Latest news with #American-sounding
Straits Times
13-07-2025
- Sport
- Straits Times
Serbia-born Jovana Sekulic shining on the world stage with United States water polo team
US women's centre-back Jovana Sekulic, 22, during their Group B match against the Netherlands at the World Aquatics Championships at OCBC Aquatic Centre on July 13, 2025. SINGAPORE – Jovana Sekulic may not have the most typical American-sounding name. And while her journey to the United States women's water polo team started in waters far away from the US, she has made the most out of an opportunity. The only player on the US roster born outside the country, the Serbia-born 22-year-old grew up playing water polo in Belgrade. Today, she is one of the Americans' key players, as she seeks to help them clinch their sixth world title in seven editions at the ongoing World Aquatics Championships (WCH) in Singapore. Sekulic picked up the sport from a very early age in Belgrade where, despite the popularity of the sport in Eastern Europe and the success of the men's national team – who have won three consecutive Olympic gold medals – the women's team have yet to notch their first Olympic appearance. But before she could even aspire to grow in the sport and represent Serbian women on the biggest stage, the American dream took precedence for her family when she was just 12. Sekulic said: 'Water polo is huge for men in Serbia, but for women, it's not so popular. But I remember going to the Serbian national team games and I always dreamed of being a big player and competing on the international stage for Serbia. But then my family moved to the United States, and I never really thought that I could be good enough to play for the US team.' Jovana's father, Goran, moved the Sekulic family to the US in 2014, in search of a better life for Jovana and her two brothers. They set up base in Pennsylvania, where Sekulic enrolled at Springton Lake Middle School. But the school did not even have a pool, and so water polo took a backseat for a while before her parents, who wanted Sekulic and her brothers to stay active while adjusting to American life found a local club. Top stories Swipe. Select. Stay informed. Singapore Govt will continue to support families, including growing group of seniors: PM Wong at PCF Family Day Singapore From Normal stream to Parliament: 3 Singapore politicians share their journeys World Israeli strikes kill over 40 as truce talks deadlocked, says Gaza civil defence Singapore Segregated recycling bins found to lower contamination rate as more spring up Asia Mahathir discharged from hospital after feeling fatigued during birthday gathering Business 29 Jollibean workers get help from MOM, other agencies, over unpaid salaries Singapore Medics treat 7 after blaze at HDB block lift lobby in Chai Chee Singapore I lost my daughter to Kpod addiction: Father of 19-year-old shares heartbreak and lessons She later joined the Episcopal Academy and there, her water polo career took off. She starred for the team, winning the Eastern Prep Championship three times and the tournament's Most Valuable Player award twice and her prowess in the pool eventually gained her an admission into Princeton University. In her freshman season in 2022, she earned Rookie of the Year honours from the Collegiate Water Polo Association. In 2023, she helped Princeton advance to the NCAA national semi-finals for the first time in school history. Those performances led to a try-out for the women's national team, and she has since gone on to establish herself as a regular and represented the US at the Paris Olympics last August. In Paris, one of her highlights came from meeting the Serbian men's national team. 'I stopped them in the (Olympic village) cafeteria, and I was like 'Hi guys, I just want to tell you that I'm a big fan' and then I just started sobbing,' said Sekulic, who hopes that the women's programme in Serbia can grow to a point where she can face the Serbian women at the Olympics. On July 13, in the final match of the day at the OCBC Aquatics Centre, Sekulic and the world No. 3 US women are almost certainly through to the quarter-finals after an 11-9 win over Group B opponents and world No. 2 Netherlands. It was sweet revenge for the US who had lost to the Dutch at the bronze-medal playoff in the Paris Olympics and finished outside the medals for the first time. The US have now recorded two wins out of two and their superior head-to-head record over China and the Netherlands means they have qualified for the quarter-finals as group winners. Both US and Netherlands had started the competition with a win on the first day of competition on July 11. While the match was an end-to-end, high quality affair in the pool, the attendance at the venue was once again in the low hundreds. Sekulic, played her part as the centre, showing her aggression in defence by being a menace all night to limit the Dutch attackers and was also effective at the other end as she orchestrated play from the middle. She also got on the scoresheet, scoring her team's ninth goal in the third quarter and provided an assist in the win. Despite her status on the team, Sekulic said she tries not to think about whether she 'belongs'. 