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Anita Pointer and her sisters found crossover success in country and pop throughout the ’70s and ’80s.

The Pointer family

• Anita Pointer, who penned many of the Pointer Sisters’ hits, died at the age of 74. 
• Her publicist told Insider that she died battling an unspecified cancer. 
• Pointer and her sisters broke ground for Black women in country and pop with their hits in the ’70s and ’80s. 

Anita Pointer died at her home in Beverly Hills on Saturday at the age of 74, her publicist told Insider. 

She had an unspecified cancer, said Roger Neal, a media representative for Pointer, and was surrounded by her sister, Ruth, her brother, Fritz, and her granddaughter, Roxie, when she died. 

Pointer was a founding member of the Pointer Sisters, a vocal group from Oakland that achieved critical and commercial success in the ’70s and ’80s, blending genres such as blues, pop, and R&B. In particular, the group broke ground for Black women in country music, becoming the first female African-American group to perform on the long-running Grand Ole Opry radio program. 

Ruth, the eldest of Pointer’s siblings, is the sole surviving original member of the group. 

“While we are deeply saddened by the loss of Anita, we are comforted in knowing she is now with her daughter, Jada and her sisters June & Bonnie and at peace,” Ruth, as well as Anita’s brothers and granddaughter, said in a statement. “She was the one that kept all of us close and together for so long. Her love of our family will live on in each of us. Please respect our privacy during this period of grief and loss. Heaven is a more loving, beautiful place with Anita there.”

Pointer’s only child, Jada, died in 2003. Pointer was the fourth of six children. 

Pointer and her sisters first found success in 1973; their self-titled album spawned the hit single “Yes We Can Can,” which reached #11 on the Billboard charts. Many of their songs across more than a dozen studio albums found chart success as well. 

On their second album, That’s a Plenty, the track “Fairytale,” co-written by Pointer and her sister, Bonnie, hit No. 13 on the pop charts and crossed over to the country charts. It went on to win a Grammy Award for Best Country Performance by a Duo or Group with Vocal, the group’s first of three, in 1975; Elvis Presley later covered the song on his final album. On the original recording, Pointer was also the lead vocalist, as she was for many of the group’s hits. 

“It was so unbelievable that someone like Elvis could relate to the story in that song and want to record it,” Pointer said in a 2006 interview. “I think Elvis did ‘Fairytale’ beautifully. I was very pleased. He really captured the emotion in his version.”

In addition to being the first female African-American act to appear at the Grand Ole Opry, the Pointer Sisters were also the first contemporary artists to perform at the San Francisco Opera House. 

“When I hopped on stage with my sisters for the first time, I had no idea the path my life would take, the people I would meet, and the things I would accomplish,” Pointer said in a 2020 memoir she co-wrote with Fritz. “It’s not the hits or misses that are the most important. It’s the experience I’ve had, the lives I’ve touched, and the memories I’ve made.”

More and more, when I look at Kevin McCarthy, I see Dorian Gray. He has sold his soul; there is no doubt about that. And according to new reports, Kevin is now willing to make a deal with the small (but very important group) who oppose him. This is because reality has likely sunk in. He knows he does not have the votes without them.

It is incredible to think that the man could lower himself anymore, but it appears that’s what he’s doing. McCarthy is now, according to numerous reports, offering a five person threshold on the “vacate the chair movement.”

Remember, the vacating of the chair was spoken about in numerous other articles. This would mean if five members of the House demanded a new speaker somewhere down the line at any time– they could get it. However, this move is not sitting right among some more moderate members of Congress. And Matt Gaetz, one of the reported no votes on McCarthy, said, “He’s gotta get down to one.”

This means that Gaetz and possibly others want to have the power for just one person at ANY time to call for a new speaker. Not good news for Kevin. As you can see, this battle has become worse, not better. It’s also showing the weakness, desperation and cowardice of McCarthy. Do you know what I’d do if I were him? One of two things.

Option one: I’d make an impassioned speech explaining my passion for the job and why I want it. I would also demand George Santos resign. Why? Because it would show I could wield power. McCarthy looks like a coward. He IS a coward. One of the reasons this group is opposing him is because they can. They know Kevin is passive.

Or I would bow out gracefully.

At this point, one wonders why the man even wants the job. But you know what? I kind of hope he gets it. I’ve remarked on that in other articles. If Kevin does get the speaker, he will not be in the role long. He will have to give away his very being, leaving his frenemies seething in thinly veiled disgust for him. No matter what happens to Kevin in his final battle, he has already lost.

