Por Pablo Antonio Garcia Escorihuela, CNN en Español

Con el mismo desparpajo con el que sale a batear, Maikel García dijo una frase que retumbó en la sala de prensa del Loan Depot Park, tras la victoria de Venezuela ante Italia, en el camino a la consecución del título de campeón del Clásico Mundial de Béisbol.

“¿Presión? Presión es venir de un pueblo pequeñito como nosotros, y saber que tu familia depende de eso para salir adelante. Eso es presión. La pelota es diversión”, declaró el oriundo de La Sabana, un pequeño poblado en las costas del centro norte de Venezuela, donde su amplio linaje beisbolero tiene ahora un nuevo heredero, el Jugador Más Valioso del Clásico Mundial 2026.

Maikel tiene una forma de pensar que puede ser catalogada de inusual para un deportista. Muy meditativo, suelta frases que parecen tablazos conectados con su madero.

Jugó en Venezuela con los Tiburones de La Guaira, la novena del estado donde se encuentra La Sabana, y fue parte del equipo que rompió el maleficio del equipo costero, que tenía 38 años sin ganar un título en la liga profesional de béisbol de ese país.

“Maikel es uno de los jugadores de pelota más inteligentes que he visto en mi vida”, manifestó Oswaldo Guillén en alguna rueda de prensa durante los playoffs de aquel enero de 2024.

“Hace todo bien y entiende mejor el juego que cualquiera que tiene 20 años jugando esto”, añadió Guillén, quién fuera el primer manager latino en ganar una Serie Mundial, cuando superó a los Astros de Houston al comando de los White Sox de Chicago en 2005.

Pero… ¿Qué hace tan bueno a Maikel García?

Su capacidad para responder bajo el fuego intenso de la presión, sus buenas manos en un puesto difícil como la tercera base, su bateo tórrido y peligroso, que al combinarse con esa respuesta ante las situaciones al límite, lo hacen brillar por encima del promedio.

En el Clásico Mundial, su ofensiva fue clave: Bateó para .385, con un jonrón, y 7 remolcadas. El cuadrangular de dos carreras ante Japón, para devolver a Venezuela al partido ante los asiáticos, más la remolcada que abrió el marcador en la final frente a Estados Unidos, fueron esenciales en su designación como el mejor jugador del torneo.

“La gente subestimaba a Venezuela. Nunca hablamos del ranking entre nosotros, pero nos subestimaban porque nunca habíamos ganado nada. Es una potencia que nunca había llegado a la final. Demostramos que tenemos la garra y el talento”, manifestó García en la rueda de prensa pospartido.

Para García, que siempre está flanqueado por su primo mayor, Ronald Acuña Jr., nada se compara a lo que vivió en el mes de marzo de 2026.

“Yo quedé campeón con Tiburones, que tenía 38 años sin ganar, y creía que aquello era lo máximo que me podía pasar. Nunca creí que iba a estar en un Clásico Mundial. Puede que gane una Serie Mundial, no lo sé, el tiempo dirá que tiene para mí. Pero esto, ganar el Clásico, por tu país, es lo número uno”, remató el oriundo de un pequeño pueblito en el que se vive y se respira béisbol.

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The post Maikel García, el héroe irreverente y audaz de la Venezuela que ganó el Clásico Mundial de Béisbol appeared first on News Channel 3-12.

By Leah Asmelash, CNN

(CNN) — The rapper Afroman did not defame seven sheriff’s deputies or invade their privacy when he put out a series of catchy, flamboyantly insulting music videos about them after they raided his home in 2022, an Adams County, Ohio jury ruled on Wednesday.

In a three-day trial that pitted two very different notions of personal outrage against each other, Afroman, whose legal name is Joseph Foreman, successfully argued that he had a First Amendment right to mock the deputies, as public figures, and that the over-the-top lyrics of his viral songs could not reasonably be taken as literal statements of fact.

Decked in an American flag-patterned suit and matching sunglasses, Afroman — best known, before the videos that brought him into court, for his 2000 hit “Because I Got High” — turned the proceedings into a display of virality, using the witness stand as one more platform to present the raid as a serious act of wrongdoing, and to insist on his power to make fun of it.

“After they run around my house with guns and kick down my door,” he said during the trial, “I got the right to kick a can in my backyard, use my freedom of speech, turn my bad times into a good time.”

In August 2022, a squad of deputies from the Adams County Sheriff’s Office broke down his door with weapons in hand. He wasn’t home at the time, but a family member recorded videos of the search on their phone, and footage from the house’s security cameras shows the officers tearing through his kitchen.

The officers had a warrant to search for evidence for drug trafficking and kidnapping, according to CNN news affiliate WCPO, but they failed to find anything that would justify charges. By Afroman’s account, the officers left his house torn apart, cut his security video cords, took cash from his home — officials later announced that deputies had merely miscounted the money — and traumatized his kids.