'I just show up every day and try my best. All I can do is just show up every day and compete for my spot,' she said. 'I'm really happy to be here with this team and to see every single teammate of mine shine. And that was a really good team win today against the Netherlands. ' In Group B's other match earlier in the day, China recorded a comprehensive 29-9 win over Argentina. Meanwhile, in Group A, Singapore were defeated 22-7 by New Zealand. While it was their second loss in these Championships, following a 34-2 defeat by Olympic silver medallists and world No. 6 Australia in their first match, there were still some positives. In their WCH debut in Doha in 2024, they had been thumped 30-4 by the same opponents. Singapore captain Abielle Yeo said: 'Seeing the scoreline, we've also improved from the last time we played New Zealand in the last World Championships. So definitely, while there are things to improve on, we're very happy with today's results.' In the other Group A game, Australia made it two wins out of two with a 19-15 victory over Italy. Silver medallists at the last edition, Hungary, also made it two wins out of two with a 33-13 victory over Japan in Group C, while Greece secured their first win with a 31-7 hammering of Croatia. In Group D, 11th-ranked Britain recorded a 12-3 victory over world No.18 South Africa, while Olympic champions Spain followed suit in Group D with a 23-6 win over France.
Los Angeles Times
11-07-2025
- General
- Los Angeles Times
A day in the strawberry fields seems like forever
About 30 minutes into my job as a picker, the strawberry fairy left her first gift. On one of the beds of berries that seemed to stretch forever into the Santa Maria marine layer, Elvia Lopez had laid a little bundle of picked fruit. She and the other three dozen Mexican immigrants in the field were bent at an almost 90-degree angle, using two hands to pack strawberries into plastic containers that they pushed along on ungainly one-wheeled carts. They moved forward, relentlessly, ever bent, following a hulking machine with a conveyor belt that spirited away their fruit. But Lopez, a 31-year-old immigrant from Baja California, knew I was falling behind. And she responded with an act of kindness. Like the other women, Lopez wore a cap, several layers of clothing and a bandanna over her face to protect her from dust — and, she said, to keep her complexion nice. I wore the uniform of the other men: jeans, a tad too baggy so that I kept having to pull them up; a sweat shirt with a hoodie and a jacket over it; a baseball cap; and dusty, steel-toed work boots that a daddy long-legs had called home. But even if I was dressed like the other workers, the clothes felt like a disguise. As soon as I opened my mouth, my fluent but American-sounding Spanish, not to mention my baby-soft hands, gave me away. I shared that my parents were immigrants too. It was a defense mechanism, I guess, as much as a way of connecting with them. It didn't matter — they probably would have been generous either way. About an hour into the picking, my upper and lower back were beginning to tighten and my legs began to burn a little from the stooping. 'Listo para el contrato, amigo?' Seferino Rincon, a 42-year-old veteran of strawberry picking from Oaxaca, cheerfully yelled when I was allowed to catch up with the other workers. He was talking about the super-fast paid-by-the-piece picking — the contract — they were hoping to do tomorrow. I laughed and made a self-deprecating joke about just lasting the day. And yet, I was already thinking about the second day. My body was holding up all right, even if I was falling woefully behind the other workers and for stretches was almost alone. A month before, I stood thigh-high in a field of broccoli. I had always imagined that it grew close to the ground, like lettuce. Mark Teixeira, the owner of Teixeira Farms, which owns much of this land, snapped a long stalk and said: 'This is how you eat broccoli.' With his front teeth, he skinned the stalk and ate it like a carrot. He invited me to try it. It was sweet and better-tasting than the broccoli head. Teixeira, an affable guy with a sharp sense of humor, has argued publicly that Americans are unwilling to do the hard work that's necessary to gather crops. Like other growers, many of them conservative Republicans, he argues for immigration reform that provides for a steady stream of immigrants to do the work others won't. 