at the U.S Officials are continuing to investigate the incident she has spent her career reporting on human rights and social justice She co-authored the book Waking Up in America: How One Doctor Brings Hope to Those Who Need It Most She won the Hispanic Heritage Award for Literature in 2001 The popular steakhouse started serving brunch in April this may be a great idea for treating Dad on Father's Day The a la carte brunch offers a lineup of tempting late-breakfast plates that includes tender wood-grilled skirt steak served with two sunny eggs blistered shishito peppers and chimichurri ($38 for 5-ounce steak ◾  Jumbo lump blue crab Florentine on buttered brioche toast with hollandaise ($34) ◾  Smoked salmon carpaccio with trout caviar ◾  French country omelet made with whipped eggs served with your choice of two sides ($26) ◾  Truffle croque madame layered with French ham and caramelized Gruyere cheese Those brunch dishes are part of a larger menu that includes raw bar items and platters (from $22) a full range of steaks and chops (from $55) Maine lobster and seafood risotto ($58) and Royal Osetra caviar service ($149) While brunch at Pink Steak can be pricey — mimosas and Bellinis are priced at $22 — the menu is adaptable and the brunch plates hearty where revelers dance in the aisles and bar tops Located at 2777 S. Dixie Hwy, West Palm Beach, 561-557-9083, PinkSteak.com Sunday brunch: Offered from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. Hours: Open daily at 4 p.m. for dinner; weekday happy hour offered 4 to 6 p.m. at the bar and at high-top tables. Maestrazo!"Balmaseda died in Havana at the age of 81 after a prolonged illness Several Cuban artists have reacted to the death this Saturday of the actor Mario Balmaseda the only Cuban actor to have received all three awards: the National Theater Award (2006) the National Television Award (2019) and the National Film Award (2021) died in the city of Havana at 81 years old One of the first to react to the sad news was actor Héctor Noas, who stated that despite knowing his delicate state of health, the final departure of Balmaceda It surprised him it does not mean what was a paradigm for my generation for everything you taught and for that acting legacy that you left us It is the best autograph that I have ever received The actor Roberto San Martin For his part he noted that "it has given him great sadness to learn of Mario's death Partner of my mother [Susana Pérez] in fiction forever In an emotional post the actor Mijail Mulkay He highlighted that Balmaseda was a great friend "An endless number of stories over the years unite us forever calling your house and having Rosa or your daughters mistake me for you was one of my favorite and most fun pastimes acting in He has stolen directed by you on television and theater will forever be in my heart like the memory of one of my most beloved acting jobs," said Mulkay I have the consolation of knowing that wonderful people are waiting for you on the other side the theater and cinema party in heaven today!" Cuban comedian Alexis Valdés also reacted, stating that "a great thing has gone away from us. One of the greatest. A colossus of acting and also of direction" "The first work that had an impact on me in my entire life had been directed to him and was called He has stolen what I do today has a seed that was nourished or germinated in the fertile soil of my work In fact in Officially Gay I wrote a scene that was a tribute to that montage of his He has stolen The first time I saw him on stage was doing Bertold Bretch's bakery from that fabulous theater group called El Buscón and where he coincided with another monument of Cuban interpretation the great Jose Antonio Rodríguez," he recalled Valdés continued: "And I remember that Mario at the end of a scene (In the story of the coffee cups) did something with his eyes that I don't know how he did it and that impacted me tremendously And of course we all saw it in in cinema and on television always shining Even in a very small time he was my father-in-law and I felt so proud And he even gave me a poster of one of my favorite Argentine films "I will always remember him as a genius of acting and a master of the stage." My generation that was formed and grew up with the luck of witnessing his immense talent his impressive interpretive power and the diversity of characters he built with that enormous magnetism I was lucky to share with him as a friend and I will never forget his nobility his passion and the grace of every moment shared Mario Federico Balmaseda Maurisco was born on January 19 His arrival on the small screen was through the Adventures of Juan Quinquín and the series In silence it had to be In 1971 he came to the cinema with The days of water, by director Manuel Octavio Gómez and, since then, appeared in multiple Cuban films for decades Among them he is remembered for The man of Maisinicú historical film released in 1973 and directed by Manuel Pérez based on real events that occurred in the Escambray region in the early 1960s; and Exchange a comedy directed by the recently deceased Juan Carlos Tabío and which featured the stellar performances of Rosita Fornés and Isabel Santos Cubans also remember him from the movie Baraguá where you can see one of Mario Balmaseda's most emblematic characters he was part of the cast of between cyclones comedia directed by the director Enrique Colina in which he shared the lead role with Mijail Mulkay editores@cibercuba.com  +1 786 3965 689 Log in to comment on videos and join in on the fun Watch the live stream of Fox News and full episodes Reduce eye strain and focus on the content that matters A community’s generosity lingers nearly five months after the season of holiday giving. The funds collected for The Palm Beach Post’s Season to Share charity drive from Thanksgiving weekend through early 2024 helped lift burdens spirits and the lives of families and individuals in need Post readers donated $488,289.86 to the most recent Season to Share campaign in the nonprofit effort’s 28th year Here’s what it meant for Maria Sanchez a 38-year-old cystic fibrosis patient and double-lung transplant survivor who was in need of life-saving medications and equipment: “I am humbled by the outpouring of kindness during this trying season in my life Transplant is a blessing but it requires very intense care I was able to purchase my electric wheelchair which has been a huge help in aiding my consistent participation in life!” For 4-year-old cancer patient Amy Galeano of Lake Worth Beach reader kindness offered her family a sense of security her nominating agency (Kids Cancer Foundation) paid rent for the Galeano family for one year It was a boost for a family that was devastated by the child’s diagnosis of acute lymphocytic leukemia a potentially fatal cancer that impacts bone marrow and blood But there was another house that brought a smile to the girl — a fully furnished dollhouse complete with resident dolls Amy received the handmade gift at a celebration to mark the end of her chemotherapy treatment “It makes such a difference to be able to provide the support to families like Amy’s and give them a chance to get back on their feet financially It helps both financially and emotionally for them to know there is a light in the tunnel after their long battle with childhood cancer,” Michelle O’Boyle founder and executive director of Kids Cancer Foundation Also in Lake Worth Beach, 13-year-old Sakura Hernandez and her family received a great boost from generous readers The funds received were sufficient to buy a wheelchair-accessible vehicle for the teenager and her family the nonprofit that nominated Sakura for Season to Share “This is life-changing for Sakura and her family the worry has been taken out of their mind about if they are getting to the next therapy or (doctor) appointment They truly are grateful for the community support,” Bella’s Angels executive director Deborah Jaffe said via email a young brain cancer patient and his family could continue to enjoy their home Caedyn Jynella a spunky 5-year-old boy battling an aggressive form of brain cancer could continue to play with his brothers and their dog Zeus at home used Season to Share donations to make mortgage and car payments and pay for utilities “The family is no longer in danger of losing their home And the family is not threatened with losing vital utilities,” a representative for the charity told The Post by email For Tiffany Pinkney a 32-year-old mother of two battling the