Israel conducted strikes on the Gaza Strip late Tuesday and militants there fired rockets toward Israel following the death of a prominent Palestinian hunger striker in an Israeli prison.

The exchange of fire came after former Islamic Jihad spokesman Khader Adnan died in Israeli custody on Tuesday following an 87-day hunger strike.

Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said dozens of rockets were fired from Gaza into the early hours of Wednesday, and in response, its fighter jets struck a military post, a weapon storage, weapon manufacturing sites, and a training facility belonging to Hamas – the militant group that runs Gaza – along with a cement manufacturing site used by the group to maintain its infrastructure.

The Israeli military said 104 rockets were launched from Gaza, including 24 that were intercepted by Israel and 48 that fell in open areas. The IDF said it hit 16 targets in Gaza, saying “we attacked everything we wanted tonight.”

“The strike was carried out in response to the rocket launches from the Gaza Strip into Israeli territory earlier today, this strike significantly harms the capabilities and prevents further weapon acquisition capabilities of the Hamas terrorist organization in the Gaza Strip,” the IDF said.

On Wednesday morning, Islamic Jihad announced that “a round of confrontations” had ended with Israel, according to the militant group’s spokesperson Tariq Selmi.

Israeli military spokesperson Richard Hecht said there was no official ceasefire with Hamas but “messages have been passed.”

Earlier, the Israeli military said that after an assessment of the situation, “and following the directives of the Home Front Command, it was decided to return to the normal routine fully.”

Adnan, 45, had been on hunger strike since his arrest on February 5 and was found dead in his cell on Tuesday, according to the Israeli Prison Service.

Adnan had been detained at least 11 times since 2004 and his repeated arrests and prolonged hunger strikes had made him a symbol of Palestinian resistance to Israeli detention policies.

His death sparked anger in the West Bank, with protests, a general strike and other Palestinian detainees staging a hunger strike.

The IDF said the Israeli military would hold Hamas responsible for “all terror activities emanating from the Gaza Strip and it will face the consequences of the security.”

On Wednesday, the Palestinian Ministry of Health said a 58-year-old Palestinian man was killed and five others injured in Gaza during the overnight hostilities.

Earlier Tuesday in the Israeli city of Sderot, three people were wounded by shrapnel, with one man suffering serious injuries, emergency services said.

Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh has been in touch with Egypt, Qatar and the UN about the strikes, according to a Hamas statement early Wednesday morning.

“Haniyeh holds the occupation responsible for the consequences of continuing this brutal aggression,” the statement read.

Palestinian Authority Prime Minister Mohammad Shtayyeh accused Israel of carrying out a “deliberate assassination… by refusing his request to release him, neglecting him medically and keeping him in his cell despite the seriousness of his health condition.”

Adnan’s widow pleaded for non-violence in the wake of his death.

“Not a drop of blood was spilled during the prisoner’s previous hunger strikes, and today we say with the rise of the martyr and his accomplishment of what he wished for, we do not want a drop of blood to be spilled,” Randa Musa said, adding that it was too late for arms to help him.

Cycling’s governing body – the UCI – has defended its transgender policy after Austin Killips won overall victory in the recent Tour of the Gila in New Mexico.

Killips is the first openly transgender woman to win an official UCI women’s stage race, according to the Tour of the Gila website. The 27-year-old American triumphed on Sunday after winning the fifth stage of the event.

Killips also won the Queen of the Mountains polka dot jersey, which is awarded to the best climber.

“The UCI rules are based on the latest scientific knowledge and have been applied in a consistent manner,” the statement continued, adding that the organization “continues to follow the evolution of scientific findings and may change its rules in the future as scientific knowledge evolves.”

The UCI updated its rules around the participation of transgender athletes last year, announcing that transgender women must have serum testosterone levels of 2.5 nanomoles per liter or below for at least 24 months in order to compete in women’s categories.

Among the critics of Killips’ victory on Sunday was former Olympic cyclist Inga Thompson, who said on Twitter that the UCI is “effectively killing off women’s cycling” with its policy on transgender athletes competing in women’s categories.

Meanwhile, sports scientist Ross Tucker, also writing on Twitter, called on sports like cycling to “respect women’s rights” amid an “abdication of its leaders.”