'Americans don't want to do the fieldwork. They'll go over and make hamburgers for $8 an hour with no insurance, no nothing, when they can make more money here,' Teixeira said. 'I don't care if you pay $20 an hour, they'll come here one or two days, and they're gone. It's a mind-set: They think fieldwork is below them.' Teixeira was receptive to my idea of picking crops, but he didn't think strawberries were a good idea. Try broccoli, he said. Broccoli wasn't easy, he said. None of the crops were. But I wouldn't last doing strawberries. A group of broccoli pickers had gathered around us and I asked them which crop they hated picking the most. Almost all mentioned strawberries. How long did they think I'd last? An older man answered without hesitation: Quince minutos! Fifteen minutes. The men laughed. A moment later a young man hollered at the older man to stop gabbing and get to work. The men laughed again — the older man was his father-in-law. Tough crowd. I was glad I wasn't picking broccoli. Coming back to Santa Maria to start work, I slowed past the strawberry fields, looking at the men and women covered up like Mexican Bedouins, bowed over the earth. The day began with a lecture on the dangers of pesticides and keeping hydrated, followed by calisthenics I probably hadn't done since physical education in junior high. There was fog and a nice breeze from the Pacific. It wasn't the worst day to pick. Antonio Lopez, 34, one of the foremen for Mar Vista Berry, gently urged the workers to leave no good fruit behind. You might think strawberries are carefully sorted — possibly by a machine — into the clamshells you buy at the supermarket after being washed at some facility. They're not. The strawberries are picked by fieldworkers and placed directly into those containers. And you don't just throw strawberries into a clamshell and close it. They have to be sorted in a nice way, so that the strawberries on top don't show much of the stem, just their redness. The strawberries were the largest, ripest I had ever seen. There were fat ones that were completely symmetrical, and others that were huge and flat, like alluvial fans. Others were hook-nosed, like peppers. The farther behind I fell, the more obsessed I got with shapes. Sorting the fruit into the clamshells got to be like a game of Tetris from hell. I would stand up like a startled meerkat, looking at a clamshell and trying to figure out how to make the pieces fit. Then, when I began to fall comically behind, the strawberry fairy would leave another bundle for me. Porfiria Garcia, a 45-year-old Oaxacan immigrant, sidled up, offering encouragement. She tried working in a restaurant once, she told me, but she felt cooped up. She liked working in the open air, though it was hard work. She worked six days a week, often 10 hours a day, and her Sundays were often spent cooking for her family, doing laundry and preparing for the week of work ahead. From time to time, she'd take my near full clamshells and find a way to make the strawberries fit. Porfiria said she was glad my parents encouraged me to study. She hoped that for her children and grandchildren. 'What's the use of being born in this country if you don't study?' she said. That's what my parents wanted from me, my brothers and my sisters. Two weeks before heading up to Santa Maria, I was reaching into a closet in my parents' Boyle Heights home, looking for an old photo album, when I pulled out a day planner that my dad had kept in 1992. After coming to America in 1965 in the trunk of a car, my dad took all manner of jobs, including scrubbing toilets. By 1992, he was in his second decade as a machinist in Orange County. It was the job that helped him bring his family of six into the middle class. No detail of his life was too small for the day planner: like my older brother buying him The Club anti-theft device for Christmas; a son's appendectomy and a wife's surgery; his youngest child's