Interblock partners with Kangwon Land and KOMSCO to enhance casino gaming tech

Technology

Interblock Gaming, a global leader in luxury table gaming products, has announced a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with Kangwon Land and the Korea Minting and Security Printing Corporation (KOMSCO).

This strategic partnership focuses on the joint development of innovative casino game cards and electronic shoes designed to enhance gaming operations and expand the reach of South Korea’s gaming industry on a global scale.

The agreement, signed at the Conrad Hotel in Seoul on December 27, 2024, represents a milestone in the localization and technological advancement of casino gaming equipment. The collaboration will combine the expertise of the three organizations to produce casino game cards and cutting-edge electronic shoes capable of recognizing unique card identifiers. These advancements aim to improve game security, prevent dealer errors, and mitigate fraud, ensuring a more seamless and trustworthy gaming experience for casinos worldwide.

Interblock will lead the development and marketing of the electronic shoe, bringing its extensive expertise in advanced gaming technology to the partnership. Kangwon Land will manage the assembly and production of the electronic shoe hardware, while KOMSCO will develop and manufacture the high-quality casino game cards. The products will be integrated into Kangwon Land’s operations and distributed to domestic and international markets, establishing South Korea as a significant player in the global gaming equipment industry.

Commenting about the partnership, John Connelly, Interblock’s Global CEO, said: “This deal marks an exciting opportunity to bring innovative solutions to the global casino market. By combining our technological capabilities with the expertise of Kangwon Land and KOMSCO, we are confident in our ability to deliver products that set new standards for security, efficiency, and reliability in the gaming industry.”

The global casino market is currently dominated by electronic shoe and card production from major manufacturers in Japan and the United States. This partnership aims to shift the paradigm by localizing production in South Korea and positioning the country as a leader in the casino equipment sector. Kangwon Land’s annual usage of approximately 660,000 decks of cards highlights the opportunity to reduce costs, prevent the outflow of foreign currency, and generate revenue through exports.

“This MOU is more than a partnership; it is a vision to transform the casino gaming equipment manufacturing sector,” the three parties stated jointly. “Together, we aim to be game-changers in the global market, delivering innovative and reliable products that redefine the standard for gaming operations.”

Interblock remains committed to driving innovation and advancing the gaming industry through strategic collaborations. This partnership underscores the company’s dedication to fostering cutting-edge technology and creating value for its global partners and customers.

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Minnesota school district removes LGBTQ children’s book with nudity, despite objections