The post Fear and loathing on Capitol Hill appeared first on Palmer Report.

(NEXSTAR) – Last winter, a massive surge in the coronavirus sparked the Biden administration to ship free at-home COVID-19 tests straight to people’s homes. The federal government also made it mandatory for private health insurers to cover the cost of test kits.

In 2023, will there still be a way to get COVID-19 at-home tests for free?

The answer is yes, at least at first. But the full answer is more complicated than that.

Free tests sent to your home

In December, the White House released another batch of four free at-home COVID-19 tests per household. If you haven’t claimed them yet, you can still get them shipped to you courtesy of the United States Postal Service. Ordering takes about 30 seconds on covidtests.gov.

The White House has not said if it will send out another round of free tests in 2023, but it’s not too late to order the test kits announced in December 2022. If your household hasn’t claimed an order yet, you can still get two boxes of two tests each.

Free tests from your health insurer

Around this time last year, the federal government also made it mandatory for private health insurers to either provide you tests for free or reimburse you for their purchase. Insurers are required to cover the cost of eight tests per month per person, at a cost of up to $12 per test.

As of Jan. 1, 2023, that rule is still in effect, meaning you can continue to purchase the at-home tests and file claims for reimbursement from your health insurance company.

There’s a catch: The reimbursement requirement is only mandatory “during the public health emergency,” per the fine print. So if the federal public health emergency order expires, things could change.

Currently, the order is technically set to expire after Jan. 11. However, the Biden administration has said it would give states 60 days notice before it lifts the order, and that hasn’t happened.

Secretary of Health and Human Services Xavier Becerra could renew the order before Jan. 11, prolonging it another 90 days, and allowing for people to continue seeking reimbursement for test kits.

LiDAR captured the ruins of a civilization in the Brazilian Amazon.

Ecossistema Dakila

• Archeologists beam lasers from the sky to unearth ancient settlements hiding in plain sight.
• LiDAR uses laser pulses to penetrate dense vegetation, revealing human-built structures underneath.
• State-of-the-art laser technology is transforming archaeology by creating 3D renderings of ruins.

In recent years, archaeologists have turned to lasers in order to unearth ancient civilizations that were previously invisible.

A laser technology known as LiDAR — short for light detection and ranging — uses planes to beam thousands of laser pulses from the sky at the ground below, penetrating through thick, deep forest canopy. That provides researchers with three-dimensional maps underneath the vegetation, revealing human-built structures.

From a Mayan city to complex villages deep in the Brazilian Amazon, here are five previously unknown civilizations that were discovered through state-of-the-art LiDAR technology.

A hidden 2,000-year-old Mayan civilization in northern Guatemala

Researchers found a 2,000-year-old Mayan civilization in northern Guatemala using LiDAR.

Hansen et al.

Using laser pulses, researchers detected a 2,000-year-old Mayan civilization in northern Guatemala with nearly 1,000 archaeological sites.

From their topographical maps of the area, they determined that the civilization consisted of more than 417 cities, towns, and villages spread across 650 square miles.

The settlement had dozens of ball courts and 110 combined miles of navigable causeways that allowed ancient Mayans to travel.

The findings were published in the journal Ancient Mesoamerica in December.

Nearly 500 long-lost Maya and Olmec ceremonial sites in Mexico 

Digital image of the Mayan city of Aguada Fénix, located in the Balancán municipality of Tabasco Mexico.

Alfonsobouchot/Wikimedia Commons

In a study published in October 2021, researchers uncovered 478 Mesoamerican sites they estimated were between 2,000 and 3,000 years old.

The sites are spread across a 32,800-square-mile area in the Mexican states of Tabasco and Veracruz, where the Olmec and Maya civilizations flourished.

The finding helps archeologists connect the Olmec and Maya cultures.

“It was unthinkable to study an area this large until a few years ago,” Takeshi Inomata, an anthropologist with the University of Arizona who co-authored the study, said in a press release at the time, adding that LiDAR technology is “transforming archaeology.”

61,000 previously unknown structures hidden under the dense Guatemalan jungle

LiDAR laser technology found ancient cities with more than 60,000 structures in Guatemala.

Luke Auld-Thomas/Marcello A. Canuto

In 2018, researchers used laser technology to map Petén, Guatemala, where the Mayans once lived.

They discovered 61,480 long-lost roads, foundations for houses, military fortifications, and elevated causeways. They all date back to 650 and 800 CE, in the Mayan Late Classic Period.