toothache or the parking ticket he got on a Tuesday 'por buey' — for being an idiot, in his own words. My dad was working six days a week, often more than 12 hours a day. Most of his musing involved bills paid and unexpected expenses for the family. When his car battery went dead or was stolen, that was a calamity. It meant hours of work and money lost. He fretted over 'small checks' he got for 'only' eight hours of work and once, with no money to spare, simply wrote: 'Ni para el periodico.' Not even for the newspaper. His children, myself included, were a money pit. One January day, he wrote, in a mix of Spanish and English: 'Hector olvido luces 'on' —dead battery' after I left my car lights on while studying at UC Irvine. He had to bail me out. A month later: 'Hector olvido luces 'on.' Dead battery—Again.' That year, the economy soured and people were being let go where my father worked. He took a buyout. With my mom he opened a corner dry cleaner, but when that wasn't enough he tried to get another job. Finally, he took a job as an unarmed security guard in South L.A. working a graveyard shift — at a time when L.A.'s murder rate was sky-high. Americans, whether of Italian or Irish or Mexican descent, often refer to their immigrant bona fides. Sometimes we speak about our immigrant or working-class roots as if our forebears had passed on their fortitude, or that reserve of desperation that made them press forward, to do what they had to do. I'm the son of immigrants. But I'm not the same as them. The lunch hour came and, sore and exhausted, I grabbed the Playmate cooler I'd borrowed from my father-in-law and plopped down on the ground. My lunch selection probably didn't help my field cred: a can of Diet 7-Up, $7 beef jerky, mixed nuts with sea salt. Organic. A banana from the hotel. And a turkey sandwich from a fridge at Dino's Delicatessen. I ate half a banana and gave up. My appetite was gone. Noemi Lopez sat next to me. The 21-year-old worked six days a week to pay for four nights a week at a community college. A couple of years of this and study, and she hoped to reach her dream. 'I want to make wines and go to Italy ,' she said. Many of the workers said they not only took pride in the work, but enjoyed it in their own way. But others said they worked so hard and for so long for one reason: 'I have to — not because I want to, but because of necessity. I had to pay the coyote who brought me here. I had to pay rent, for food,' said Domingo Suarez, a soft-spoken 25-year-old who had herded goats and cattle in Oaxaca and was the father of a 1-year-old American girl. 'I have to take care of my family. I have to send money to my parents in Mexico .' As lunch ended, someone good-naturedly ribbed me, once again, with: 'Listo para el contrato?' Moments later, Seferino Rincon, seeing me struggle to keep up, turned to me, pumped his fist and said: 'Animo amigo, animo! Ya mero.' Keep your spirits, friend, and press forward. You're almost done. By then I was using my knuckles to prop myself up on the strawberry beds and the cart had become a walker. At about 2:20 p.m., a little more than seven hours after starting work, I took a break to grab a drink of water. After guzzling down six cups of the best water I had ever tasted, I trudged back to my row, boots feeling like they were stuck in sand. I took a peek at my Blackberry and shook it. I could have sworn more time had gone by. Porfiria Garcia stood next to my cart as I walked back to my row. I debated whether to try to continue. I surrendered. I didn't need this job. She smiled at me, as if she understood. Early the next morning, a deep fog blanketed the ground. In the darkness, car lights looked cottony. The workers arrived at yet another strawberry field, but this day was different. They were going to get their chance to work on el contrato. The best pickers could in five hours of work make upward of $150—or nearly twice as much in half the time. The workers did their calisthenics, and Antonio Lopez called out before they raced down the field: 'Ay que Dios los ayude.' May God help you. Within half an hour, the workers I had picked with a day before seemed more than a football field away, following the machine. A skinny immigrant approached Lopez and shyly asked if there was work. Lopez asked him if he would stay for the entire season — until about December. 'Yes, I want to stay for the entire season,' the young man answered. Moments later, work badge in hand, he jogged toward the machine, passing the bowed pickers into the fog.