Arts & Culture, Books

A Minnesota public school district defended its decision to pull an LGBTQ children’s book from its elementary school shelves, despite facing objections from some parents and school librarians.Rochester Public Schools said it pulled the 2022 book, “The Rainbow Parade” by Emily Neilson, from its elementary school media center last month after a Franklin Elementary School parent raised concerns about nude illustrations in the book.The book tells a story about a young girl going to her first Pride parade with her two moms. Several pages within the book have illustrations depicting full or partial public nudity, including two men in bondage gear.  Participants hold a rainbow flag during a Pride Parade in Bangkok, Thailand, on June 4, 2023.  (AP Photo/Sakchai Lalit)VIRGINIA MOTHER DECLARES ‘VICTORY’ AFTER SCHOOL SYSTEM QUIETLY REMOVES ‘X-RATED’ LGBTQ GRAPHIC NOVEL”The sidewalk outside is filled with people waiting for the parade to start. Everyone is wearing whatever makes them feel most like themselves. Even if that means wearing hardly anything at all,” the text reads.After concerns were raised by a parent, the book was reviewed by a committee comprised of librarians, community members and teachers, who ultimately recommended the district keep the book on the shelves, according to a report in The Minnesota Star Tribune.”Not all books are for everyone, but our goal is to have books that represent all students in our school district,” said Tammy Van Moer, library media specialist at Rochester Public Schools, according to the report.  SF Pride grand marshal public poll choice Vinny Eng greets the crowd during the 52nd Annual San Francisco Pride Parade and Celebration on June 26, 2022, in San Francisco, California.  ((Photo by Justin Sullivan/Getty Images))CALIFORNIA HIGH SCHOOL TEACHER CAUGHT IN PROFANITY-LACED RANT AGAINST TRUMP PUT ON ADMINISTRATIVE LEAVEHowever, Superintendent Kent Pekel decided to remove the book from elementary school libraries, saying the nudity shown was inappropriate for younger children. “My decision to direct the removal of the book The Rainbow Parade from our elementary media center shelves is not based upon restricting student access to a viewpoint, message, idea, or opinion. It is based solely upon the depiction and celebration of public nudity in illustrations on two pages of the book. I believe that the depiction of public nudity makes the book inappropriate for the open shelves of a media center in an elementary school where students as young as kindergarten can access the book without adult supervision or guidance,” he wrote.School board members expressed mixed opinions on the superintendent’s decision, with some members wondering aloud if removing the book would take the district down a “slippery slope” and set a “precedent” for removing other LGBTQ books from school libraries.The board ultimately approved sending the superintendent’s recommendation to the Minnesota Department of Education, the Tribune reported. GLSEN’s “Rainbow Library” program offers free LGBTQ+ affirming literature to schools across the U.S. (GLSEN Arizona/YouTube)PARENTS AND TEACHERS BATTLE IN MARYLAND COUNTY OVER ‘SEXUALLY EXPLICIT’ BOOKS IN SCHOOLAfter the topic was brought up at the January 7 school board meeting, Superintendent Pekel vowed there would be “no backtracking” on their schools’ commitment to LGBTQ students and families, after repeated outbursts from one parent angry about the district’s decision.”There will be no slippery slope on backtracking on books that celebrate the lived experiences of LGBTQ students and families,” he pledged.He also clarified that the nudity alone was the reason for his decision and not other content in the book some might find objectionable, such as two men dressed in bondage gear or a protest sign reading “Silence equals death.”When reached for comment, Rochester Public Schools provided Fox News Digital with Pekel’s previous memo to the board.The district’s decision comes at a time when books with explicit content in school libraries are being challenged by parents. The issue of sexually explicit LGBTQ books in public schools has brought parents on both sides of the issue out to school board meetings to express their opinions on the matter. (David McNew/Getty Images)CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APPThe American Library Association (ALA), the oldest and largest library nonprofit in the world, has been an outspoken champion for “banned” books in children’s libraries. In 2023, the top ten challenged books were all challenged due to explicit sexual content. During National Library Week last year, the ALA claimed that the “censorship” of sexually explicit books in children’s libraries is discriminatory to the LGBTQ+ community.Fox News’ Jamie Joseph contributed to this report.

Zuckerberg calls on US to protect Tech Companies from EU Fines

Technology

Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg said the U.S. government under President Donald Trump should step in to prevent the European Union from fining U.S. tech companies for antitrust and other violations.“I think the strategic advantage of the United States is that we have some of the most powerful companies in the world, and I think part of the U.S. strategy should be to protect them,” Zuckerberg said on “The Joe Rogan Experience.”
He added that he believes Trump, as the new president, supports that approach. “I think he just wants America to win,” Zuckerberg said.
Multi-billion dollar fines

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Zuckerberg has criticized the EU for the fines it has imposed on U.S. tech giants over the past two decades, saying they totaled “more than $30 billion.” In November last year, Meta was fined 797 million euros for violating EU antitrust rules, which included imposing unfair terms on advertising providers.
He called such penalties “almost like a tariff” on American tech companies, criticizing President Joe Biden’s administration for inaction.
“If another country were disrupting an industry that’s important to us, the U.S. government would probably find a way to put pressure on us,” he said. “But here we got the exact opposite result — the U.S. government led the crackdown on companies, giving the EU a free hand to do whatever it wanted with American companies.”
Changes in Meta Policy
Zuckerberg’s appearance on Rogan’s podcast comes just days after he announced the end of Meta’s fact-checking program, moving to a “community notes” model. The move is seen by many as an attempt to bring the company closer to the Trump administration, which has previously criticized its content moderation policies as censorship with a left-wing political slant.
Meta also announced on Friday that it was ending its diversity, equality, and inclusion (DEI) programs, citing changes in the “legal and policy landscape” as a key factor, Politico reported.
Photo: Wikipedia

Taking their shot

2024 Election

Good Colorado Sunday morning, friends. I’m a gatherer, not a hunter. I’ll eat anything grown in my yard — or yours — and have zero qualms about consuming foraged berries or mushrooms or bread made from a culture that sat in a jar on the counter for weeks. I used to casually hang around my…