potentially fatal Huntington’s disease received Season to Share help in the form of rent “While the health outcomes are still scary and uncertain unanticipated financial and community support has had a profound effect on this family’s well-being,” wrote a representative for nominating agency Adopt-A-Family in an email to The Post Nominee and double-lung transplant patient Maria Sanchez says her life has been changed as well “I am eternally grateful for the ‘movers and shakers’ — even the ones I will never even get to meet I am alive today because of a selfless act and can continue thriving because of your generosity and prayers.” Kids Cancer Foundation founder O’Boyle echoed the gratitude: They truly are a blessing to our young patients and families.” How Season to Share worksAll Season to Share donations, which are made via the Community Foundation website, go to helping nominees via their nominating agencies. Once the nominees’ needs are met, the charitable agencies can use the funds to assist other needy families within their agencies. Season to Share funds are not to be used by the agencies for administrative purposes. The reader-donated funds are managed and distributed to the agencies by the Community Foundation of Palm Beach and Martin counties, a respected philanthropic presence for more than 50 years. This website is using a security service to protect itself from online attacks. The action you just performed triggered the security solution. There are several actions that could trigger this block including submitting a certain word or phrase, a SQL command or malformed data. You can email the site owner to let them know you were blocked. Please include what you were doing when this page came up and the Cloudflare Ray ID found at the bottom of this page. Volume 9 - 2018 | https://doi.org/10.3389/fmicb.2018.00534 This work is a short review of the interactions between oenological yeasts and lactic acid bacteria (LAB) the main species carrying out the malolactic fermentation (MLF) The emphasis has been placed on non-Saccharomyces effects due to their recent increased interest in winemaking to neutral and stimulatory and are mediated by some known compounds One phenomena responsible of inhibitory interactions is the media exhaustion by yeasts and particularly a decrease in L-malic acid by some non-Saccharomyces Clearly ethanol is the main inhibitory compound of LAB produced by S but non-Saccharomyces can be used to decrease it Sulfur dioxide and medium chain fatty acids (MCFAs) produced by yeasts can exhibit inhibitory effect upon LAB or even result lethal Interestingly mixed fermentations with non-Saccharomyces present less MCFA concentration Among organic acids derived as result of yeast metabolism succinic acid seems to be the most related with MLF inhibition but they have not been studied in non-Saccharomyces the use of non-Saccharomyces can increase the concentration of favorable mediators such as citric acid or other compounds derived of yeast autolysis such as peptides The emergence of non-Saccharomyces in winemaking present a new scenario in which MLF has to take place new tools and approaches should be explored to better understand this new winemaking context LAB consume L-malic acid and other nutrients impoverishing wine and avoiding the development of contaminant microorganisms this chemical modulation presents new scenery in which MLF may take place The purpose of this mini review is to summarize the current knowledge about the compounds responsible for the interactions that may take place between oenological yeasts and LAB during winemaking highlighting the new scenery of non-Saccharomyces fermentations still the available information is not sufficient Compounds produced by yeast that can mediate inhibitory or unknown effect in Oenococcus oeni growth or MLF performance Above the direct yeasts effect upon LAB and MLF performance, the must, and the winemaking practices, have a strong impact in how these interactions take place (Arnink and Henick-Kling, 2005; Tristezza et al., 2016) Main compounds affected (variation in content negative or positive) by the use of non-Saccharomyces in alcoholic fermentation regarding to S possibly mitigating the negative effect of ethanol upon LAB growth as result of the metabolism of the sulfured amino acids the same study states that the amount of macromolecules released during yeast growth is insignificant in regards to yeast autolysis Apart from the mentioned compounds, there are more released compounds during yeast autolysis, such as vitamins, nucleotides and long chain fatty acids, which could be also stimulatory to LAB (Alexandre et al., 2004) there is no literature currently available about the possible effect of these compounds There are no studies about these compounds produced by non-Saccharomyces yeasts, but some species could present such antimicrobial compounds, like M. pulcherrima that produce pulcherrimic acid (Oro et al., 2014) The increasing number of non-Saccharomyces species described as beneficial in winemaking demands further investigation of their metabolism Many factors can influence the effect of non-Saccharomyces on wine composition Besides the yeast species and strain characteristics may alter notably the global effect on wine of the use of non-Saccharomyces All these variables may also affect the development of O Future research should contribute to a better knowledge of metabolic traits of a wider number of non-Saccharomyces strains and their influence on O metabolomics may be a powerful tool to elucidate how the new winemaking scenario of combined yeasts may change MLF evolution and approved the final version of the paper This work was supported by grant AGL2015-70378-R awarded by the Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness The research leading to these results has received funding from “la Caixa” Foundation and Triptolemos Foundation AiB was grateful to the predoctoral fellowship from the Universitat Rovira i Virgili JB-G wished to express thanks to the Spanish Government for his postdoctoral research contract (Juan de la Cierva-incorporación) Saccharomyces cerevisiae-Oenococcus oeni interactions in wine: current knowledge and perspectives Influence of Saccharomyces cerevisiae and Oenococcus oeni strains on successful malolactic conversion in wine Google Scholar The “buttery” attribute of wine - Diacetyl - Desirability Dynamic analysis of physiological properties of Torulaspora delbrueckii in wine fermentations and its incidence on wine quality Outlining the influence of non-conventional yeasts in wine ageing over lees Microbial contribution to Wine aroma and its intended use for Wine quality improvement Analysis of yeast populations during alcoholic fermentation: 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This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY) provided the original author(s) and the copyright owner are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited *Correspondence: Joaquín Bautista-Gallego, am9hcXVpbmJnQGlnLmNzaWMuZXM= I’d drive to the upper Keys sometimes for lunch drawn by the promise of fresh fish and key lime pie particularly the stretch of road that ran between the ocean and the bay That first sight of water was a much-needed segue into a more relaxed dimension I always remember this when I drive north on U.S The segue to chill is not a water view but the blur of preserve land that’s part of Jonathan Dickinson State Park there are no strip plazas or other signs of big-city life By the time you’ve reached the first glimmers of Hobe Sound Here are my three favorite experiences from my Palm Beach Gardens to Stuart drive I wanted to double-down on the island feel So I made a right turn on Bridge Road and took the scenic drive that is always my Hobe Sound establishing shot it means the shot that captures your setting and sometimes mood Southeast Bridge Road always does just that Drive slowly beneath the canopy of intertwined banyan tree branches and you’ve reached the enchanted-forest part of your day trip Cross the Bridge Road Bridge and you’ll find another tree-lined stretch before you reach Hobe Sound Martin County Beach Park where you can park and access the public beach we only paused at the beach for a look-and-see You can only follow a cool spot on Instagram for so long before the food photos and funky al fresco views beckon you to visit Stuart’s Colab Kitchen restaurant and market has been calling my name for a while now And when I heard the farm-inspired restaurant and market