Yahoo
12-05-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Motive says court has no basis to grant Omnitracs' request for retrial
Motive is fighting a motion by Omnitracs for a new trial in a copyright infringement case. In seeking a retrial, Omnitracs claimed Motive used prejudiced religious and racial insinuations in court. Motive's response, filed in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California on Thursday, stated that the jury's verdict was supported by 'substantial evidence,' and that competing fleet technology company Omnitracs did not meet legal standards necessary to overturn the verdict or mandate a new trial. After a nearly two-year legal battle between Omnitracs and Motive, a federal jury unanimously found on April 24 that Motive was not guilty of copyright infringement. A week later, Omnitracs filed a motion for a retrial, arguing that Motive 'relied on a host of improper and irrelevant assertions designed to prejudice the jury against Omnitracs' because one of the jurors was 'presumably Muslim' and wore a head covering. 'In lieu of actual non-infringement evidence, Motive relied on a host of improper and irrelevant assertions designed to prejudice the jury against Omnitracs,' stated Omnitracs' motion for a retrial. 'When cross examining Omnitracs' technical expert, for instance, Motive lobbed an accusation that Omnitracs (and its witness) were racially and religiously insensitive for not explaining that Motive's co-founder allegedly used an American-sounding email alias to avoid discrimination from truck drivers against Muslim[s].' 'There may not be a more prejudicial statement to make to a jury in the Northern District of California, particularly when one of the jurors was born and raised in and wore a head scarf every day of trial.' Additionally, Omnitracs claimed that Motive violated court orders regarding the disclosure of Motive's legal investigation. In Thursday's response, Motive stated that its cross-examination of an Omnitracs expert about a Motive employee who used an American-sounding alias rather than the employee's real name 'to better interface with truckers' was supported by the record, 'did not violate any stipulation, and was not prejudicial.' 'Accordingly, such testimony does not even come close to a 'miscarriage of justice' and provides no basis for a new trial,' Motive stated. Motive also disputed Omnitracs' allegation that it violated the court's pretrial order when asking a witness a question that 'revealed text had been redacted' from a letter between Motive and an individual in October 2018. 'This allegation is demonstrably false,' Motive stated. '[The witness'] testimony is consistent with the unredacted portions of the letter. Critically, these redactions … were agreed by the parties. Additionally, Plaintiffs themselves admitted the October 15, 2018 letter into evidence.' 'Thus, not only did Plaintiffs not object, but they also admitted the evidence [that] they now allege prejudiced them,' Motive continued. 'This alone precludes awarding a new trial.' The post Motive says court has no basis to grant Omnitracs' request for retrial appeared first on FreightWaves.
Yahoo
05-05-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Omnitracs files motion for retrial over Motive copyright case
Omnitracs has filed a motion for a retrial after a federal jury found competitor Motive not guilty of copyright infringement. The fleet tech provider sued Motive in October 2023 alleging it violated several patents related to fleet management systems and technologies. After a nearly two-year legal fight, the jury delivered a unanimous verdict finding Motive not guilty of these charges on April 25. On Thursday, Omnitracs filed a 33-page motion in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California claiming that Motive's conduct during the original trial was 'prejudiced.' 'In lieu of actual non-infringement evidence, Motive relied on a host of improper and irrelevant assertions designed to prejudice the jury against Omnitracs,' the motion obtained by FreightWaves stated. 'When cross examining Omnitracs' technical expert, for instance, Motive lobbed an accusation that Omnitracs (and its witness) were racially and religiously insensitive for not explaining that Motive's co-founder allegedly used an American-sounding email alias to avoid discrimination from truck drivers against Muslim[s].' 'There may not be a more prejudicial statement to make to a jury in the Northern District of California, particularly when one of the jurors was born and raised in and wore a head scarf every day of trial,' the statement continued. 'What's more, Motive's accusations were not supported by the record and were not substantiated by any later witness.' In addition to religious and racial insinuations, Omnitracs alleged that Motive violated court orders regarding the disclosure of their legal investigation. 'Motive followed up these accusations by repeatedly violating this Court's MIL [motion in limine] order prohibiting references to the alleged legal investigation that Motive conducted but withheld from discovery, in addition to numerous other improper arguments,' the motion stated. 'Second, the highly unusual split verdict form — and the language the Court used in explaining the verdict form — severely and unfairly prejudiced Omnitracs by suggesting that the Court believed Omnitracs' liability case was deficient.' Omnitracs contended that these actions prevented a fair trial. 'This behavior, combined with Motive's seizure of the Court's bifurcated verdict form to give the jury a 'everyone-gets-to-go-home' early option, guaranteed that this case would not be decided on the evidence presented,' the motion stated. Presiding U.S. Judge Rita Lin is expected to respond to the proposed order from Omnitracs by Thursday. Motive told FreightWaves in an emailed statement that it stands behind the jury's verdict and statements provided in its initial news release on the matter. The post Omnitracs files motion for retrial over Motive copyright case appeared first on FreightWaves.