Brooke Shields tackles aging and the pressure to remain forever young in new book

Arts & Culture, Books

On the Shelf ‘Brooke Shields Is Not Allowed to Get Old’ By Brooke ShieldsFlatiron Books: 256 pages, $30If you buy books linked on our site, The Times may earn a commission from Bookshop.org, whose fees support independent bookstores. “I was doing an Instagram Live and people were saying, ‘I really wish you looked like you used to,’” Brooke Shields tells The Times from her hotel room in Los Angeles. If Shields is getting criticized about her looks, what hope is there for the rest of us? That’s one of the quandaries at the center of Shields’ latest memoir about aging, “Brooke Shields Is Not Allowed to Get Old.”“The past books that I’ve written, except for the children’s books, have all been based on one event that was truly traumatic for me, so that was the impetus,” says Shields, who previously wrote books about her postpartum depression and complicated relationship with her manager mother. “This one didn’t have that, so it was a little unnerving for me in the beginning.” But that “made it even more exciting to write — and much more enjoyable to read the audio book.”Shields wasn’t even sure she wanted to write this book, originally suggested to her by her agent as a continuation of the conversation she started with her podcast, “Now What? With Brooke Shields,” and in keeping with her hair care line, Commence, designed for mature tresses. The former child star had recently revisited her past in the Emmy-nominated documentary “Pretty Baby,” named for the controversial 1978 movie in which Shields played a young sex worker, and headlined a song-filled, one-woman show titled “Previously Owned by Brooke Shields.” (Flatiron) “Did we really need more of me out there? The documentary was a lot. ‘Do you really need it, Brooke?’ I always get really cringey about that stuff,” she says, channeling her internal debate about embarking on the project.“But as I was thinking about it, it’s indicative of age to feel this desire and need to look at where I am in my life and look back differently, but don’t stay looking back,” she adds, deciding whether she could “make it funny, irreverent, silly but truthful and have it be positive for women, instead of what we’re taught to fear about age, supported or negated by stats and studies, then that to me would be an interesting read.”As with Shields’ aforementioned other recent projects, she was primed to consider what this moment in her life meant in the wider context of societal willingness to talk about menopause.“Not only is this happening to me, but it’s happening to other women,” she points out.Shields is willing to poke fun at herself — and she doesn’t take herself too seriously, as past comic turns in shows such as “Suddenly Susan” and “Friends” attest. People address the former Calvin Klein model by name on the street, but that same name can also be a rallying cry for her when her confidence has been shaken.“You’re FBS: F—ing Brooke Shields,” her friends will bolster her at such moments. There’s a particularly entertaining anecdote in the book about her daughter borrowing her designer clothes. Shields felt they should be saved for a special occasion, to which her daughter replies with the above line — minus the expletive.Shields once would have objected to such talk about her celebrity or beauty. “I used to go, ‘Oh, God. Stop.’ Because to me it felt like arrogance,” she says, noting that her outsize reputation meant she was perhaps overlooked for more serious roles or that people she wanted to work with had preconceived notions of what she was able to do. But now she leans into the recognition: It’s allowed her to make a living and gotten her to a point in her career where she’s now the subject of retrospectives and reconsideration — whether by “Pretty Baby” director Lana Wilson or by turning the mirror back on herself.“I’m not comparing myself to Marilyn Monroe but — and I say it in the book — when someone in the public eye dies at their most youthful and famous, they become immortalized at that age,” she observes. “When you don’t do that,” people can be dissatisfied. “I can’t be this idol anymore because I don’t look like I did in ‘Blue Lagoon’ anymore, or whatever.”Though there’s much more in “Brooke Shields Is Not Allowed to Get Old,” an apt takeaway is “WWFBSD — What Would F—ing Brooke Shields Do?” More to Read

Tech giants who vilified Trump are now giving him millions

Technology

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Former President Donald Trump motions to the crowd during the NRA-ILA Leadership Forum at the Indiana Convention Center in Indianapolis on Friday, April 14, 2023. (IBJ photo/Mickey Shuey)