had a new brunch menu I realized Colab Kitchen’s concept goes beyond the farm inspiration As you step into the spacious and modern building in downtown Stuart you’re greeted by a kind of farmers market You can buy freshly harvested greens from Indiantown’s Colab Farms The main dining room and bar area follows in a sweep of clean lines and modern lighting over more rustic wood floors Even though we arrived less than an hour before the end of brunch we were greeted warmly and led to a sunny indoor table that offered terrific views of Colab Kitchen’s large dining patio and sprawling lawn but only because I wanted to order everything on it It’s one of those rare menus on which the “healthy” items — the salads and bowls — are as tempting as the comfort-food items such as the smoked brisket hash with poached eggs the lemon-ricotta pancakes ($17) and the egg-topped tomato pie ($19) I ordered a small-plates type of brunch because I couldn’t decide on one big dish It offered me a good introduction to Colab Kitchen’s talents We started with house-made sourdough bread ($14) a deliciously crusty half-loaf served on a wood board with salt-sprinkled cultured butter roasted garlic and a good dollop of the best pimento cheese I’ve had in a while Our deviled eggs appetizer ($9) was almost too lovely to eat: Four boiled egg halves topped with a tall swirl of deviled filling and crowned with a bit of tomato jam and pickled mustard seed Ditto for the loaded hash browns side dish ($8) a perfectly crispy smash topped with melting cheeses and snipped chives — put an egg on top and you’ve got a yummy entree We got a sweet kick from one of the daily dessert specials a warm peach bread pudding topped with caramel and vanilla ice cream ($12) As much as I wanted to try the lemon-ricotta pancakes (Because I’m hoping there will be a next time!) Colab Kitchen: 100 S. Martin Luther King Blvd., Stuart, 772-872-6243, ColabKitchenFl.com I made an obligatory stop at my favorite area wine shop This cozy shop is where proprietors Silvia and Franco Mininni have welcomed wine lovers wine novices and the community at large since opening seven years ago They furnished the place with decorative touches from their native Tuscany a few comfy chairs and a long wooden table they hand-built and covered with a tapestry of wine crates Inspired by the eclectic variety of wine crates they had amassed during years of working with Italian wineries they built the table inside their warehouse a good two years before opening the shop “There was no particular reason why we built it but we thought that maybe one day we would know why,” says Silvia and this table is now a major part of it.” It didn’t take long for her to realize the why of the table It brought together a new wine-appreciating community sparked conversation and new friendships over generous pours of wine and cheese and salumi boards topped with cured meats and cheeses imported from Italy Now Silvia and Franco have given their shop a new focus While they continue to sell imported wine and goods at Casa del Vino they are serving multi-course dinners just about every night intimate affairs that tend to sell out quickly Silvia told me she and Franco plan to expand into the space next door in the plaza I could not leave without buying some of my Casa del Vino Italian favorites: pecorino studded with pistachios a sippable pinot bianco from Trentino and a fiano wine from Campania I thought about my day’s adventures — and of the Italy I’ve found in Hobe Sound — as I enjoyed bites of the pecorino and mortadella Casa del Vino: 11330 SE U.S. Hwy 1, Hobe Sound, 772-675-2228, on Instagram @casadelvinolifestyle ◾ A fresh batch of places to eat and locally made treats ◾ New West Palm steakhouse restaurant kicks off Sunday brunch ◾ A favorite seafood restaurant gets a glow-up in the Gardens ◾ New oceanfront bar opens, 2 others named ‘best’ in The South ◾ 3 new pizzerias to put on your radar ◾ Where to find the best meatballs in town? Some favorites! I like to connect the dots of a passing year with food memories That’s because they usually involve times spent with loved ones And it is a much better way to review 2023 than dwelling on the unexpected aches and expenses (My air conditioner died on the hottest weekend of summer So I prefer to remember the good-food moments Here are my five favorite culinary highlights of the past 12 months: When Claudia Monroy told me the story of how she came to open an organic corn tortilla mill and shop her words transported me to the Mexican town where she was born Although she was too young to remember the tortilla factory her grandfather owned in Guerrero State and how her parents worked there while she slept in a bassinet nearby Claudia found her path to her own tortilla shop would be paved in her Mexican roots Hers was one of the most poetic pandemic pivots I’ve heard about A stay-at-home mom with a degree in public administration explores the vintage craft of tortilla-making When she opened Sierra Madre Tortilla Factory in Lake Worth Beach last year she opened a new door not only for herself and her family but also for an entire community Sierra Madre is at 2402 N. Dixie Hwy, Lake Worth Beach, 561-306-9605. Find them on Instagram @SierraMadre.co. Pre-orders are accepted at CashDrop.com/SierraMadre When the semifinalists for the 2023 James Beard Awards were announced in late January five Palm Beach County chefs were among them It was the first time the county led the way among Florida chefs in the semifinals for the prestigious “Best Chef” in the South award Their dishes showcased the breadth of the county’s emerging dining scene: a Nantucket bay scallop crudo by Jeremy Bearman a traditional Ethiopian kitfo (beef tartare) by Washington smoked cobia wings in tamarind glaze by Mace Duroc pork collar with jerk spices by Marathe and a chocolate-banana-walnut cake by Cindy Bearman that popped with tahini crunch and malted ganache Farmers Jodi and Darrin Swank have brought to life a gem of a Saturday food market beneath the soaring pole barn at their Swank Farm in Loxahatchee Groves The vendors there offer a tempting variety of goods — produce The most fragrant vendor stand of all, Pork-etta It is operated by the Italian chef Tiziano Fioretti who brings his freshly roasted porchetta to the market each week The Rome native cures the pork with rosemary then rolls and wraps it in pork belly before roasting The result is an herb-swirled pork roll that’s juicy and aromatic Swank Market is open every Saturday through May from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. at 14311 North Road, Loxahatchee Groves, 561-202-5648, SwankSpecialtyProduce.com Dining at Palm Beach County's tiniest steakhouse.In a world where big chef/butcher James Muir created a jewel box of one in Boynton Beach Nicholson Muir Distinguished Meats is a cozy modern steakhouse that grew out of a gourmet meat market in September The result: a great little steakhouse that’s Palm Beach County’s best new restaurant wood-fired steaks and seafood are as stellar as the service and twinkly ambiance who has worked with culinary stars such as Alain Ducasse land of excellent steaks and communal cookouts all dry-aged onsite — are cooked on a Japanese konro grill “adjusted for Argentine grilling” who uses all-natural Argentine charcoal and Argentine quebracho wood for steaks that are tender and lightly smoky I’m still dreaming about the house-made fettuccine with seared shrimp which pairs a buttery American Wagyu steak tartare with a spicy tuna tartare And the wood-fired American Wagyu strip steak I sampled was tender Nicholson Muir is at 480 E. Ocean Ave., Boynton Beach, 561-336-3977, NicholsonMuir.com This one is bittersweet. Saying goodbye to one of my favorite restaurants isn’t easy. When the talented, acclaimed chef Lindsay Autry and her business partner Thierry Beaud announced the closing of The Regional Kitchen restaurant in mid-October it was a blow to West Palm Beach’s rising dining scene it was the aftershocks of the COVID-19 pandemic and the rising costs of labor I dined at the restaurant on Oct. 7, before heading to the Kravis to see jazz greats Sammy Figueroa Gonzalo Rubalcaba and Aymée Nuviola in concert It was the double feature of my dreams: a soul-stirring show and a dinner by one of the best chefs in South Florida I ordered the Kurobuta pork loin Milanese a dish I had wanted to try for a long time and one of Autry’s personal favorites She gave it a panko-Parmesan crust and topped it with shaved fennel tender kale and