For her part, Killips said she had experienced “a week of nonsense on the internet” and is “especially thankful to everyone in the peloton and sport who continue to affirm that twitter is not real life.”

Writing on Instagram, she added: “I love my peers and competitors and am grateful for every opportunity I get to learn and grow as a person and athlete on course together.”

In a statement on the race website, Tour of the Gila organizers said they are “required to follow the rules and regulations set forth by UCI.”

The statement added: “Tour of the Gila recognizes the passionate debate regarding rider eligibility and classifications of riders set by UCI and USA Cycling and encourages UCI and USA Cycling to host an open discussion on the matter.”

The Los Angeles Lakers have taken a 1-0 lead in their best of-seven Western Conference semifinal against the Golden State Warriors with a big 117-112 road win.

In a clash that was billed as LeBron James back against Steph Curry, it was the King’s LA teammate Anthony Davis who put on a show at the Chase Center.

With LeBron far from his best, the 6-foot-10-inch big dominated against the smaller Warriors and put up a game-high 30 points to go with 23 rebounds and five assists to lead his side to a vital series opener win.

The game started off evenly with neither team able to break away from their opponent – the Lakers went into the halftime break with a marginal 65-64 lead.

Los Angeles came out on top after the interval and slowly managed to build their lead up to a 14-point advantage with less than six minutes on the clock in the fourth.

However, led by the talismanic Curry, the Warriors roared back from the brink with a 14-0 run – leveling the scores at 112 apiece with 1:37 left in the encounter.

But after evening things up, the Warriors would not score a further point in the contest with Davis’ late block on Curry making a statement on the road and Jordan Poole’s long, game-tying three-point attempt missing the mark.

Speaking to reporters after the game, Warriors head coach Steve Kerr was full of praise for ‘The Brow’ after he shut down his squad: “I thought AD had a great game. Obviously, he dominated and he got blocked four shots and altered some others.

“That’s what this team has been doing now for the last few months. They have been one of the best defensive teams in the league for a reason and he’s a huge part of that.”

James was careful not to get too carried away post-game and added: “We were very resilient tonight … We know how great they are on their home floor, so to withstand that, it’s another good step for our ballclub.”

Game 2 in the series takes place on Thursday in San Francisco.

Elsewhere in the playoffs

Over in New York, the Knicks leveled their series against the Miami Heat with a 111-105 victory.

The Heat were without star man Jimmy Butler, who has been on an outstanding playoff run, and struggled without their leader.

Jalen Brunson continued his impressive run in New York with a game-high 30 points, going 6-of-10 from beyond the arc, while Julius Randle – who had 25 points, 12 rebounds and eight assists – and RJ Barrett, who pitched in 24 points, helped carry New York’s offensive load.

Heat fans will be sweating on Butler’s health before Game 3 on Saturday.

Described as “vile” and “unacceptable” and fueled by “the need to hurt,” ‘tragedy chanting’ is becoming an increasing concern to soccer authorities.

In England, the phenomenon is defined as the singing of songs about disasters that have befallen other clubs or their fan bases.

‘Tragedy chanting’ has marred a number of matches already this season, though they tend to only occur at matches involving one or both of Manchester United and Liverpool, with some opposition fans referencing the Munich air disaster or stadium tragedies of Hillsborough and Heysel.

In February 1958, 23 people – including eight Manchester United players and three members of the club’s staff – died as the team’s plane tried to take off from Munich’s airport.

In May 1985, 39 fans – 32 from Italy, four from Belgium, two from France and one from Northern Ireland – were killed in a stampede ahead of the European Cup final between Juventus and Liverpool at the Heysel Stadium in Brussels.

Then, in 1989, overcrowding in the stands ahead of the FA Cup semifinal between Liverpool and Nottingham Forest at Hillsborough Stadium led to the deaths of 97 Liverpool fans.

Chris Rowland, editor of the website “The Tomkins Times,” which covers Liverpool FC, says “it’s hard to explain” why supporters of clubs that have experienced tragedies in the past would engage in tragedy chanting towards other fanbases.

“The need to hurt the opposing supporters, it seems to me, is the driving influence here. Any club that’s been involved [in a tragedy], nobody from those clubs should ever do it again.”

While most fans are quick to condemn the offensive chanting, the practice shows no sign of going away.