On Jan. 7, 2021, when Meta suspended Donald Trump’s Facebook account after the U.S. Capitol riot, company chief Mark Zuckerberg said the risks of allowing the then-president to keep using the service after inciting a “violent insurrection” were “simply too great.” Trump would go on to blame Zuckerberg for his 2020 election loss, threatening him with life in prison.
On Tuesday, exactly four years later, Zuckerberg sang a different tune. As part of an announcement shared first with Fox News, Zuckerberg said that Trump’s win in the November election marked “a cultural tipping point” on speech and that he was terminating Facebook’s “politically biased” fact-checkers, who he said had destroyed public trust. Asked at a news conference that day whether Zuckerberg’s move was a response to Trump’s threats against him, Trump said, “Yeah, probably.”
Meta’s about-face on Trump reflects a broader pattern in Silicon Valley, where tech executives for years had adopted a defensive stance toward the man who had once declared them enemies of the American way of life.
Fearing retribution and craving a role in Trump’s decision-making, the tech giants have seemingly shelved old disagreements and are proclaiming their excitement for working with the incoming administration. And Trump, who has promised some donors favorable policies, has made clear that he expects nothing less.
After giving sparsely to the presidential inaugurations of Trump in 2017 and Joe Biden in 2021, the country’s biggest tech firms—Amazon, Google, Meta, Microsoft, Uber—have showered the president-elect with gifts or pledges of $1 million each. So, too, have OpenAI chief Sam Altman and Apple chief Tim Cook, the latter of whom had said that the Jan. 6, 2021, attack was “a sad and shameful chapter in our nation’s history” and that “those responsible for this insurrection should be held to account.”