thin slices of Honeycrisp apples tossed in Dijonnaise sweetened with local honey Outstanding in its flavor contrasts and quality ingredients Did you miss the Palm Beach Food & Wine Fest?I did my best to narrow down some of the highlights bites and stars of the 2023 Palm Beach Food & Wine Festival Here's the photo gallery I put together. Did we see you there As this year comes to a close, I thank you for reading and following our food-and-dining stories Welcome 2024: Best way to ring in the New Year in Palm Beach County dining, dance and more Here’s to a new year filled with good health ◾ Find the merriest cocktails in Palm Beach County ◾ OpenTable’s ‘Top 100' list names popular Palm Beach County restaurant ◾ Destination restaurant finds new home in Palm Beach County ◾ New afternoon tea, served with a French twist ◾ A porchetta sandwich that spirits you to Italy Stage Kitchen, the Palm Beach Gardens restaurant popular for its Indian-inspired small plates, made USA TODAY’s list of best restaurants in the country USA TODAY Restaurants of the Year 2024 list highlights an eclectic batch of 47 restaurants ranging from seafood joints to supper clubs “It’s a blessing. When we decided to open in Palm Beach Gardens, we didn’t know what to expect. It was very adventurous and challenging what we were doing,” said Puskhar Marathe, Stage Kitchen’s executive chef/co-owner who earned a semifinalist slot for the James Beard Award for “Best Chef” in the South last year The list was selected by USA TODAY Network food writers and dining critics who weighed in on the top-recommended restaurants in their coverage areas Stage Kitchen was selected for its innovative plates With a menu inspired by Marathe’s Indian roots Stage brought destination-dining status to an unadventurous patch of northern Palm Beach County Here’s the full list, and more about Stage Kitchen Following the January 6 riots At just 23 years old and hailing from Miami Lakes, Florida, Balmaseda is now facing a felony charge for obstructing an official proceeding With strong ties to influential Republicans like Florida Sen. Marco Rubio and Gov. Ron DeSantis, Balmaseda’s arrest on December 14 has sparked controversy, prompting her attorney, Aubrey Webb, to decry it as a “waste of law enforcement resources” for what he considers “essentially trespassing charges.” found guilty in November on felony charges related to the riot Balmaseda’s journey from Florida to Washington indicating her intent to protest the 2020 presidential election results Messages conveyed her belief in a stolen election and awareness of the certification process on January 6 On the day of the riot, Balmaseda was photographed in Black Lives Matter Plaza before entering the Capitol at 2:16 p.m. just four minutes after the initial breach and later joining rioters in the “OAP Corridor.” Law enforcement officers eventually corralled Balmaseda and others toward the Rotunda doors at 3:11 p.m Her arrest raises questions about the potential involvement of political figures in the events of January 6 alongside over 1,230 individuals charged in connection with the Capitol breach The Supreme Court’s recent decision to hear a case involving three Jan 6 defendants disputing an obstruction charge adds complexity to the legal landscape surrounding the Capitol riot investigations with authorities addressing the multitude of cases stemming from the unprecedented events of January 6 questions arise about the potential involvement of political figures in the events of January 6 Balmaseda’s connections with high-profile Republicans in Florida add a layer of complexity to the case prompting close scrutiny from the community and political observers alike Screenshots of social media posts from FIU GOP last year indicate she was a former vice president for the group Three of the naturalized citizens featured in our Immigrants: The Pride of America campaign shared their stories in a Huffington Post article this week I grew up in America's most Cuban city - Hialeah "The City of Progress," far more often was quoted in Spanish The cheering section at local football games brought conga drums The Catholic saint statues that often adorned front lawns concealed Afro-Cuban alter egos And the "fries" at fast-food drive-thru joints were made of yuca In expanding and developing Syncsort's business internationally I have come to appreciate the fact that there is no other place in the world where an immigrant has the kind of opportunities that one has here The term "land of opportunities" is not an empty phrase for the U.S War refugees — the subset to which I belong — are even more so We believe that we can change our circumstances and change them for the better Read the full article at The Huffington Post, and we invite you to share your own stories on our website. We’ve got a particularly meaty dining column today We’ll travel from Florida’s oldest steakhouse to a smoked Wagyu brisket feast But there’s love for the non-carnivores as well There’s a plant-forward Diwali brunch to know about And there’s one of my favorite new sweet bites one that’s not in the least meat-related!   Dining news: Upcoming restaurant inspired by Japanese Wagyu beef New: 'Sexy' Chinese-inspired restaurant opens with modern menu Goodbye Grub: Iconic pizzeria closes in Palm Beach County The steakhouse that gives you a free steak on your birthday is celebrating a birthday of its own. Okeechobee Steakhouse turns 75 this month Here are three reasons to plan a visit to Florida’s oldest steakhouse Okeechobee Steakhouse will host a Macallan single malt Scotch-paired dinner next Thursday night (Oct Highlights of the five-course menu include a smoked duck breast with Macallan-duck jus and a Macallan-soaked dry-aged New York strip with black truffle demi-glace It’s your birthday. If that’s the case, not only do you get a free steak (with the purchase of another) you’ll get Okeechobee’s legendary service you’ll get that any time of the year but doesn’t it feel special on your birthday Okeechobee Steakhouse: 2854 Okeechobee Blvd. new chef collabWhen so many creative chefs work within a few blocks of one another ideas will drift like smoke and sometimes spark collaborations which is experiencing a wave of culinary collabs one that brings together Tropical Smokehouse’s chef Mace and Palm Beach Meats’ chef Emerson Frisbie next Wednesday night (Oct Their focus: Japanese A5 Wagyu “Brisket n’ Fixins”.  Frisbie will welcome his Tropical Smokehouse neighbor chef Mace finest-grade (A5) Japanese Wagyu brisket to the party by Frisbie and friends: Japanese potato salad Palm Beach Creamed Honey and buttermilk dressing corn on the cob with Espelette pepper and sumac butter Red Splendor Farm biscuits and pickles by chef Daniel Ramos and for dessert banoffee (banana and toffee) cream pie by Anna Ross of Anna Bakes.  The details: The “Brisket n’ Fixins” dinner is Wednesday, Oct. 26, from 5 to 8 p.m. at Palm Beach Meats, 4812 S. Dixie Hwy. Tickets are $129 (including tip) and can be purchased at this link ‘Festival of Lights’ brunchPalm Beach County’s newest Indian restaurant celebrates an ancient holiday this Sunday the new “curry kitchen” by chef Pushkar Marathe will host a festive Diwali brunch with an a la carte menu Read more about this brunch and other new unique weekend brunches in Palm Beach County in this story The Diwali brunch goes from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. Oct. 23. Reservations can be made at ElaCurryKitchen.com.  My new favorite sweet biteI was not prepared to fall in love with a gluten-free doughnut, but that’s exactly what happened on a recent Saturday at the new Salty Donut shop in downtown West Palm Beach I’ve been trying my best to avoid gluten (due to a non-celiac gluten sensitivity) and I’m happy to report it’s doable and often delicious But I didn’t think I could order a gluten-free menu item at the hottest doughnut shop in town without experiencing some degree of gluten FOMO The day’s specialty gluten-free item, a chocolate chip and sea salt doughnut chocolate-chip cake doughnut wore a chocolate glaze chocolate-chip cookie crumbles and a sprinkling of flaky salt What made this bite so memorable was the cake doughnut itself – it was fluffy and moist not dry or sticky like other gluten-free bites I’ve tried.  It’s a doughnut I could order every day. Sadly The Salty has removed the specialty doughnut because it often rotates its menu items there’s a gluten-free sticky toffee cake doughnut with butterscotch glaze vanilla buttercream and candied pecans ($4.50) Is it as life-changing as the chocolate-chip sea-salt doughnut of my dreams drop me an email (lbalmaseda@pbpost.com) and let me know how you liked it.   