In February, Leeds and Manchester United released a joint statement following the club’s Premier League fixture after incidents of tragedy chanting from both sets of fans, which targeted both the Munich air disaster and the death of two Leeds fans in 2000 the day before a UEFA Cup semifinal against Galatasaray in Istanbul.

Another case of tragedy chanting by a group of Chelsea fans in a 0-0 draw against Liverpool at Stamford Bridge in early April – which the London club condemned as “hateful” – caused the Premier League to issue a statement saying it would be addressing the issue “as a priority and as a matter of urgency.”

Additionally, some Manchester City and Nottingham Forest fans have been criticized this season for singing songs about Hillsborough in matches against Liverpool.

However, in the return fixture against Liverpool at Anfield, the traveling Forest supporters were praised for unveiling a banner calling for respect for the victims and the end to tragedy chanting.

In an attempt to eradicate the issue, the Premier League has set up a working group with top-flight clubs to educate supporters about the tragedies in question and the impact such chanting has on fans.

The working group has also been in contact with the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) to discuss whether convictions can be pursued for fans that engage in tragedy chanting.

Geoff Pearson, a professor at Manchester University who has specialized in football crowd disorder, says self-policing within a fan base is “absolutely the key” to eradicating the practice, especially as some of the chants “aren’t by their content unlawful.”

This makes asking the police to get involved “quite challenging,” he explains.

“It’s humiliating for the fan that’s done that and I think this explains for a large part why we have almost eradicated overt racist chanting in English football stadiums.

“You go away with England [the national team] and you go into certain bars, and you will hear racist chanting, but you don’t hear it in the stadium because that’s where it has become unacceptable.

“But a combination of messaging and, occasionally – if you have a really entrenched problem – banning some individuals or taking criminal action if you can against some individuals has also made an impact.”

“If it isn’t the majority of supporters, it shouldn’t be the majority of the noise and there is an immediate practical step [people can take],” he says.

“The next thing is education through action by the clubs. Leeds United have been looking to do that,” Atkinson adds, referring to the anti-chanting campaign launched by the Yorkshire club last year.

“Arsenal and Fulham have both visited the [Hillsborough] memorial. I still think a wider societal understanding of what happened in 1989 and the smears that have followed would be no bad thing in general.”

Last month, Arsenal and Fulham’s team managers and captains laid wreaths at the Hillsborough memorial to mark the 34th anniversary of the disaster.

Our thoughts are with our friends at Liverpool FC and all the families of the victims of the Hillsborough disaster – April 15, 1989. pic.twitter.com/d5vRMYK7WX

— Arsenal (@Arsenal) April 8, 2023

In the immediate aftermath of the Hillsborough disaster and in the years that followed, the Sun newspaper and local South Yorkshire police launched a campaign of misinformation that tried to place the blame on Liverpool supporters, according to an independent inquest.

Ahead of Manchester United’s visit to Anfield last month, managers Jurgen Klopp and Erik ten Hag released a joint statement urging supporters of both clubs to stop chants in stadiums and online abuse relating to the tragedies.

“It is unacceptable to use the loss of life — in relation to any tragedy — to score points, and it is time for it to stop,” United boss ten Hag said.

“Those responsible tarnish not only the reputation of our clubs but also, importantly, the reputation of themselves, the fans, and our great cities.”

Liverpool’s Klopp added that chants about tragedies “have no place in football.”

“If we can keep the passion and lose the poison it will be so much better for everyone,” he said.

While this is by no means a new issue – Pearson notes some of the earliest Munich chants happened during the 1957/58 season – it has undoubtedly become more prevalent this season.

Charlotte Hennessey, whose father James was one of the 97 fans who died at Hillsborough, created a petition calling for tragedy chanting to be made a criminal offense, which has received more than 17,000 signatures.

Speaking to the Mirror earlier this month, she described what it feels like to hear opposition fans singing about the tragedy.

“All I wanted to do was watch the football in my own home with my children,” she said of Liverpool’s match at City. “Then I hear the hate chanting.

“The chanting starts, and I can’t even watch the match,” said Charlotte, 40. “I have to explain to my children why people are so cruel, and how the lies go all the way back to 1989.”

For those affected by the tragedies, hearing those chants “hurts us all,” Rowland says, “certainly those of us who were there.

“You only have to imagine how that hurts those who lost relatives and friends.”