“Seen as a whole, terraces and irrigation channels, reservoirs, fortifications and causeways reveal an astonishing amount of land modification done by the Maya over their entire landscape on a scale previously unimaginable,” Francisco Estrada-Belli, an anthropologist at Tulane University and co-author of the study, said in a press release.

81 earthworks, including fortified villages and roads, deep in the Amazon rainforest

An aerial photo of an earthwork mound constructed over 500 years ago in the Amazon.

Courtesy of Jonas Gregorio de Souza/ University of Exeter

In Brazil’s Mato Grasso region, archaeologists used LiDAR to find evidence of 24 sites with 81 earthworks, which included interconnected roads and fortified villages built on mounds.

They believe the structures may have supported a complex civilization containing a population of up to 1 million people between the years 1250 and 1500, Insider previously reported.

Some of the geoglyphs, as archaeologists call the sites carved into the Earth, were up to 1,300 feet across.

There may be hundreds more sites hidden in the jungle in a “continuous string of settlements,” Jonas Gregorio de Souza, the paper’s lead author, told the Wall Street Journal in 2018.

“It seems that it was a mosaic of cultures.”

An overgrown ancient civilization buried in the Bolivian Amazon 

A LiDAR image of an ancient Amazonian urban network in what is now Bolivia.

H. Prümers/German Archeological Institute

In what is now Bolivia, LiDAR revealed the hidden ruins of 26 Indigenous settlement sites, nine of which were new discoveries, that thrived in the Amazon rainforest more than 600 years ago.

The settlements were from the Casarabe culture, which occupied an area of approximately 1,700 square miles between 500 and 1,400 CE.

They also unearthed stepped platforms and conical pyramids up to 72 feet tall.

“Our results put to rest arguments that western Amazonia was sparsely populated in pre-Hispanic times,” researchers wrote in the journal Nature.

A scene from the New Years fireworks in Uganda’s capital.

Badru Katumba/Getty Images

• A stampede occurred at a New Years concert and fireworks display in Uganda. 
• At least nine people, including several children, died. 
• Witnesses say the event occurred when people rushed down stairs to get off a platform.

A celebration of new beginnings turned into tragedy in the capital of Uganda on New Year’s Eve.  

Nine people died during a stampede at a concert and fireworks celebration Saturday in Kampala, the country’s largest city, the BBC reported. Officials said many of the victims were between 10 and 20 years old. 

Sylvia Nakalema, a witness who got caught in the stampede, told The Guardian, that the fireworks show turned deadly when viewers descended stairs from a platform where they had been watching.

“I felt losing breath but I stayed put since I had no exit until the situation calmed down, but some people were already lying down gasping for breath”  she told the Guardian. “Children were crying and there was chaos. I survived because I was pushed in a corner by the crowd.”

Police are investigating the incident. 

Stampedes and crowd crushes occur when too many people squeeze into one space, Insider previously reported. When this happens, the crowd starts to move as one, and many collide with each other or another object, without control over their bodies. Usually, when these events become fatal, the cause of death is suffocation. 

There have been at least 10 deadly crowd crushes or stampedes in the past 12 months, killing hundreds. One in Seoul, South Korea, during a Halloween celebration in the city left 150 dead.

Former GOP Rep. Fred Grandy portraying his “Gopher” character from “The Love Boat” Republican Sen. JD Vance of Ohio; former GOP Rep. Sonny Bono in a shot from his pre-congressional comedy series.

Getty Images

• Incoming Sen. JD Vance continues a tradition of celebrities who broke into Republican politics. 
• Some of his predecessors on Capitol Hill include actor Fred Thompson and singer Sonny Bono. 
• Their pre-congressional careers include stints on Broadway and reality TV, and in blockbuster movies. 

Newly minted Republican Sen. JD Vance of Ohio won’t just be replacing retiring Sen. Rob Portman in the 118th Congress. He’ll be joining the cadre of right-leaning actors, singers, and reality TV personalities who traded on their celebrity to secure a spot on Capitol Hill. 

Vance, who defeated Democratic challenger Rep. Tim Ryan in one of the wildest and priciest Senate races of the 2022 midterms, originally rose to fame as author of the controversial ode to Appalachia, “Hillbilly Elegy.” His 2016 memoir became a Netflix movie in 2020, cementing the entertainer bona fides of the aspiring venture capitalist and nonprofit founder. 

While plenty of lawmakers pen tell-all books and pseudo-presidential campaign manifestos throughout their political careers, Vance just happened to get his first page-turner out of the way before arriving in Washington. 

But a trailblazer he is not. 

Here are five other cultural figures, listed by when they joined Congress, who beat Vance to the punch of becoming Republican lawmakers.