Slicing and dicing I recently joined my friends and colleagues Kati Kokal and Hannah Morse at a knife skills class at Sur La Table at The Square in West Palm Beach It was the most fun I’ve had chopping vegetables And there were more than a few a-ha moments to be had like the realization that we had been holding our knives wrong since forever Kati has written a wonderful story about the class and the tips we learned. You can read it here! Dine on the farm: Best outdoor dinners in Palm Beach County  Chinese takeout: What's driving the wave of new Chinese-inspired restaurants? Neighborhood gem shuts but there's "joy" in its closing Hold the celery, bring the buffet! Meet the $100 Bloody Mary. In the dead of August, refreshing December news beckons like a heat-induced mirage: The splashy Palm Beach Food and Wine Festival will return this season after skipping a year due to the pandemic Tickets went on sale this week for the food-star-studded fest There’s also a slate of new safety precautions that include mask requirements (except when eating and drinking) increased sanitation and reduced crowd capacity And while we have moons to go before the festival’s opening-night dinners this year’s schedule already has me in a sparkly but that closing is shrouded in a bit of mystery A publicist says the place is closed for renovations and a related announcement is coming soon On a breezy note, the new beachside farmer’s market returns to Carlin Park in Jupiter Saturday. Attendees can expect various food vendors, including Jupiter’s beloved Food Shack, wellness and sustainable goods at JoJo’s Farmer’s Market.   here’s a reason to not dread Monday: Aug Liz Balmaseda brisket-filled empanadas and smoked mahi as “the most compelling items” on the menu These dishes “draw upon the Florida seas or incorporate Caribbean flavors,” he writes He partnered with former Boulud general manager Jason Lakow to open the restaurant “Having a sense of place is definitely a critical component,” Lakow says of Tropical Smokehouse’s concept “We’re always trying to serve two ideologies Two is satisfying a desire to be creating and having that sense of individualism.” More BBQ: Southern soul-food restaurant expands with new location That Southern Living would name Tropical Smokehouse among the South’s “top 50 barbecue joints” should come as no surprise to those who follow the restaurant’s rising profile Southern Living hailed the Smokehouse as “the best locally owned restaurant in Florida” the magazine recognized the restaurant in its 2023 “South’s Best Barbecue Joint in Every State” roundup Best BBQ in Florida: 12 restaurants, food trucks from Palm Beach to Pensacola This year, Mace was among five Palm Beach County chefs to earn a spot on the semifinals list for a prestigious James Beard Award for “best chef” in the South In late August, Mace and Lakow opened a counter-service spinoff in downtown West Palm Beach More information: 561-323-2573, EatTropical.com Lindsay Autry knows the three magic words that will bring her toddler to dance in the living room The rolling sounds of the Pitbull hit fill the room and there he is watching his moves reflect in the mirror.  “You’re silly,” she coos at him “And you’ve got black beans all over your face.”  It’s the shiniest of all the silver linings the celebrated chef could have hoped for in the year she had to temporarily close her popular West Palm Beach restaurant, The Regional Kitchen lay off 75 employees and make some of the most difficult decisions she’s had to make in her career as an executive chef Quality time with Jack has been the great upside gobbles up her home-cooked meals with the gusto of a Regional regular wrinkles his nose at her with all the mischief an 18-month-old can muster.  So many days during 2020, it seemed time was standing still. But Autry could trace the passing months in the gentlest of progressions unfolding in the kitchen of the Palm Beach Gardens home she shares with husband David Sabin, who is director of the Palm Beach Food and Wine Festival.  First there were the single-ingredient purees Then came the more elaborate blended soups she’d make from braised meats the fancy-baby short rib puree,” says Autry in the lilting cadence of her native North Carolina And then the sliced-up bits of her grown-up dinners Hoppin’ John-style veggies and for dessert He could eat that all day long,” she says the 39-year-old chef is busier now than she was on those nights when The Regional was packed with the faithful pre-show crowd heading to the Kravis Center There are plans to reopen the restaurant sometime this fall who gained a national spotlight as a finalist on the Bravo TV series "Top Chef," has been busy with an eclectic batch of projects More: Favorite childhood dishes take Lindsay Autry back to North Carolina Perhaps most noteworthy for her fans on the local dining circuit, she is planning to open a new restaurant called Honeybelle. The all-day dining concept will be part of the $100 million revamp at the PGA National Resort and Spa in Palm Beach Gardens which Autry describes as “fresh Mediterranean with a little of that Southern touch,” could open as soon as late this year Autry also has been teaching cooking classes via Zoom as well as in person, most recently at Kai-Kai Farm in Indiantown And she caters events and private dinners several times a week through her Fin & Feather catering enterprise which she launched in 2015 and revived during the pandemic.  Some days ago, the chef helped kick off a new culinary training program for Feeding South Florida She developed a full curriculum for the 10-week course to prepare students for jobs in the hospitality and culinary industry.  “It goes from cooking techniques to basic maintenance and equipment repair with plenty of hands-on cooking,” says Autry who went to culinary school at Johnson & Wales University and graduated as class valedictorian “There’s a whole section on professionalism resume-building and communications.”  Add to that her role in helping Sabin plan the Palm Beach Food and Wine Festival, which returns in December after having to cancel last year due to COVID precautions “It’s been an inspiration to watch her through all of this and to see how she finds a balance,” says Sabin “Lindsay still keeps a busy schedule but we’ve been able to enjoy some of the things we couldn’t do before We’ve taken a couple more trips than usual to North Carolina to see family.”  Beachfront restaurants: Six of our favorite spots with ocean views The professional multitasking is a new normal for chefs and restaurant workers navigating a hospitality industry dramatically changed by the coronavirus era Restaurant owners have pivoted to new business models “I know a lot of people whose restaurants have closed throughout the country Ninety-five percent of our workforce lives paycheck to paycheck and there was so much uncertainty,” says Autry especially among some of her workers who had families to support opened a pantry to help employees with groceries thanks to a grant from the South Beach Wine and Food Festival’s relief fund Autry was able to share some funds with her workers.  It was just so heartbreaking,” she says.  After the initial state-mandated shutdown of restaurant dining rooms in March 2020 Autry shifted into takeout mode at The Regional “I remember it was the hardest thing I’ve done in so long because it was just my sous chef I remember driving to work and it was almost like a hurricane -- nobody was on the road,” she says At the end of July, Autry and Beaud decided to temporarily close the restaurant they had opened on Okeechobee Boulevard in 2016 Even when restaurants were allowed to reopen dining rooms at reduced capacity levels The Regional faced other pandemic consequences was still closed as was the Palm Beach County Convention Center which meant the usual crowds she served at The Regional simply were not there “It was one of those things that we just wanted to take a break and let things settle again,” says Autry We just want to do it in a smart way.” Being away from daily restaurant life has given her the time to think and explore The catering work has allowed her to focus on every element of cooking because ‘Can you chop all that parsley for me?’ I’ve got to do it,” she says She’s found the time to reminisce about her favorite childhood dishes the ones her grandmother made for her.  “I’ve been doing a lot of family recipes That’s just what happens,” says Autry.  Even when she’s making childhood dishes she’s made for years she often takes the time to dig up the handed-down recipes.  “If I go back and read my grandmother’s handwriting somehow it makes everything taste even better,” she says Those memories have been crucial to helping her find her voice in the kitchen throughout her years as a chef when you really channel who you truly are and your authenticity I think that’s when you’re really good at what you do,” she says When I was in culinary school and when I was a young cook fried chicken?’ It was seen as lower quality The reminiscing has filled her kitchen with some tasty dishes like chicken and pastry (dumplings) and a coastal North Carolina lemon pie that features a saltine-cracker crust Those dishes are on repeat now in the Autry home kitchen.  He helps her stir when he’s not too busy opening drawers and cabinets “It’s been an amazing silver lining,” Autry says of her time at home with her son I used to worry about how I was going to balance all of this ‘How am I going to be a chef and be a mom?’ I would genuinely worry that I’d miss his first steps and his first words.” Jack punctuates that thought with a squeal that makes her laugh “And I haven’t missed any of it.” Chef Lindsay Autry shares the favorite Southern recipes she keeps on repeat in her home kitchen On my first visit to the hot, new Pink Steak restaurant there was no live DJ spinning in the kitchen no saxophonist dancing on the bar or impromptu dancers springing from their seats Not a hint of such Friday night action remained when I glanced around the pizzazzy flamingo-adorned room and settled into my table at the four-month-old West Palm Beach steakhouse It was Easter Sunday and I was there for Pink Steak’s first brunch a prix-fixe occasion that offered a daytime look at the steakhouse inspired by retro-Miami style and nightlife the DJ booth in the kitchen.) It also offered me a taste of the restaurant’s menu days before it rolls out a permanent a la carte Sunday brunch on April 7 That’s good news for those who want to try Pink Steak by midday light The restaurant’s chef/owner, Julien Gremaud, who envisioned the place as a modern, “less manly” steakhouse told me he finds Pink Steak’s location on South Dixie Highway “perfect for a nice upscale brunch” The steakhouse’s Easter brunch offered something beyond that: a chance to see and taste the results of a solid culinary collaboration that of Gremaud and Pink Steak executive chef Aaron Black While this is not their first collaboration — they worked together at Pistache and later at PB Catch — it is their finest If my Easter Sunday experience at Pink Steak was any indication of what’s to come the new steakhouse brunch promises to be quite special From the adjika butter atop wood-roasted oysters to the perfectly grilled skirt steak to the Moroccan-spiced lamb shank the flavors of this three-course holiday brunch ($129 per person) danced on the palate much like that Friday night saxophonist danced on the bar The a la carte brunch that starts this weekend offers a lineup of tempting late-breakfast plates that includes that tender “We try to stay away as much as possible from carbs and encourage shellfish and fun egg dishes,” Gremaud told me offering our top quality wood-fire steaks for the meat lovers.” Pink Steak’s brunch may not be as amped up as the weekend brunch at Gremaud’s Avocado Grill restaurant in downtown West Palm Beach “We are starting without live music,” Gremaud told me “But we are not against it if our guests are encouraging us.” Located at 2777 S. Dixie Hwy, West Palm Beach, 561-557-9083, PinkSteak.com for dinner; weekday happy hour offered 4 to 6 p.m ◾ 5 new restaurants to get excited about in Palm Beach County ◾ Mexican restaurant gets new look, Food Network contestant chef the Palmyra-Eagle School District is projecting an almost $91,000 surplus for its 2020-21 school year budget and says it is optimistic about its financial situation — after making significant staff cuts and closing one elementary school According to the numbers the district provided in a letter to parents the district made over $907,000 in salary reductions and just over $88,000 in cuts to employee benefits The district also saw just over $173,000 in debt retired.  Palmyra-Eagle School District business manager Alfredo Balmaseda said the salary reduction numbers are reflected by a 5% cut in salaries across the board, including administration, the layoffs of 15 teachers from the now closed Palmyra Eagle Elementary School and Eagle Elementary School Balmaseda said new administrators and teachers are being hired at lower costs or with "position integrations" that allow the district to reduce costs and use people's time more efficiently he said the district can ensure at least some level of reduction to its current benefits "The only solution is to restructure and make it so you're more efficient and you have the adequate number of students per teacher and administrators per teachers according to the size of the building and the budget as well," said Balmaseda Balmaseda said the debt retirement was due to a reallocation of expenses rather than an actual reduction He said he expected the district to be able to pay less from the general fund into the debt this year He said other tools available are refinancing as well as modifications to the district's tax levy that can help lower that number He said he is still researching other possibilities as well The letter comes after the closing of Palmyra Elementary at the end of the 2019-20 school year. An attempt at the dissolution of the district was denied in January by the School District Boundary Appeal Board.  The district also included in the letter numbers from the 2019-20 budget and the projected 2020-21 budget The figures show that while the district is projecting a decrease in revenue from $11.52 million in 2019-20 to $10.65 million in 2020-21 — that revenue is projected to be higher than the district's projected 2020-21 expenses of $10.56 million which is a decrease from the district's 2019-20 expenses total of $11.56 million.  "We are thankful to all the members of our community who have stayed with us throughout this process and to those who have challenged and inspired us to improve the district," the district wrote in the letter The district said the changes it has made include adapting its staff structure to its students' needs and searching for new providers for different goods and services to ensure best price and a quality relationship The district also said this year it will be reviewing most of its vendors to make sure it can provide "excellent education" at the most effective and reasonable costs and will restructure loans and track new grants and funding sources The district will approve its final 2020-21 budget in October Contact Alec Johnson at (262) 875-9469 or alec.johnson@jrn.com. Follow him on Twitter at @AlecJohnson12 It’s time to polish up those farm-chic boots. A new season of rural, al fresco dining approaches at two of the area’s boutique farms where chefs take inspiration from vegetables The farm feasts, which start in November, have become so popular at Loxahatchee Groves’ Swank Farm and Indiantown’s Kai-Kai Farm that acclaimed South Florida chefs quickly signed up to join the lineup for this season “Usually it takes me two or three months to complete the lineup but this year it was done in one month It was amazing how people just said ‘yes,’” Jodi Swank Dining out?: Restaurant openings in Palm Beach County during 2022 More fall fun: Best pumpkin patches, fall festivals in Palm Beach County She has organized her seasonal dinner series at her family’s specialty produce farm for 13 years now Her events have featured top chefs from all over the country “I have a lot of new chefs coming on board this season,” she says Closings: Iconic pizzeria closes final location in Palm Beach County Fresh produce guide: Best green markets in Palm Beach County, plus dog friendly spots husband-and-wife farmers Carl Frost and Diane Cordeau host their own dinner series during harvest season Cordeau says she enjoys watching the chefs take inspiration from her farm’s vegetables “I like it because the chefs make their menus based on what I grow They like it because they don’t have to add a million chemicals to make it taste good,” says Cordeau who has been hosting farm dinners since 2015.  