More than 20 million people in the Southeast have the potential for severe storms this weekend, including possible tornadoes, waterspouts, hail and damaging winds.

“Yet another round or two of severe weather and heavy rainfall is expected over the weekend,” the National Weather Service office in Tallahassee said. “Still some uncertainty in placement and timing, but the ceiling for this event may be a bit higher than Thursday’s event.”

In Palm Beach Gardens, Florida, cars were toppled and debris was strewn along roads Saturday night after a tornado touched down. The National Weather Service office in Miami confirmed the twister and said a survey of damage was underway.

Florida had more than 40 severe storm reports Thursday, including six tornado reports. Damage was reported in more than a dozen Florida counties, including Liberty County, where a tornado ripped through the town of Hosford Thursday afternoon. There was an additional tornado report in Palm Beach on Friday.

Saturday, there is a Level 2 of 5 slight risk for severe storms for parts of the Florida Panhandle and southern Georgia, including Tallahassee and Panama City, Florida, and Valdosta, Georgia.

A marginal risk for severe storms spreads from southeastern Louisiana to coastal South Carolina down to central Florida, including New Orleans, Mobile, Tampa, Jacksonville, Orlando and Savannah.

“Two rounds of strong to severe thunderstorms are expected across portions of Florida and southern Georgia this afternoon and overnight tonight with damaging winds, large hail, and a few tornadoes possible,” the Storm Prediction Center said Saturday morning. “More isolated severe storms are possible across parts of Mississippi and Alabama with an attendant damaging wind/hail threat.”

For the Sunshine State, Saturday will mark the third day in a row of severe thunderstorms.

It also means the ground across much of the Southeast is so wet, any additional rainfall could lead to localized flooding.

A slight risk for excessive rainfall, Level 2 of 4, has been issued for portions of Florida and Georgia, where rainfall could exceed 3 inches. A Level 1 marginal risk surrounds the area and stretches from coastal Mississippi over through coastal South Carolina.

Much needed rain for Florida

Parts of northern Florida and southern Georgia could see up to 3 to 6 inches of rain, some of which is welcome with much of the state in drought conditions.

Unfortunately, most of the rain this weekend will be focused across the panhandle including Tallahassee, Pensacola, and Panama City, not the areas needing it most.

More than 65 percent of Florida is under drought conditions according to the latest drought monitor report issued Thursday. Severe drought conditions exist across much of central Florida and include Tampa, Orlando, Daytona Beach, Gainesville, and Naples.

More than 1300 acres have burned across the state of Florida from two separate fires the past few weeks due to dry conditions.

Storms shift east for Sunday

By Sunday, the potential for strong to severe thunderstorms shifts east and south, encompassing more than 25 million people. From Dover, Delaware, down to Savannah, Georgia, as well as central and southern Florida are all at risk of damaging winds, waterspouts, tornadoes and hail.

“The setup could potentially result in hazardous marine and beach conditions during the latter half of the upcoming weekend,” the weather service office in Miami said.

The good news is all the affected areas in the Southeast clear out by Monday with sunnier and drier conditions through at least the middle of the upcoming week.

On the northern side of this system, strong storms are also possible in the Mid-Atlantic where damaging winds and a possible tornado will be the main threats.

“The northern extent of the threat remains uncertain, but modest destabilization appears possible into at least the Delmarva region, where some threat for damaging gusts and possibly a tornado may develop late in the afternoon or evening as the surface low tracks across the area,” the prediction center said.

Editor’s Note: If your area is under a tornado warning or a tornado emergency, seek shelter immediately. Tornadoes can pose a threat at any strength, and warnings can got out with only a few minutes to prepare. Take them seriously: It could save your life.

The strength of tornadoes is rated on the Enhanced Fujita, or EF, Scale.

The scale runs from 0 to 5 and rates tornadoes after they’ve hit by assessing damage to determine wind speed. Estimates are based on damage to trees, institutional buildings and homes, making it harder to gauge tornadoes that leave little damage or happen in open space.

The scale is named after Tetsuya “Ted” Fujita, an engineer and meteorologist who developed the original version of it in 1971.

Here are the Enhanced Fujita Scale ratings used today by the National Weather Service and the kind of damage associated with each:

EF0: 65- to 85-mph wind gusts

These tornadoes are the least destructive and typically break tree branches, damage road signs and push over small, shallow-rooted trees.