The attempts at warming ties have moved beyond money. Executives have spoken fawningly of Trump’s ideas and flown to his Mar-a-Lago Club in Palm Beach, Florida, for dinner. During Zuckerberg’s visit, he brought Trump a pair of Meta’s artificial-intelligence camera glasses.
American businesses have a long history of making nice with the new party in power through ostensibly nonpartisan gifts to the inaugural celebrations, and several of the companies have said they welcome the opportunity to mend bridges with a future president.
But the flood of company cash to Trump has broken even the $107 million record set for Trump’s 2017 inauguration. Trump’s fund has reportedly surpassed $150 million, with over a week left before the Jan. 20 inauguration—more than double Biden’s $61.8 million haul. Trump transition officials directed requests for comment to the inaugural committee, which did not respond.
Though the money is earmarked for the revelry that accompanies Washington’s official transfer of power, Trump’s allies can use the funds for other political pursuits. The full slate of contributions is disclosed in federal filings only after the inauguration.
The companies’ charm offensive has drawn criticism, including from conservatives, who have blasted it as kowtowing for corporate self-interest. Sen. Marsha Blackburn, R-Tennessee, said on X that Meta’s change was “a ploy to avoid being regulated.” The conservative commentator Candace Owens said in her podcast, “Now he believes in free speech because of the election results?”
But Trump has appeared to relish the friendliness. In a news conference last month after meeting with tech executives, the president-elect said, “In the first term, everybody was fighting me. In this term, everybody wants to be my friend.”
Brendan Nyhan, a Dartmouth College political scientist, said the companies were adopting a stance of “preemptive compliance” in hopes of protecting themselves from the potential attacks and challenges of a new Trump term.
“Technology companies are performing their support for an incoming administration to decrease the likelihood they’ll be targeted or persecuted,” he said. “It’s demobilizing to people who might otherwise stand up to the administration in business … and for Trump, these tactics work in a costless way. He hasn’t had to do anything. The companies will just pretend all the threats and bluster are forgotten and everyone is getting along.”
Company executives have argued that their support for Trump is fueled by love of their country—and the potential that it could gain them a competitive advantage. Altman, who personally donated $1 million, said in a Bloomberg interview that the gift was a “relatively small thing” and that “we all should wish for the president’s success.”
In 2016, Altman said he was voting against the abusive, “erratic” Trump because he represented “an unacceptable threat to America.” But in the interview, Altman noted that a dream of his industry—software with superhuman reasoning abilities, known as artificial general intelligence—could “get developed during this president’s term, and getting that right seems really important.”
Kevin Madden, a Republican strategist and senior partner at the corporate consulting firm Penta Group, said companies would rather spend money than be sidelined as “spectators” by an administration whose decisions could reshape tech policy for years to come.
“They’ve all been through a decade-long learning process about Trump and the changing Republican Party,” he said. “If you have that opportunity to be at the table, you have to take it.”
The titans of other industries also have pledged support to Trump’s inauguration, including companies that criticized him in the aftermath of the Jan. 6 attack.
Toyota, which said in July 2021 that it would stop donating to members of Congress who contested the 2020 election, said it would give $1 million to Trump’s inaugural fund. The Japanese automaker, which did not donate to the last two inaugurations, has warned about the risks to its business from Trump’s pledges of steep tariffs.
In 2022, the company said it had resumed donating to election deniers but would “not support those who, by their words and actions, create an atmosphere that incites violence.” A Toyota spokesman said in a statement to The Washington Post that “the inauguration of a new president is a time-honored tradition” and that, “like many other companies, Toyota Motor North America is pleased to support” it.
Silicon Valley’s donations are especially notable given Trump’s long-standing attacks on Big Tech. He has accused top tech companies of mass censorship and of secretly participating in his 2020 election loss, calling it “the crime of the century.”
After Trump’s loss, Zuckerberg was repeatedly slammed by Republican lawmakers and influencers, who claimed that he had silenced conservatives and conspired to rig the vote by donating to local election efforts during the pandemic. Facebook, Trump said last year, is “a true Enemy of the People.”