the Sunday night farm feasts at Swank are multi-course multi-chef affairs that go from welcome cocktails and appetizers to plated courses to wine and beer pairings all with live music playing in the backdrop.  the Swank Table dinner series kicks off Nov 13 with a cowboy-themed event called Fall Harvest Hoedown The eclectic series lineup includes a tribute to Julia Child a Caribbean food feast and a cannabis dinner that’s inspired by Swank-grown CBD flowers.   Dinners are held beneath the farm’s soaring, open-sided pole barn. Tickets are $175 per person and available on the farm’s website, SwankSpecialtyProduce.com where you’ll find the season’s full schedule dinners usually run from either 4 to 8 p.m Dinners at Kai-Kai are strictly chef-driven featuring the cuisine and inspiration of one acclaimed chef per night.  This season’s highlights include dinners by chefs Jeremy Ford (The Butcher’s Club at PGA National) John Thomas (Sassafras) and Zach Bell (Lost Tree Club) individually plated and include wine pairings That’s followed by hors d’oeuvres and dinner.  The farm also offers Monday night chef-demonstration dinners which include cooking tips and recipes but no wine (Attendees are welcome to BYOB.) Those demo dinners are $85 per person The farm feasts and demos are offered at Kai-Kai’s large al fresco (and screened) dining hall that offers views of the farm.   For tickets and the farm’s full schedule of dinner events, visit KaiKaiFarm.com Kai-Kai Farm is at 8006 SW Kanner Hwy In terms of tasty news to know, the local food and dining scene is the gift that keeps on giving these days There are new restaurant openings to report new menu items and locally made treats to explore One of the healthy-minded cafés at The Square plaza in West Palm Beach has welcomed a sister restaurant in Jupiter. More than four years after opening at The Square Pura Vida debuted its Jupiter location at Harbourside Place on April 10 chic look to the 3,000-square-foot former BurgerFi space which sits across from Jupiter’s Intracoastal Waterway large main plates (featuring free-range chicken The café brand with 2012 Miami Beach roots has grown to include nearly two dozen South Florida locations. In Palm Beach County, Pura Vida has cafés in downtown West Palm Beach (at The Square), West Boca and Royal Palm Beach (identified as Wellington on the restaurant’s website) Which brings us to another bit of Pura Vida news The chain plans to open a Delray Beach oceanfront location in early June The Delray Pura Vida café will slip into the prime space most recently occupied by BurgerFi “These openings are a testament to our commitment to making wholesome nutritious food accessible to more communities,” said Omer Horev “Our aim has always been to foster spaces where individuals can come together to enjoy not just great food but a lifestyle centered around health and wellness.” Pura Vida Jupiter: 147 Soundings Ave., at Harbourside Place, Jupiter, PuraVidaMiami.com international French bakery chain just opened a Delray Beach café on Federal Highway (near Trader Joe’s) The Delray location of Paris Baguette will celebrate its official grand opening on Thursday The Paris Baguette concept seeks to bring a “neighborhood bakery café” feel to its many franchise locations (more than 4,000 across the planet) The concept’s local-gem dreams were born a world away from any Parisian corner Paris Baguette was founded nearly four decades ago in Seoul it made its first foray into the United States Paris Baguette: 1911 S. Federal Hwy, Delray Beach, 561-303-1748, ParisBaguette.com This stylishly set Mizner Park restaurant has rolled out spring dishes worth noting Highlights on Serena Pastificio’s new menu: Crispy truffle-scented Brussels with Parmesan and prosciutto ($17) New drinks include Serena’s Stop & Smell The Roses cocktail Serena Pastificio is located on the first floor of the iPic theaters Hours: Monday through Thursday from 3 to 9 p.m. Serena Pastificio: 301 Plaza Real, Boca Raton, 561-922-6699, Serena-Pastificio.com La Gringuita, the West Palm Beach-based cookie brand inspired by an English teacher’s travels and childhood memories recently expanded its local market footprint by leaps bake-at-home cookies at 17 Whole Foods Market stores in South Florida Whole Foods locations in Palm Beach County include Palm Beach Gardens The stores carry La Gringuita’s core flavors: Brown Buttah The inspired mind behind the cookie brand is Caroline McGinley who would make the cookies for her dorm friends some years ago in Montevideo You may have seen her and La Gringuita cookies at the West Palm Beach and Palm Beach Gardens green markets I love her story and entrepreneurial spirit and I’m not surprised at all that she hit the Whole Foods big time Here’s the first story I wrote about Caroline and her cookie-making dreams La Gringuita Cookies: Gringuita-Cookies.com Here are some good restaurant options for dining out or taking out.   Have you heard about the new rooftop bar located on the West Palm Beach waterfront I found it to be a lovely spot with nice water views. Here’s my story on the new Bar Capri! Speaking of bars: Did you know The Blind Monk moved My colleague Eddie Ritz recently wrote about the wine bar’s new downtown digs. Here’s his story! Here’s my most recent list of places for authentic empanadas! ◾ What's cooking for Passover? Here are some options! The arugula salad might have been the first clue. Why would anyone order a basic salad at Avocado Grill, the West Palm Beach hot-spot restaurant known for its eclectic plates But it was a salad that set off a chain of events leading to the arrests of three South Florida women by West Palm Beach police on charges that include fraud The case reads like a mystery series one might catch on Acorn TV A police detective poses as a restaurant owner when one diner complained that a “rock” in her arugula salad caused her a severe tooth injury identified as 45-year-old Ann Sherry Miller of Aventura covered her mouth with a napkin and winced in pain when restaurant manager Daniel Van Tonder approached her table Her dining companions showed the manager a small rock at the edge of the salad identified as 36-year-old Sheila Angelina Miller of Hollywood Van Tonder called Avocado Grill owner Julien Gremaud who told him to offer the customer medical attention and to ask her to fill out an incident report for insurance purposes ‘I’m very hurt and I need dental care,’” Gremaud told The Post the customer presented the restaurant with a $8,775 bill from a dentist in Coral Springs Gremaud says he wondered how the diner was able to get a dental appointment so quickly But he forwarded the invoice to his insurance agent so he could open a claim More al fresco action: Best new restaurants for outdoor dining in Palm Beach County The agent suspected the invoice was part of an insurance scam who then stopped talking to the diner and dropped the claim effort The restaurant owner then decided to dig further: He called the Coral Springs dentist Gremaud recounted the "rock in the salad" story to the dental office manager but says he could not confirm the patient information on the invoice due to confidentiality policies So he sent a copy of the bill to the dental office expecting they might confirm they had issued the invoice and the agency dispatched two detectives to the restaurant Court records show a detective took sworn statements from Gremaud and Von Tonder on Sept The detective also analyzed the restaurant’s incident report and the dental invoice which detailed the treatment plan costs for the supposedly injured “tooth #10” a lateral incisor located on the upper left-central part of the mouth: $650 for an extraction $1,875 for a bone grafting and $6,250 for an implant While the detectives were at Avocado Grill the restaurant got a call from the supposedly aggrieved diner the lead detective turned on his body-worn camera the caller agreed to receive $6,000 in cash without filing an insurance claim in return for a “liability waiver” signature and agreed to go to the restaurant for the transaction that evening The lead detective hit the road to Coral Springs where he took a sworn statement from the dentist the dentist “immediately recognized it as fraudulent” and told the detective his office never saw or treated the patient West Palm Beach police conducted a surveillance operation at Avocado Grill where manager Van Tonder watched for the arrival of the rock-in-the-salad diner He told police he was “120% sure” the woman was the same diner from the salad incident Police arrested Ann Miller on charges of