EF1: 86- to 110-mph wind gusts

With similar wind speeds to weak hurricanes, these tornadoes can push moving cars off course, shift mobile homes from their foundations and remove roof surfaces.

EF2: 111- to 135-mph wind gusts

Significant damage starts to emerge from these tornadoes, which can snap or uproot trees, destroy mobile homes and tear roofs completely off homes.

They also can pick up small objects and turn them into dangerous projectiles.

EF3: 136- to 165-mph wind gusts

These tornadoes produce severe damage, uprooting nearly all trees in their path, blowing over large vehicles like trains and buses and significantly damaging buildings.

Less than 5% of all tornadoes are rated EF3 or higher.

One such tornado in March 2022 struck near New Orleans, hitting Arabi, Louisiana, with 160-mph winds. At least one person was killed and eight hospitalized after the storm ripped through homes and businesses, leaving a trail of destruction.

EF4: 166- to 200-mph wind gusts

Easily destroying homes, tossing cars and downing large trees, these tornadoes can be devastating.

One ripped through eastern Alabama in 2019 with top winds estimated at 170 mph. Blazing a track a mile wide, it killed at least 23 people, including three children.

Another EF4 tornado was part of an outbreak that tore through eight states just two weeks before Christmas 2021. It destroyed part of Mayfield, Kentucky, and left at least 74 people dead in that state alone.

EF5: 200+-mph wind gusts

These monsters cause complete devastation, flattening nearly everything in their path.

They are rare, with only 59 have been recorded in the United States since 1950, according to the Storm Prediction Center.

The most recent struck in 2013 in Moore, Oklahoma, killing 24 people, including several students at an elementary school where only a few walls were left standing.

Editor’s Note: If your area is under a tornado warning or a tornado emergency, seek shelter immediately. Tornadoes can pose a threat at any strength, and warnings can go out with only a few minutes to prepare. Take them seriously: It could save your life.

Tornadoes are one of Earth’s most violent natural forces.

They have whipped up in all 50 US states – and across the globe – at various times of year, sometimes causing untold devastation. But despite strides in their study, there’s still so much scientists don’t know about them.

“Sometimes, it may appear that a storm is in a perfect environment for a tornado to form, yet it never does. Conversely, tornadoes frequently form in marginal environments where it seems like one or more ‘ingredients’ to storm formation is missing or lacking,” he said.

Still, there are some common factors anyone can look for to understand the life cycle of a developing storm that could produce a tornado. They are:

A thunderstorm develops

In the developing phase of the thunderstorm, warm air rises and fluffy white cumulus clouds begin to grow.

The clouds grow taller and taller, even before rain or thunder appears.

Then, the bottom of the clouds darken and the very top could flatten out, creating a protruding anvil shape that indicates very cold air at the top and could be a precursor to hail.

A thunderstorm becomes a supercell

As warm as rises, cold air is pushed down. This results in wind speed and direction changing with height within the storm – a phenomenon called wind shear.

Wind shear helps the storm begin to rotate and become what’s called a supercell.

In this maturing phase, heavy rain, lightning, hail and very strong winds are expected.

Sometimes, a strong gust of wind – called a gust front – blows a few moments before rain arrives. It’s caused by cool air being forced down from the storm cloud. When the cold air hits the ground, it spreads out quickly ahead of the storm and is a sure sign a storm is near.

“Nearly all supercells produce some sort of severe weather (large hail or damaging winds) but only 30 percent or less produce tornadoes,” said the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

A tornado forms

Tornadoes usually form from supercells when the right ingredients are in place to help them thrive:

• instability in the atmosphere, which allows air to rise;

• lift, the rising itself;

• and most critically, wind shear: when winds at different heights within the supercell blow in different directions.

The wind shear creates a horizontally rotating column of air within the thunderstorm cloud.

Then, two key forces inside the supercell can act on the rotating air column:

• the updraft – or the rising of warm air – lifts the horizontal air column,

• while the downdraft – an area of drier air pushed down from the storm – twists the column so it’s vertical, then wraps around its backside.

The resulting vertical column of air is called a funnel cloud until it touches the ground – when it becomes a tornado.

“The most telltale sign that a tornado could be forming, when you are looking at a close-range severe thunderstorm, is the ‘wall cloud,’” Miller said.

