Wellborn senior honored with Rising Star scholarship

WELLBORN — Bentley Bean, a senior at Wellborn High School, has been named one of six recipients of the 2024–2025 Rising Star Scholarship, a $5,000 award sponsored by AmFirst Credit Union and WBRC Fox 6.
The scholarship honors students across central Alabama for their academic excellence, leadership and community service.
'I'm very excited that I was chosen,' Bean said . ' I didn't even think I would get the scholarship out of how many kids were selected for it.'
Bean was selected from a competitive pool of 30 'Rising Star' nominees who were featured throughout the academic year by WBRC. Each honoree was chosen for demonstrating perseverance, passion and a commitment to bettering their communities.
'From that pool, six students were selected to receive the $5,000 Rising Star Scholarship to support their educational journey,' the organizations said in a joint announcement.
The winners were announced during an awards ceremony in Birmingham. Along with Bean, scholarship recipients included Kimora Dejarenette of Sylacauga High School, Carleigh Lipscomb of Gadsden City High School, LeeAnn Satterfield of Southside High School, James Murphy Jr. of Minor High School, and Lana Todd of Holly Pond High School.
'We're incredibly proud to continue our partnership with WBRC to highlight and support the next generation of leaders through the Rising Star program,' said Kevin Morris, president and CEO of AmFirst. 'These students are a powerful reminder of the promise our future holds.'
The scholarship program also included the Bill and Pat Connor Scholarship, named in 2025 to honor the legacy of former AmFirst CEO Bill Connor and his wife, Pat. That award went to Ryan Kozlek of Oak Mountain High School, a dependent of an AmFirst employee.
For Bean, the honor represents years of hard work and a promising start to the next chapter of his academic journey. Each scholarship recipient plans to attend a full-time college or trade school beginning in fall 2025.
Bean said she will attend Jacksonville State University and study physical therapy and sports medicine.
Bean's mom, Dia Webb, who is also the principal at Wellborn High School, said she was amazed because there were over 200 applicants for the scholarship.
'We were just floored when we received the call that she was getting the award,' Webb said. 'As one of the recipients we were kind of speechless and I'm so proud that she did this on her own.'
More information on the Rising Star program and this year's honorees is available at WBRC.com/rising-star.

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Associated Press

12-06-2025

• Associated Press

Galaxy Macau Celebrates Standout Industry Recognition with 20 Award Wins at Tatler Best Awards 2025 Hong Kong and Macau

MACAU SAR - Media OutReach Newswire – 12 June 2025 - Galaxy Macau™ ('Galaxy Macau') the world-class luxury resort, is proud to celebrate a total of 20 of its restaurants, bars, and hotels at Galaxy Macau and StarWorld Hotel being recognised at the Tatler Best Hong Kong and Macau Awards 2025. Making it the most awarded luxury resort in Macau, these remarkable achievements highlight Galaxy Macau's unwavering dedication to pursuing excellence. This recognition solidifies the city's homegrown talent and Galaxy Macau as a leader in the global hospitality industry, reaffirming Macau as a world-class destination. Galaxy Macau garnered a total of 20 prestigious accolades at the Tatler Best Hong Kong and Macau Awards 2025. A Stellar Array of Eight Best-in-Class Accolades by Tatler Among all 200 carefully judged venues across Hong Kong and Macau, a stellar line-up of establishments and individuals at Galaxy Macau were recognized as Tatler Best-in-Class – Macau, for their dedication to redefining excellence. Raffles at Galaxy Macau, named 'Best New Hotel', was also home to several award-winning establishments – Sushi Kissho by Miyakawa, awarded the coveted 'Best New Restaurant' in its first year of operation; with Teppanyaki Shou recognized for 'Best Design Restaurant"; and Raffles Lounge & Terrace scooping the 'Best Design Bar' award. Among all, Long Bar garnered twin Best-in-Class accolades, being credited in the Tatler Best 20 Bars – Macau, as 'Best New Bar', in parallel, winning 'Rising Star' of Best-in-Class Bars, as awarded to Long Bar's Chief Mixologist and Bar Manager, Nokoy Mak for being an exemplar of homegrown talent. Raffles at Galaxy Macau was named the 'Best New Hotel (Macau)' in the Tatler Best Awards 2025. Long Bar garnered two Best-in-Class accolades: in addition to being listed on the Tatler Best 20 Bars – Macau, as 'Best New Bar'; Long Bar's Chief Mixologist and Bar Manager, Nokoy Mak (left to right), took home the 'Rising Star' award. Additional awards recognition was attributed to The Macallan Whisky Bar & Lounge, named 'Best Service Bar' for curating extraordinary experiences for guests. Meanwhile, Yam Lok Hin, Executive Pastry Chef of StarWorld Hotel, Galaxy Macau, and Broadway Macau, was crowned the 'Best Pastry Chef' for his ground-breaking innovations and pastry-making flair. A Total of 12 Proprietary Restaurants and Bars Topped the Tatler Best 20 List Five restaurants across Galaxy Macau and StarWorld Hotel were recognized as the Tatler Best 20 Restaurants – Macau. This distinguished list includes 8½ Otto e Mezzo Bombana, Feng Wei Ju, Saffron, Sushi Kissho by Miyakawa and Teppanyaki Shou. A total of seven bars were also included in the list of Tatler Best 20 Bars – Macau, including 8 ½ Otto e Mezzo Bombana, Andaz Bar, Long Bar, Raffles Lounge & Terrace, The Macallan Whisky Bar & Lounge, The Ritz-Carlton Bar & Lounge and the vibrant Goa Nights at Broadway Food Street. After 40 years as the city's definitive dining authority, the Tatler Dining Awards have evolved into Tatler Best, expanding in recognition of the city's top restaurants, bars and, for the first time, hotels. Winners are selected through a rigorous evaluation process involving over 200 reviews conducted by a panel of experts and tastemakers. Tatler Best Hong Kong & Macau aims to spotlight the people and places that continue to redefine the standards of excellence. 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Yahoo