So Afroman took his anger, and his case, to the internet, working to outmaneuver the deputies in the court of public opinion. After uploading the footage of the raid onto his Instagram page shortly after the incident, Afroman remixed it into multiple YouTube videos over the following months — even releasing an album titled “Lemon Pound Cake,” after the moment in the footage in which an officer apparently did a double take at the cake sitting on Afroman’s kitchen island.

“The Adams County Sheriff kicked down my door / Then I heard the glass break / They found no kidnapping victims / Just some lemon pound cake,” he croons in the title track. The music video, from 2022, has more than 3 million views on YouTube.

Beyond criticizing the raid, the barrage of videos also attributed various personal, professional and sexual transgressions to the deputies. The deputies claimed that these were intentional lies that harmed their reputations and made their lives and their jobs more difficult. Deputy Lisa Phillips wept on the stand during a courtroom playing of the song and video “Licc’em Low Lisa,” which fictitiously portrayed her having sex with multiple women.

Asked on the stand about Phillips being upset about the video, Afroman compared it to his own experience, saying she had been standing “in front of my kids with an AR-15, with her hand around the trigger ready to shoot me.

“But I’m not a person. She is,” he said. “I’m sorry for being a victim. Let’s talk about the predators.”

As the officers involved pursued legal action, bringing more attention to the videos, commenters on the videos rallied in support of Afroman.

“Afroman making the whole second half of his career off that raid,” one said.

“Watch the videos and laugh your a** o

VENTURA, Calif. (KEYT) A cannabis trade show called "Hall of Flowers" is underway.

The show is taking place at the Ventura County fairgrounds.

It has a festival vibe.

Industry insiders get a chance to listen to panel discussions.

They are also invited to sample things to eat, drink and smoke.

There are exhibitor booths indoors and outdoors throughout the fairgrounds.

Companies from the Central Coast are taking part, too.

Raw Garden Marketing Vice President Bill Boland grew up when marijuana was illegal.

Now he is helping the industry grow.

"The amazing thing is brand Raw Garden is so driven towards clean cannabis, " said Boland, " They are really pushing this clean cannabis movement and providing a clean product for people to enjoy so that is really exciting, I am glad to see that in the Industry."

Hall of Flowers continues on Thursday, March 19, from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.

Tickets are intended for people who work in the cannabis Industry.

For more information visit https://hallofflowers.com

The post “Hall of Flowers” brings budding cannabis businesses to Ventura appeared first on News Channel 3-12.

The post Here Comes Santa Barbara Coffee Week! appeared first on The Santa Barbara Independent.

By Samantha Waldenberg, CNN

(CNN) — Former US National Counterterrorism Center Director Joe Kent sat Wednesday for an extensive interview with former Fox News host and right-wing podcaster Tucker Carlson, his first public comments since he resigned from his post, citing concerns about the war with Iran.

The interview lasted more than one hour and 40 minutes and covered a wide range of topics, including the ongoing war, but also the assassination of Charlie Kirk and the government’s files on the assassination of former President John F. Kennedy.

Here are the takeaways:

A warning that key decision makers couldn’t express opinions to Trump ahead of war

Kent told Carlson there was limited access to President Donald Trump in the lead up to the war in Iran, saying in part that a “good deal of key decision makers were not allowed to come and express their opinion” to the president.

“In the lead up to this last iteration, good deal of key decision makers were not allowed to come and express their opinion to the president,” Kent said, noting that there was “robust debate” preceding US strikes on Iranian nuclear sites last year.

By contrast, the intelligence community’s ability to offer a “sanity check” when briefing the president “was largely stifled in this second iteration,” Kent said.

“They had that discussion, you know, behind closed doors, and there wasn’t a chance for any dissenting voices to come,” he said later on in the podcast.

A senior Trump administration official told CNN on Tuesday that the White House previously sidelined Kent from participating in the president’s intelligence briefings, including those related to Iran.

‘No intelligence’ Iran was going to launch a ‘sneak attack,’ Kent says

Just one day after resigning from his role, Kent also told Carlson there was “no intelligence” that Iran was going to launch a “big sneak attack” akin to the September 11, 2001, attacks or Pearl Harbor.

“There was no intelligence that said, hey, on whatever day it was, March 1st, the Iranians are going to launch this big sneak attack, they’re going to do some kind of a 9/11, Pearl Harbor, etc. They’re going to attack one of our bases. There was none of that intelligence,” Kent said.

Trump and the the White House have repeatedly cited an imminent threat posed by Iran as an impetus for launching strikes against the country.

Kent further argued that the late Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, who died last month in joint US and Israeli strikes, had been moderating the country’s nuclear program.

“I’m no fan of the former supreme leader, you know, Ali Khamenei, however, he was moderating their nuclear program. He was preventing them from getting a nuclear weapon,” he said, warning, “If you take him out, if you kill him aggressively, people are going to rally around that regime.”

Asked by Carlson if Iran was on the verge of getting a nuclear weapon, Kent replied,“No, they weren’t,” before adding that Iran’s strategy was “to not completely abandon the nuclear program.”

Repeated claims that Israel drew US into Iran war

Kent also said he felt that Israel had pulled the US into the conflict and was broadly influencing American policy in the Middle East.