The wall cloud is a lowering of the darkened cloud base that leads to the air rotation. While the presence of a wall cloud doesn’t always mean a tornado will form, it certainly ups the odds.

“You will know you are looking at a wall cloud because it will hang noticeably lower than the rest of the thunderstorm, and you may notice it is rotating if you look closely,” Miller said.

A tornado dies

Tornadoes can disappear as quickly as they appear – often morphing from roaring funnels of fury into nothing in seconds – when a key ingredient is lost, Miller said.

Sometimes as a thunderstorm evolves, its source of warm, moist air is cut off, causing a tornado to die, he said.

Tornado-producing supercells also can merge with other storms, forming into a so-called “squall line,” which generally kills a tornado, Miller said. Squall lines, though, have their own dangers, including gusty winds that can stretch for hundreds of miles – and even spin up quick tornadoes of their own.

In the Midwest, the unofficial start to summer with barbecues seems a little far-fetched as people are still shoveling and having to clear snow off their grills before they even think about using them.

Another late-season storm is bringing wintry conditions this week to parts of the Midwest and Ohio Valley. Heavy snow, torrential rain, gusty winds and possible record cold high temperatures will make for a pretty miserable start to the week weather-wise.

Meteorologists from the National Weather Service office in Marquette, Michigan, are describing the event as “a historic late spring snowstorm the likes of which we have not seen here in Upper Michigan since May of 1990.”

Parts of Michigan’s Upper Peninsula have already seen up to 18 inches of snow and another two feet are possible through Tuesday.

“Given the late-season event, surface temperatures hovering around freezing will lead to a very heavy, wet snow, which may result in downed trees and powerlines,” the Weather Prediction Center said.

Along with heavy snow, winds will be gusting up to 50 mph across the Upper Midwest, which will add to the danger of falling trees.

The reason is a strong area of low pressure, which has stalled out over the Great Lakes region. It is bringing strong effects, felt for a longer duration, simply because the storm is not moving.

“Several locations (are) potentially approaching May monthly low-pressure records,” the prediction center mentioned in its forecast discussion.

As barometric pressure drops, it can be an indication of how strong a storm is. In this case, the pressure over the Great Lakes is equivalent to a strong tropical storm or low-end Category 1 hurricane.

The steady stream of strong winds will cause incredible wave heights across portions of the Great Lakes as well.

“The strong north winds will cause waves to build into the 15 to 20 feet range along the shores of Lake Superior today into tonight resulting in possible lakeshore flooding for portions of eastern Marquette and Alger counties,” the weather service office in Marquette said.

Flood watches are in effect across the region for not only the lakeshore flooding, but the additional river rise expected from snowmelt.

Temperatures across the Midwest, Great Lakes and Ohio Valley are running 10 to 20 degrees below normal early this week and more than 60 cold temperature records could be broken.

Here are a few cities expected to break records for cold high temperatures. All will experience temperatures more typical for early March:

The system will finally push out by midweek, moving into the mid-Atlantic and Northeast by Wednesday. I know many of you in the Northeast are tired of rain, after the miserable and dreary weekend, but this week is unfortunately going to remain unsettled. Rain and normal temperatures will settle in.

“Below-average temperatures will spill into the mid-Atlantic and Northeast, with nighttime lows dipping into the low 40s across nearly the entirety of the I-95 urban corridor,” the prediction center said.

Some of the higher elevations like the Pocono Plateau could even see a little snow.

“If some wet flakes do mix in, no impacts are expected (besides asking yourself “isn’t it May?”),” the weather service office in New York City pointed out in its forecast discussion.

For the rest of the Northeast, the precipitation type will be all rain, on top of what has already been a soaking weekend.

Yesterday Portland, Maine set a new daily rainfall record after picking up 2.5 inches of rain. Central Park in New York City also broke a daily rainfall record on Saturday after recording 2.46 inches of rain.

Much of the late-season misery should be pushed out by the second half of the week, nudging temperatures warmer and closer to where they should be this time of year, just in time for the weekend.

Every April, during Autism Awareness Month, Debra Vines and her nonprofit field a surge of calls from parents needing autism-related services and resources. It’s a phenomenon she says she would prefer to see year-round.