Yahoo
30-03-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
I Just Lost My Job Because I'm An American
The email arrived unexpectedly last week : We will finish what remains of the project contract, but then we are ending doing business with Americans and American business. I know it's not your fault, but your president just started a war. We still love the American people but good luck. And that, as they say, is that. There goes 20% of my cash flow. It's my first time being boycotted — my first time canceled. I'm a voice-over acto r. I provide the intelligent, trustworthy and engaging voice you hear narrating a TV commercial, a medical device explainer or a YouTube mini-documentary. I'm the voice on those annoying requisite training webinars you likely arrow-through quickly. I'm the aural comfort and security that helps relay information or nudges you toward trusting a brand or message. But the trust in 'that American sound' has been shattered. My client — an international organization that interacts with countries on every continent — no longer wants money going to American individuals or industry, and no longer wants an American-sounding voice to be associated with its hope-filled endeavors. This isn't a Ukrainian client. This isn't some retaliatory Chinese, Iranian or North Korean company's move. The company isn't based in the European Union. Instead, it's friendly Canadians, who are justifiably and patriotically uniting against our now-enemy nation led by a mad king. And this is how our former allies are reacting. I can't wait to see the actions from nations that have always hated us. When the email arrived, I wanted to protest the decision — to upload proof of my entire-adult-life voting record or share links to my vast writings on LGBTQ issues and left-leaning initiatives. Look! See! I'm just as pissed off as you are! We're on the same side! I agree with you! But it doesn't matter. Everyone in the United States is guilty by association. The world has lost patience with us, even if we didn't vote for Donald Trump. We are lumped together — whether we actually support the bad guys or we're just lost causes suffering under them — and there will be economic consequences for all of us. Rejection is part of any creative person's life. We're prepared for the 'we're taking a change in direction' speech. New CEOs, creative directors or VPs come in and tinker with existing contractor relationships. Decision-makers are replaced by new blood. It's part of the gig, and I've endured such losses over the years. But this email — this loss — stung. Any freelancer will tell you that when you succeed in finding that elusive client — the one who respects boundaries, appreciates your work without micromanaging or requesting changes, and then (gasp!) always pays you on time — you want to hold onto them for dear life. Things were going so well. Now this precious gift of a dependable income stream vanished, thanks to Trump's ridiculous tariffs and 'let's make Canada the 51st state' trash talk. It's a devastating blow while I'm already worrying about more and more companies using AI to write their scripts, edit their videos and even narrate the damn video, too. Still, when the initial shock and hurt of losing this contract wore off, I had to tip my hat to those Canadians. I get it. I don't blame them. Enough is enough. Someone has to have the balls to take a stand. And I have great respect for my Canadian friends and colleagues. At least my former employer had the integrity to tell me the truth. He could've said my work wasn't meeting their standards, claimed they wanted a new sound, or blamed it on budgetary tweaks. He could've just ghosted me. Instead he wanted me to hear — and thought it was important for me to know — that our fearless leader's words and actions will have consequences. So, I'm being boycotted… by friendly Canadians. I guess I'll go commiserate with the former U.S. government employees who've also been tossed aside with violent, willy-nilly abandon. I have an inkling we're going to be hearing similar accounts from average and not-so-average Americans feeling the pinch in the coming months, as the more forward-looking nations wash their hands of us (and our nonsense) and make harsh retaliatory and defensive moves. The most daunting questions remain. With so many bridges burned — when all of our former allies have turned away from us and stepped forward as new global powers led by reliable and mature leaders — what will happen to the citizens of this country and this American experiment? Blue state or red state, we're all in the same bucket. We're the bad guys to everyone — and anyone on the right side of history doesn't come to save the bad guys. It will be up to us to save ourselves. But can democracy win in the face of so many actively rooting for it to fail? I don't know. But I will keep fighting by using my voice and my writing, because what else can I do? Brush up on my military contractor sound, since that's where we're headed? Or just adopt a British accent and acquire a new mailing address? Right now I'm in mourning — over all of it. Joe Guay is a voiceover actor and writer currently residing in California. His words have been featured in Katie Couric Media and YourTango. A recovering people pleaser aiming to be 'the poor man's David Sedaris,' Joe provides 'Dispatches from the Guay Life' on topics like mental health, growing up gay, nature as church, travel, showbiz and humor on and you can also find him on Substack or at Do you have a compelling personal story you'd like to see published on HuffPost? Find out what we're looking for here and send us a pitch at pitch@ I Am A USAID Worker Who Lost My Job. 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