forgery and grand theft She pleaded not guilty on both counts and is free on bond A court hearing in her case is set for May “We are not commenting on details of the case at the time,” said Miller’s attorney James Stewart Lewis Jr and we’ll see where the evidence takes us and see who bears the responsibility for the incidents.” police also detained the two women they say orchestrated the fraud Identified as Sheila Miller and 51-year-old Mary Steimberg identified by police as mother and daughter Their attorneys were not available for comment “Evidence shows they were leaders of the scam and used their relative (Ann Miller) as the mule,” police said in a court document Details of the scam were revealed once police seized evidence in the case West Palm Beach police spokesperson Mike Jachles said They had detailed journals outlining prompts everything down to fabricating where the mouth injury occurred,” he said We as customers also are victims because scams like this result in higher insurance premiums and Restaurant owner Gremaud said he was impressed at how quickly the West Palm Beach police team mobilized “There are so many people doing this kind of fraud these days I was glad I was able to help with this case.” The restaurant setting provided more than an unexpected backdrop for a police operation even on the West Palm Beach police news release about the case Headline: “Restaurant doesn’t bite on diner dental drama Operation Open-Mouthed extracts salad scammers.” “They thought they were coming to the restaurant for a 6,000-dollar payout for a fake injury But what they got was that we turned the tables on them.” I had a terrific chat with chef Lindsay Autry last week her bouts of nostalgia-fueled cooking.  one could knead them from scratch if one had the time and inclination when you’re craving North Carolina-style chicken and pastry (dumplings) especially when there’s a phenomenal shortcut The proof is in the little box she keeps in her freezer: premade flat dumplings from North Carolina They’ve been one of her go-to hacks lately and are soon to become one of mine.  Her West Palm Beach restaurant, The Regional Kitchen but she’s got plans for it -- and plans for a new restaurant in north county I invite you to read all about it and more in my story on the celebrated chef and new mom On another topic, I’ve been reminded quite a bit lately that May is National Burger Month. I’ll be putting together a standout-burger roundup. Would love to know your favorite. Drop me an email at lbalmaseda@pbpost.com.  Palm Beach Gardens welcomed its first BurgerFi restaurantMonday The corner shop at the Prosperity Centre plaza on PGA Boulevard is the burger chain’s closest location to its corporate headquarters in North Palm Beach.  The opening comes as the rapidly expanding fast-casual chain celebrates its 10-year anniversary the new BurgerFi location is offering a $10 10-day “TriFi” opening special that includes a cheeseburger the burger chain known for its gourmet burgers made from natural Angus or Wagyu beef shakes and decadent frozen “concrete” desserts has grown to include 125 locations. Counting the new Gardens eatery BurgerFi now has 11 locations in Palm Beach County More: Burgers to love: Five favorite patties to tempt you from the usual The burgers at the center of this chain have gastro-pub roots In fact the burger chain was inspired by one hefty Delray Beach bar favorite called the “CEO Burger,” served at The Office restaurant and bar on Atlantic Avenue (BurgerFi was founded by Office partners.) That burger — a double-stack of Wagyu and brisket blend patties layered with candied bacon-tomato jam truffle aioli and Swiss cheese — is still listed on the BurgerFi menu The chain has exploded in size since opening its first location in Lauderdale-by-the-Sea in February 2011 the company announced it had added lifestyle guru Martha Stewart to its board of directors as chairwoman of BurgerFi’s product and innovation committee.  • Daily operating hours are 11 a.m • Official grand opening festivities are 10:30 a.m. to 2 p.m. Friday. There’s free frozen custard samples that day and free fries with your purchase when you download the BurgerFi rewards app. • Community component: The new BurgerFi location will have a collection box to benefit Feeding South Florida until Sunday. Staffers will distribute free-meal vouchers to Palm Beach Gardens first responders at the city’s five fire stations and at police headquarters.  23-year-old GOP staffer arrested over her alleged involvement in 2021 Capitol riots Notifications can be managed in browser preferences. I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our Privacy notice A Republican strategist and former intern for Senator Marco Rubio has been arrested on felony and misdemeanour charges for her actions during the Jan 6 riots She has been charged with obstruction of an official proceeding, entering and remaining in a restricted building or grounds disorderly and disruptive conduct in a restricted building or grounds disorderly conduct in a Capitol building or grounds Ms Balmaseda allegedly travelled from Florida and arrived in Washington DC on 5 January 2021 to protest Joe Biden’s victory in the presidential election She allegedly exchanged messages with other associates including members of the neo-fascist militant group Proud Boys which alleged that she believed the 2020 presidential election had been stolen and knew the certification process would take place on 6 January as the presidential race was coming to a close “Y’all think Biden’s gonna steal this election?” Proud Boys member Gabriel Garcia texted the group chat along with a link to an article about then-President Trump’s plan to raise legal challenges against the election "We are in La Carreta ready to f*** sh** up again." "I’ll get the popcorn ready to watch y’all f*** s*** up” with a laughing emoji She later expressed her wish to go to Congress on 6 January to go and object to the election I’m joining with the fighters in the Congress and we are going to object to electors from states that didn’t run clean election," she sent into the group chat on 28 December Ms Balmaseda was photographed in Black Lives Matter Plaza before she walked over to the Capitol building around 2pm with another person She joined the wave of rioters storming the Capitol building had pushed past officers on the middle landing of the stairs and had surged towards the building Ms Balmaseda is believed to have meandered her way towards the west front of the building and climbed up on equipment that would be used for the Presidential Inauguration to get a closer look at the Capitol’s northwestern stairs She allegedly climbed on top of the concrete stairs and the balustrade toward the Upper West Terrace of the Capitol along with the individual she had been with from the start CCTV captured Ms Balmaseda entering the Capitol building via the Senate Wing door around four minutes after the initial rioters breached the building She then allegedly made her way to the front of a crowd that was pushing toward the Crypt where a line of police were trying to hold them off but were overwhelmed and the rioters headed to an area known as the ‘OAP Corridor’ Ms Balmaseda entered the Rotunda and took pictures police were able to corral the rioters towards the exit of the building Ms Balmaseda sent a meme to Mr Garcia showing a Cheeto as a door lock she sent a meme to Garcia showing a Cheeto substituting as a door lock Between 2018 and 2019, Ms Balamseda interned for Senator Rubio and also worked as an organiser for Governor Ron DeSantis’ 2018 campaign, according to the Miami New Times. She also was listed as director-at-large for the Miami Young Republicans and served as regional director of Young Conservatives for Carbon Dividends The woman’s attorney, Aubrey Webb, said to CBS in a statement,  "It was unnecessary for the federal task force comprising of the FBI, Marshals, ATF, and Metro-Dade Police to arrest her for essentially trespassing charges.” “When the FBI contacted us over a year ago, I told them that she will voluntarily surrender if they ever want to arrest her. We are also disappointed that it took almost three years for DOJ to decide to charge her,” she added. Join thought-provoking conversations, follow other Independent readers and see their replies govt and politics","score":0.954599},{"label":"/law govt and politics/government","score":0.830393},{"label":"/law govt and politics/politics/elections/presidential elections","score":0.740544},{"label":"/law