She and her organization, The Answer Inc., provide support, services, and education for Black and Brown families in the Chicago area who are impacted by autism. Vines’ 35-year-old son, Jason, has autism, and she knows first-hand the everyday struggles that families face.

“Children and adults that live with autism are very repetitive – everything that they do, it’s the same way. But when you have a career, or are parents that have other children and other responsibilities, sometimes it can be very, very, very, very challenging,” she said.

Vines and her late husband, James Harlan, co-founded The Answer Inc. 16 years ago after realizing they were not alone in their struggle to find the support, resources, education, and services Jason desperately needed. Since then, their nonprofit has helped more than 4,000 families in underserved communities. She notes that the need continues to grow.

“With the numbers going up every day, we need support from the community every day.”

According to the CDC, about 1 in 36 children in the United States has been identified with autism spectrum disorder. And research shows that early intervention services can improve learning, communication, and social skills, as well as brain development.

For Vines, Autism Awareness Month helps her advocate for families who are unsure what to do after receiving an autism diagnosis.

“I think it opens up eyes to this disability and the things that we need,” she said. “We would have to work even harder as providers to get the word out about autism.”

One area where Vines sees the greatest need is for adults with autism, who age out of many programs at 22.

“It’s almost like they fall off the face of the earth,” she said. “There’s hardly any resources available for them.”

The Answer Inc. addresses this need with programs like Spectrum University, which helps participants ages 13 to 40 enter the workforce by connecting them with employers.

Her organization is also working to educate the community at large about autism, including training first responders and other public workers to recognize the signs and symptoms of autism.

“I would like to see (families) have more integral resources within the community, within the park districts, within the businesses,” she said.

Vines says her son, Jason, is doing “amazing” and reaching new milestones. She has been working with him on social skills like saying “please” and “thank you.” The other day, she swept up some trash at home and asked Jason to help her pick it up. He surprised her by asking her to “say please.”

It’s moments like this that remind Vines why she and others in the autism community continue to do the hard work, year-round.

“I encourage families every single day not to give up because you never know when that light bulb is just gonna go off, and they’re gonna hit another milestone.”

Soccer star Cristiano Ronaldo has become the highest paid athlete in the world, with a move to Al-Nassr nearly doubling his salary, according to Forbes.

Ronaldo joined the Saudi Arabian club in January after leaving Manchester United last year and, despite rumors suggesting he’s already looking to move on, the five-time Champions League winner has reaped the financial benefits of his decision.

According to Forbes, Ronaldo has an estimated $75 million playing salary and has cashed in on a number of marketing opportunities.

Forbes estimates the 38-year-old has earned $136 million from both on-field and off-field revenue in the past year, a total boosted by his move to the Middle East.

Ronaldo tops the athlete rich list for the first time since 2017 and sits just ahead of fierce rival Lionel Messi in second.

According to Forbes, the Argentine earned $130 million last year with his Paris-Saint Germain teammate Kylian Mbappé just behind on $120 million.

The three soccer superstars are followed closely by NBA legend LeBron James in fourth, with a revenue of $119.5 million, with Mexican boxer Canelo Álvarez completing the top five with an income of $110 million.

Golfers Dustin Johnson and Phil Mickelson occupy sixth and seventh place, highlighting the impact of the new LIV Golf series.

Both have lost sponsors since joining the controversial Saudi-backed breakaway group but have more than made up for it in prize money.

Johnson secured the inaugural LIV Golf individual championship last year and, according to Forbes, finished the season with a tour-best prize money of $35.6 million.

The American wasn’t even in the top 50 highest-paid athletes in 2022 but has now jumped up to sixth.

Steph Curry, Roger Federer and Kevin Durant complete this year’s top 10, consisting entirely of men, which is calculated between May 1, 2022, and May 1, 2023.

Forbes’ estimates are based on prize money, salaries and bonuses as well as estimations of sponsorship deals and other off-field revenue streams.

“Skyrocketing league media rights agreements and growing off-field opportunities have already sent athletes’ pay soaring in recent years, but Middle Eastern money is pouring oil on the fire,” Forbes wrote.

“In all, the world’s ten highest-paid athletes collected an estimated $1.11 billion before taxes and agents’ fees over the last 12 months, up 12% from last year’s $990 million and 5% from the record of $1.06 billion set in 2018.”