06-06-2025

• Yahoo

DOGE will go on: Hill pork hawk says rooting out government waste will continue after Elon

FIRST ON FOX: While Tesla CEO Elon Musk has departed the Department of Government Efficiency amid a blazing public tiff with the president, congressional DOGE leaders are primed to carry on the legacy well beyond his tenure. "It's never easy to see two friends at odds, but DOGE is bigger than any one person," House DOGE Caucus chairman Aaron Bean, R-Fla., told Fox News Digital on Friday – expressing endearment towards both Musk and President Donald Trump. "Our caucus, with 110 members, is laser-focused on delivering real solutions for the American people, reining in wasteful spending, demanding oversight, and ensuring every taxpayer dollar is spent wisely." Bean said his panel's work rooting out government waste and streamlining the bureaucracy will continue on-track, with a major effort planned next week to change the Treasury's payment system to curb improper disbursements. Drain The Swamp Act Seeks To Move Dc Bureaucracy 'Out Of Crazytown': House Doge Leader The Jacksonville lawmaker said that longstanding issue has led to about $162 billion in wrongful payments every year. During his tenure, Musk also worked with Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent to fix systemic problems there. Read On The Fox News App The House DOGE Caucus will continue to advocate to "enact the cuts found by DOGE," Bean went on. The panel looks forward to working with House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., to pass $9.4 billion in rescissions identified by DOGE and presented to Congress for action by OMB Director Russ Vought. Republicans faced criticism for moving too slowly on DOGE's proposed cuts, but GOP leadership sources said they needed either a formal request from Vought or separate bills outside the Big Beautiful Bill Act to avoid jeopardizing its eligibility for Senate reconciliation. Doge Meets Congress: Fl Rep Launches Caucus To Help Musk "Taking on Crazytown is no easy task," Bean quipped to Fox News Digital last November when he launched the House DOGE Caucus. On the Senate side, DOGE caucus chairwoman Joni Ernst, R-Iowa, scrutinized a recent government report on COVID aid fraud and has already launched an effort to head off what she called easily-determinable signals that an application for government emergency aid is likely falsified or ineligible. Ernst this week flagged an analysis from the Pandemic Resources Accountability Committee – led by federal inspectors general – that randomly sampled nearly 700,000 identity records from 67.5 million applications for PPP, EIDL and other COVID-19 relief programs and found nearly $80 billion in potentially fraudulent payouts. Ernst said much of the likely fraud could have been prevented if officials had simply verified Social Security numbers, matched them with SSA records, and confirmed whether applicants were still alive. In turn, she informed Fox News Digital exclusively that she would be launching a bill Friday to prevent this kind of easily-avoided oversight issues in the future. The DOGE in Spending Act would prevent "con artists," she said, who, during COVID-19, "raided America's piggy bank." The bill's name also signaled that the Senate, too, would continue its Musk-inspired work long after the mogul has left. "There is nothing more frustrating than losing billions of dollars to preventable fraud," Ernst said, calling the illicit payouts during the pandemic "unprecedented."Original article source: DOGE will go on: Hill pork hawk says rooting out government waste will continue after Elon

Associated Press

29-05-2025

• Associated Press

MassRobotics Announces Recipients of 2025 Robotics Medal Recognizing Accomplishments of Women in Robotics

