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Aunt Describes Niece As 'Shining Light And Now Our Guardian Angel,' Sets GoFundMe For Her Kids

2 years 7 months ago
GREENE COUNTY - A GoFundMe page has been set for Randa Davidson’s family after her death this past week. Randa, a Greene County woman, apparently died of hypothermia complications in Springfield after a massive search earlier this week. Randa’s body was found near a pond by a Sangamon County detective in the 3100 block of Robbins Road in Springfield’s extreme west end on Tuesday, January 25, 2022. Randa, a Hillview resident, was only 39 years old. The GoFundMe fundraiser was created by her aunt - Janet Surratt - to help support her two children. Surratt said the family thanks all those who reached out when Randa went missing. "We prayed for her safe return," she added. "Randa has been found and unfortunately is no longer with us. I am creating this account to help with burial expenses and for the benefit of Randa’s son and daughter. Any donation is appreciated. Please continue to pray for the family." Janet Surratt closed with some inspiring words to describ

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Missouri redistricting fight returning to the state capitol next week

2 years 7 months ago
ST. LOUIS (KTVI)-- 7-1. 6-2. 5-3. These aren't baseball scores. Depending on your perspective, they're interpretations of the map of Missouri's redrawn congressional districts still in need of approval from the state senate. That effort picks back up next week when the full body is expected to debate the proposed map which made it out [...]
Gregg Palermo

Illinois Emerges As Regional And National Leader In Startup Creation In 2021

2 years 7 months ago
SPRINGFIELD – Governor Pritzker and the Illinois Department of Commerce and Economic Opportunity (DCEO) today highlighted recently-released data from the Business Formation Statistics Report that shows Illinois is leading the Midwest, and is among the top ten states nationally, in business startups - in addition to reaching the highest recorded number of business startups. Highlights include: Illinois Highlights : - In 2021, 198,827 business startups were created in Illinois, which is an increase from 170,400 in 2020 - In 2021, Illinois recorded its highest-ever number of business startups since the data was first reported in 2004. - Illinois has 69 percent more business startups in 2021 compared to pre-pandemic levels in 2019 (198,827 compared to 117,392). From 2019 to 2020 there was also a 45 percent increase in business startups 117,392 to 170,400). Regional Highlights: - In 2021, Illinois had the highest number of business startups in the Midwest (as defined

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GilvaSunner YouTube Channel Shuts Down Due To Copyright Strikes From Nintendo; Pokemon Releases Music

2 years 7 months ago

The Nintendo vs. GilvaSunner YouTube channel saga has come to an end. It had become sort of an annual thing for Nintendo to copyright strike large numbers of videos on that channel, which mostly has "videos" consisting of beloved video game music from Nintendo titles. Over 100 videos were struck in 2019. Then another swath of videos were struck in 2020. After taking 2021 off, Nintendo struck over 1,300 of GilvaSunner's uploads a few weeks ago. Now, while we've taking pains to point out that Nintendo can do this, as it owns that IP, it certainly didn't have to go this route. There were plenty of other alternatives, including offering this music on any relevant streaming platform itself, which it has always declined to do.

Well, as I said, it's over. The GilvaSunner channel is to be shutdown due to the volume of copyright strikes it received.

Following the strike though, Gilvasunner has announced they will be deleting their channel this Friday (February 4).

Writing on Twitter, they said: “Hi everyone, after the 1300 copyright blocks from Nintendo a few days ago, the YT channel received another 2200 blocks today (with likely many more to follow). After thinking about this a lot over the past few days, I’ve decided that at this point it’s really not worth it to keep the channel up any longer, and will therefore delete the GilvaSunner YouTube channel (or what’s left of it) this coming Friday.”

I'll point out again that GilvaSunner's channel did not compete with Nintendo in any way, going all the way back to 2019. Its videos didn't replace buying Nintendo games. The channel didn't compete with legit sources for Nintendo game music, since Nintendo declined to create any such legit sources. This was, for the past 3 years, simply Nintendo trying to stamp out a resource for Nintendo fans to celebrate Nintendo music, thereby expressing and solidifying their fandom.

But when it comes to this latest round of copyright strikes, it comes with a slight sliver of a difference.

Announcing the Pokémon DP Sound Library! 🎶

All the music you love from the original Pokémon Diamond and Pokémon Pearl games is now available to listen to AND download for use in personal video and music creation.

🎧 Tune in: https://t.co/jtypxqVG5o pic.twitter.com/5r3rTtmcjn

— Pokémon (@Pokemon) February 2, 2022

So, while this is nothing like all of Nintendo making its game music available for streaming, it's at least a step in that direction. But think about this for a moment: for 3 years Nintendo has been warring with a YouTube channel celebrating its music without offering any real streaming alternative -- yes, some game music has been available to buy on iTunes for some time, but that's not the same thing -- and once the company managed to kill off that channel, one of its properties releases a site to both stream and download for free some of that same music.

Is that not both insane and annoying? Nintendo didn't have to release this site; GilvaSunner was doing it for free. But Nintendo is so in love with controlling all of its IP that this is where we somehow landed.

Timothy Geigner

Charges Filed After False Hate Crimes Claims At SIUE

2 years 7 months ago
EDWARDSVILLE – Charges have been filed in association with reported racial incidents at Southern Illinois University Edwardsville. According to the Madison County State’s Attorney’s Office, the complainant, Kaliyeha A. Clark-Mabins, has been charged with Filing a False Police Report resulting in the following: Count 1: Disorderly Conduct (Class 4 Felony); Count 2: Disorderly Conduct (Class 4 Felony); Count 3: Disorderly Conduct (Class 4 Felony). On Sunday, Jan. 23, SIUE Police received a report of a hate crime involving the posting of hand-written notes on the door of a room in Woodland Residence Hall, along with an alleged anonymous text message thread from fall 2021 containing threatening and racially hostile content. Following a thorough investigation completed by the SIUE Police Department, with assistance from the Madison County State’s Attorney's Office and the U.S. Secret Service, the two suspects originally named in this investigation, Amanda Jerome an

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Viva Portugal!

2 years 7 months ago
Today on TAP: The Portuguese Socialist Party wins an absolute governing majority.
Robert Kuttner

Missouri Governor: No Christian 'litmus test' for state appointees

2 years 7 months ago
ST. LOUIS- A statement of support for the state's now-former state health director has forced Missouri Governor Mike Parson to address political and religious critics who say the message left the impression that he only supports appointing those with "Christian values". On Tuesday, after Don Kauerauf resigned as the state's health director when he could [...]
Gregg Palermo