Since then, Zuckerberg has called Trump a “bada–” for his response to an assassination attempt in July and said in an August letter to Rep. Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, that the Biden administration was “wrong” in 2021 when it “repeatedly pressured” his company to take down some covid-related misinformation.
In the weeks since Zuckerberg congratulated Trump on his “decisive victory,” Meta has donated $1 million to Trump’s inaugural fund, named the Trump-allied Ultimate Fighting Championship chief Dana White to its board of directors, and tapped longtime Republican lobbyist Joel Kaplan to lead its global affairs. On Meta’s Threads last month, Kaplan posted a selfie with Vice President-elect JD Vance during a Trump event at the New York Stock Exchange. Meta’s antitrust trial begins in April.
Jeff Bezos, who founded Amazon and owns The Washington Post, also has pledged to give $1 million through Amazon to Trump’s inaugural fund. Amazon gave about $58,000 to the first Trump inauguration and roughly $276,000 worth of “technology services” to the Biden inauguration, which its Prime Video service streamed online.
Bezos, who has clashed with Trump and criticized the then-candidate’s behavior as inappropriate in 2016, has since said that Trump is “calmer” and has “grown in the past eight years.”
He directed The Post’s editorial board to pull a planned endorsement of Vice President Kamala Harris before the election, saying such endorsements undermined news organizations’ credibility, and chatted in December with Trump at a Mar-a-Lago dinner joined by the only man richer than Bezos, X owner Elon Musk.
Bezos’ business interests, including the cloud-computing giant Amazon Web Services and rocket firm Blue Origin, benefit from billions of dollars in federal contracts. But he has argued that his support of Trump is rooted in optimism that the incoming administration will successfully tackle its “regulatory agenda.”
“Why be cynical?” he said in an interview last month. “I think it’s going to be great.”
Some tech companies halted their political spending after the short-lived insurrection. On Jan. 6, 2021, Microsoft President Brad Smith retweeted a statement slamming the “unlawful efforts” to overturn the election and called it a “day to speak up for our Constitution and its values.” The tech giant paused its political action committee donations and in 2022 pledged to withhold funding that election cycle from any congressional Republican who had objected to the election results.
This week, Microsoft said it would donate $1 million to Trump’s inaugural fund, on par with what it had given to Barack Obama’s second inauguration but more than the $500,000 it had given Trump in 2017 and Biden in 2021. The Federal Trade Commission launched an antitrust investigation into Microsoft in November that could take shape during Trump’s term.
Beyond money, the companies are offering to help spotlight Trump’s resurgence to power. Google, which gave $285,000 in cash to the Biden and Trump inaugurations, upped its donation this year to $1 million, and Google’s YouTube – the second-most popular website in the world – will live-stream Trump’s swearing-in with a featured spot on its homepage.
Trump’s Justice Department sued Google over antitrust concerns in 2020, and Trump himself sued the company in 2021, claiming his suspensions on YouTube and other platforms amounted to “blacklisting, banishing and canceling.” Last year, on his Truth Social platform, Trump said that as president he would call to “criminally prosecute” the company “at the maximum levels” for “only revealing and displaying bad stories” about him.
Biden’s Justice Department has pushed to force Google to sell off its Chrome browser to resolve what a federal court said was an illegal online monopoly, and the Trump administration will decide the next steps in the case. Trump, who has recently expressed skepticism about the idea of breaking up the company over fears of Chinese tech gains, dined last month at Mar-a-Lago with Google chief Sundar Pichai and Google founder Sergey Brin, who once said he was “deeply offended” by Trump’s first election win.
By giving $1 million, the companies guarantee their executives access to an assortment of exclusive inaugural festivities: a “candlelight dinner” with Trump and his wife, Melania; an “intimate dinner” with Vance and his wife, Usha; and tickets to such prized gatherings as the “Cabinet Reception” and “Starlight Ball.”
But signing a check could also bring future rewards. Federal Trade Commission Chair Lina Khan, a Biden appointee whose agency has brought antitrust lawsuits against Amazon and Meta, said Tuesday that the attempts to court favor with the incoming administration suggested the companies were angling for “some type of sweetheart deal.”
The moves have drawn ridicule from left-leaning advocacy groups, who said the “capitulation” to Trump even before he took the White House would only deepen in the years ahead.
“These companies have flourished because of a lack of regulation, and these leaders are now making choices that can insulate them down the road,” said Nicole Gill, director of Accountable Tech. She compared Zuckerberg to a school kid who befriends the class bully: “He is willing to do whatever he thinks it will take to stay afloat.”