BOSTON, MA / ACCESS Newswire / May 29, 2025 / MassRobotics, a leading robotics innovation organization, announced its 2025 Robotics Medal and Rising Star recipients at the IEEE ICRA conference in Atlanta. The Robotics Medal is the world's first major award to recognize the wide-ranging impact of female researchers focusing on the development of robotics around the globe. The Robotics Medal is awarded to a nominated woman researcher in robotics to recognize her impactful contributions to the field and includes a $50K prize awarded to the individual. The Rising Star Medal recognizes up-and-coming women making strides and advancing the field of robotics and includes a $5K award given to the individual. The 3rd Annual MassRobotics Robotics Medal award, sponsored by Amazon Robotics, is presented to Dr. Maja Matarić, Chaired and Distinguished Professor of Computer Science, Viterbi School of Engineering, University of Southern California,for her pioneering work in the field of socially assistive robots and for making significant advancements to the field of distributed robots and learning in human-robot systems. Dr. Tania Morimoto, Associate Professor of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering at the University of California, San Diego, is awarded the MassRobotics Rising Star in Robotics Medal for her contributions to novel soft and flexible medical robots and human-machine interfaces designed to improve access to high-quality care. To encourage diversity in the field of robotics, Amazon established an endowment with MassRobotics in 2022 to support these annual awards. The purpose of The Robotics Medal is to not only celebrate individual achievements, but to inspire and encourage women and other underrepresented groups to participate in shaping the future of the world through robotics. 'As the founding sponsor of the Robotics Medal, we aim to recognize and honor female robotics professors around the globe who have made remarkable contributions to advancing robotics technology,' explained Tye Brady, who serves as both the chief technologist at Amazon Robotics and chairperson of MassRobotics' board. 'We are deeply grateful for the invaluable insights and educational contributions provided by both Dr. Matarić and Dr. Morimoto to our physical AI community and we're proud to support this recognition in honor of their achievements.' Since 2017, MassRobotics has grown from a Massachusetts-based incubator to a global robotics hub, helping support the adoption of robotics worldwide and providing startups with the resources needed to grow and scale. Of the current 95+ startups that MassRobotics houses at its facility in Boston, more than 50% are from out of state and 25% are from outside the U.S. MassRobotics hosts STEM and robotics initiatives specifically developed for high school women and continues to promote women in robotics through events and networking to ensure women are recognized and heard. Over the past five years the MassRobotics Jumpstart Fellowship program has graduated nearly 100 students who have since enrolled in notable universities including MIT, Harvard, Northeastern, Boston University, Stanford, Georgia Tech, University of Michigan, Purdue University, and the University of Massachusetts. Although strides are being made and women now make up 48 % of the total workforce, just 34% of the STEM workforce is made up of women, and only 16% are in engineering and robotics roles, according to the National Girls Collaborative Project. Nominations for these awards came from around the United States including Texas, Washington, Massachusetts, Illinois, Minnesota, New York, and Pennsylvania, as well as across the globe from countries including Canada, Japan, Germany, Spain, Netherlands, Switzerland, and India. Submissions spanned a wide range of robotic technology fields and areas of research, from new materials for gripping, exoskeletons and assistive technologies, human robot interaction, and motion planning. 'We were thrilled by the overwhelming number of qualified nominations we received and impressed with the diversity of robotic fields and research happening across the globe,' said Joyce Sidopoulos, cofounder at MassRobotics. 'It reflects the contributions women have made, and inspires the next generation who will make an impact in this expanding field touching nearly every industry.' The Robotics Medal and Rising Star recipients were selected by a committee of robotics experts, led by MassRobotics, which convened several times and methodically evaluated the significance, depth, and originality of technical contributions each nominee has made in the overall field of robotics. 'Robotics as a field advances most rapidly when it draws from diverse intellectual perspectives and technical approaches. The contributions of leading female researchers have been instrumental in solving some of the most challenging problems in our discipline,' said Daniela Rus, Director of the Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (CSAIL) at MIT and member of the MassRobotics board. 'The Robotics Medal recognizes the exceptional scientific achievement and technical innovation that has fundamentally advanced the field.' A formal Gala awarding the medals and celebrating the recipients will be held in Boston at the MIT Samberg Conference Center on October 25, 2025. Tickets, reserved tables, and sponsorship opportunities for the event are available here. MassRobotics has created an endowment and welcomes contributions to support future cash prizes for The Robotics Medal. Contact [email protected] to learn about becoming an underwriter of The Robotics Medal. Nominations for the 2026 Robotics Medal and Rising Star are open until December 20th, 2025. More information can be found here. About MassRobotics MassRobotics is the world's largest independent robotics hub dedicated to accelerating robotics innovation, commercialization, and adoption. Our mission is to help create and scale the next generation of successful robotics and AI technology companies by providing entrepreneurs and startups with the workspace, resources, programming, and connections they need to develop, prototype, test, and commercialize their products and solutions. While MassRobotics originated and is headquartered in Boston, we reach and support robotics acceleration and adoption globally. We work with startups, academia, industry, and governments both domestically and internationally. See for details. CONTACT: Sayo Tirrell [email protected] SOURCE: MassRobotics press release