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Readers and writers: Novels, books for kids and a chance to draw

Arts & Culture, Books

We’ve got an eclectic mix today, from a twisty tale of corruption to two novels inspired by the authors’ Minnesota childhoods, one about a strange-looking cat, and a lively new way to stretch kids’ imaginations.(Courtesy of the author)“Trafficking U”: by D. Greg Scott (Winged Publications, $24.99 hardcover; $14.99 paperback)“Jesse chuckled. Inventing Brooke’s backstory was almost as fun as playing Teena Fay from Green Bay. Almost. But the creeps she was after this time were nastier,  closer to home, and more dangerous than the worst credit-card hustlers on the planet.” — from “Traffic U”Jesse is a bank fraud investigator sipping coffee at her friend’s coffee shop when a terrified young woman rushes to her table pretending she knows Jesse. She is Leilani and this encounter sets off a chain of events in Jesse’s life that lead her to uncover a vast network of sex traffickers, beginning with her discovery of a strange partnership between her bank and a private college that offers young women a work-study program at a remote resort in northern Minnesota. Jesse is fired when she brings this to the attention of top management at her bank, but she keeps digging, learning of women who have been groomed to work at the resort as prostitutes. This is a story in which nobody can be trusted. Interspersed with the contemporary story are Jesse’s memories of being a teenage thief and seller of fake IDs. There’s a lot going on here: a computer nerd who’s Jesse’s ally, murders, attacks on Jesse and her friends, and a scummy couple who pick out which young woman they will groom, especially those having trouble at home. There’s also a fair amount of computer lingo that will interest IT folks. Although the book is described as a Christian novel, the religious theme is subtle. Kirkus Reviews described the novel as “a diverting thriller with thoughtful commentary on a timely issue.”The author wrote for an IT industry publication and was a pioneer in finding online groomers. He earned an MBA from the University of St. Thomas.(Courtesy of the author)“This Sheep Needs Your Help!” and “This Pirate Needs Your Help!”: by David LaRochelle (Candlewick Press, each $10.99)Trust David LaRochelle to come up with new ways to stretch young imaginations. This time the Geisel Award-winning author/illustrator invites youngsters to help a sassy sheep and a pirate out of difficulties by creating dry-erase illustrations using the marker that comes with every book. The lost sheep needs an umbrella, skis and ski poles, among other things. The swashbuckling pirate battles hungry sharks and a monster. Once the young artist has completed the book, the pages can be wiped off to create different illustrations.“Finding ways for the reader to connect with the story is one of the most important elements I consider when making a book,” LaRochelle writes in an author’s note. “… this is the first time I’ve tried connecting the reader to the book by having them draw pictures that complete the storyline. My dream is that these books will reach a wide range of readers, from preschoolers just learning to hold a marker to older kids honing their drawing skills. I hope these books will inspire kids to stretch their imaginations and think outside the box, then erase the pages and try new possibilities.”LaRochelle has been busy with recent publication of such popular books as “See the Cat,” “Go and Get with Rex,” and “Mr. Fox’s Game of ‘No!’”(Courtesy of Nodin Press)“Fumious Rex: The Outcast Cat”: by Freya Manfred, illustrated by Bly and Rowan Pope (Nodin Press, $14.99)“My mother says I’m the first Minnesota Rex Cat.”“You don’t sound very happy about it.”“I’m not. I think she sent me away because I am so different.” — from “Fumious Rex”Fumious Rex’s mother had given birth to a dozen litters but none has looked like Fumious, with his too-big ears, a tail too long and curly hair so short he looks almost hairless. So begins this children’s story of  Fumious, born in the country home of good-natured Bly Barnacle at Rowan Tree Place. After a spat with his three sisters, his mother feels it’s time for the youngster to go into the world. He meets all kinds of cats of many breeds, including big, black mentor Edward S. Heath, as well as a goofy Siamese who keeps changing her name while she leaps and twirls as she talks. Fumious learns there are dangers in the world when he’s almost eaten by the hungry fox who lives in Foxtooth Forest. This story is filled with just enough excitement to keep little ones interested but nothing too scary. The cats’ names are lots of fun and humans are kind.“Fumious Rex” is a collaboration between poet Freya Manfred and twin sons Bly Pope and Rowan Pope. (Husband/dad is screenwriter Tom Pope.) Both men graduated from Stanford University, earned MFAs from the University of Minnesota and teach at the Minneapolis College of Art and Design. Their work is in public and private collections, which isn’t surprising when you see the cats’ expressions and movements in their “Fumious Res” drawings.Freya is the author of 10 poetry collections, the latest of which is “When I Was Young and Old.” She also wrote the memoirs “Raising Twins: True Life Adventure” and “Frederick Manfred: A Daughter Remembers.” They will introduce the book Feb. 1 at Red Balloon Bookshop, 891 Grand Ave., St. Paul.“Stories from the Great River”: by Michael N. Felix (The Black Mountain Press, $16.50)… I didn’t think it right then, but I’ve often wondered about whether you can live on this earth and over the time be worn so fine by the things that have happened, worn so fine that you’re almost translucent, worn so fine that you live in this world and at the same time are not really part of it. — from “Stories from the Great River“From an old Native American hunter honored by his tribe to boys digging a duck pond for a rich guy and trying to eliminate rats in a barn, to a truck driver who has an encounter with a silent woman, these short stories capture Minnesota and her people . Some of the stories about children free to roam the outdoors were inspired by the author’s childhood in a shack with no plumbing in Prior Lake. In other stories men and women try to deal with their lives.“We live two lives. The life we imagine and the one we really live,” the author writes in a forward. “These stories derive from the people and places around the upper reaches of that Great River. They are about people who imagine their lives and struggle to live up to that imagination.”Felix, who lives in Grand Rapids, has given us a book well worth reading, especially if you shared his carefree childhood. He has written seven novels and a science fiction novella. He attended the University of Minnesota and has a master’s degree from Mankato State College.“Sound of a Distant Train”: by Dan Goodier (Independently published, $20)… we couldn’t possibly have predicted the changes coming to my family and to our town, or the amazing occurrences that caused them. Nor could we have predicted how the crushing importance of those events would cause such a massive slipstream effect in our lives, just as the period between 1967 and 1968 shaped the history of our country and the world for all time. — from “Sound of a Distant Train”In his debut novel Dan Goodier looks back to the turbulent years 1957-68, when assassinations of Martin Luther King Jr. and Robert F. Kennedy rocked the nation. The small town of Bay City, Wis., is rocked too, when three of their own are killed. Protagonist Emmett North tells the story as a teenager living a carefree summer of swimming and talking to pretty girls. After the murders, the town has to pull together to counter the bad publicity and refurbishing their image.Part fictional memoir, part coming-of-age, part mystery, this novel is for everyone who recalls being young during those hard years in our nation and anyone who hears the sound of a distant train from their past.The author grew up along the shores of Lake Pepin. He and his wife, Susie, divide their time between Hudson, Wis., and Long Lake in northern Wisconsin.