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California lawmakers advance bill to cool down outside areas at schools

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 11:38:43 GMT

SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) — As California grapples with how to deal with heat waves made more intense by climate change, schools in the state may soon have to come up with plans for cooling down outside play areas by planting more trees and replacing surfaces like asphalt that swelter on hot days.The state Senate passed the legislation that would require public and charter schools and districts to strategize on how to introduce more shade on campus, plant gardens and replace surfaces that hold on to a lot of heat with alternatives such as grass and wood chips. They have a 2027 deadline to start implementing their plans.“We needed this a long time ago,” said state Sen. Caroline Menjivar, a Democrat representing the San Fernando Valley in Los Angeles County. “We are making up for the decades of delay that we’re in right now.”Only a handful of state senators voted against the bill. It would still need approval in the state Assembly.The bill is a starting point that will set schools...

Massive wildfire in southwestern Nova Scotia has coastal town of Shelburne on edge

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 11:38:43 GMT

The largest wildfire ever recorded in Nova Scotia continued to grow Thursday as an adjacent fire in the province’s southwest corner kept the coastal town of Shelburne on edge.In all, there were four wildfires in the province burning out of control on Thursday, including the massive Barrington Lake fire in Shelburne County, which grew to more than 20 square kilometres despite a constant bombardment of water and fire retardant from a fleet of water bombers and air tankers.But a much smaller fire that started Wednesday received immediate attention after it prompted evacuations south of Shelburne, which is home to 1,300 people. Within hours, the local Roseway Hospital was evacuated and residents started preparing to leave.“It jumped up pretty quick with the high winds, low (humidity) and high temperatures,” Dave Rockwood, a spokesman for the Department of Natural Resources, told a briefing Thursday. “We are hitting it very hard and fast.”The two fires have ...

California bill requiring Big Tech to pay for news gains momentum

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 11:38:43 GMT

SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) — A California bill that would force Big Tech companies to pay media outlets for posting and using their news content cleared another critical hurdle Thursday. The measure is among hundreds of bills that passed in the state Senate and Assembly this week before Friday — the last day a bill can pass out of its original chamber and get a chance to become law later this year.The bill, which passed the Assembly floor with bipartisan support, would require companies such as Google and Meta to share with California media companies their advertising revenue stemming from the news and other reported content. The amount would be determined through an arbitration process. The bill would also require at least 70% of the shared revenue go toward journalists’ salaries. Such payments would help local media organizations survive after many have seen their advertising revenues nosedive in the digital era, said the bill’s author, Democratic Assemblymember Buffy Wic...

New Mexico sues manufacturers of ‘forever chemicals’ amid health concerns

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 11:38:43 GMT

SANTA FE, N.M. (AP) — New Mexico’s attorney general and its Environment Department filed suit Thursday against the manufacturers of so-called “forever chemicals,” commonly referred to as PFAS, seeking monetary damages to defray the costs of environmental monitoring and cleanups that they say are inevitable.Attorney General Raúl Torrez said that 21 companies named in the lawsuit have contributed to environmental contamination in New Mexico through their production and distribution of the chemicals, despite knowing for decades that the compounds pose significant risk to human health.“We have to step forward and try to protect our community … to hold corporations accountable who have for too long placed their bottom line and placed quarterly profits ahead of the interests of our community, over our natural environment and over public health,” Torrez said at a news conference Thursday in Albuquerque.PFAS, which stands for per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, have been linked...

Sotheby’s buys modernist Breuer building from Whitney Museum, will move NYC galleries there

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 11:38:43 GMT

NEW YORK (AP) — The auction house Sotheby’s will buy the modernist Marcel Breuer-designed building that housed New York’s Whitney Museum of American Art for nearly 50 years, Sotheby’s announced Thursday. Sotheby’s will start moving its New York sale room and galleries to the Breuer building on Madison Avenue in 2024 and will open to the public the following year, the auction house announced.“We are honored to acquire and write the next chapter of such an iconic and well-known New York architectural landmark,” Sotheby’s Chief Executive Officer Charles F. Stewart said in a statement. The cantilevered Madison Avenue building designed by the Hungarian-born Breuer opened in 1966 as the third home of the Whitney, which had been founded in 1930 to showcase American art. The five-story granite and concrete structure is considered an important example of the architectural style known as brutalism.The building was leased to the Metropolitan Museum of Art fo...

Oath Keeper who guarded Roger Stone before Jan. 6 attack gets more than 4 years in prison

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 11:38:43 GMT

WASHINGTON (AP) — A member of the far-right Oath Keepers extremist group who was part of a security detail for former President Donald Trump ‘s longtime adviser Roger Stone before storming the U.S. Capitol was sentenced on Thursday to more than four years in prison. Roberto Minuta, who was seen on video guarding Stone hours before the riot on Jan. 6, 2021, was among six Oath Keeper members convicted by jurors of seditious conspiracy for what prosecutors said was a violent plot to stop the transfer of power from Trump to President Joe Biden after the 2020 election. Also on Thursday, an Arizona man was sentenced to three years behind bars followed by one year of home confinement for his role in the same plot. Edward Vallejo, a U.S. Army veteran from Phoenix, oversaw a “Quick Reaction Force” at a Virginia hotel that was prepared to deploy an arsenal of weapons into Washington if needed, authorities say.Vallejo and Minuta were both convicted in January of seditious conspiracy, the...

Skilling: Sunny and hot weather to end the week

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 11:38:43 GMT

June opened with Chicago's 4th 90-deg or higher temp of 2023.  The afternoon featured a large lakeshore to inland temp spread thanks to a 7th consecutive day of lake breezes---but shoreline temps weren't quite as cool as in recent days.  At mid-afternoon, temps ranged from a high of 95 at Warrenville, Tinley Park and Carpentersville; 94 at Glen Ellyn and 93 at Hawthorn Woods, Batavia and Oswego-----to 67 just offshore at the Wilmette Harbor buoy and 72 on the shoreline at Lake Forest.Observers scanning the skies in Chicago have watched towering distance cumulonimbus clouds (i.e. "thunderheads" in the distance over sections of Michigan and northwest Indiana—and to the south and west of Chicago.  But storm coverage wasn't as extensive as yesterday when COCRAHS volunteer observers reported as much as 1.78" with t-storms near Yorkville and 1.48" just west of Monee.  Impressive as those totals were, their areal coverage was limited and May closed last night at O'Hare with a paltry 16% of...

Former Playboy model accuses Bill Cosby of drugging and sexually assaulted her in 1969

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 11:38:43 GMT

LOS ANGELES (AP) — A former Playboy model who alleges Bill Cosby drugged and sexually assaulted her and another woman at his home in 1969 sued him Thursday under a new California law that suspends the statute of limitations on sex abuse claims.In her lawsuit, Victoria Valentino, 80, says she was an actress and singer 54 years ago, when she met Cosby, now 85. The comedian and actor later approached her at a Los Angeles café, where he spotted her crying over the recent drowning death of her 6-year-old son. The Associated Press does not identify people who say they have been sexually assaulted unless they come forward publicly. New York prosecutors seek to garnish R. Kelly’s earnings Cosby offered to pay for a spa treatment for Valentino and a friend, and then sent a chauffeured car to pick the women up for dinner. That evening at a steakhouse, Cosby gave them each a pill, she said in the court filing. “Here! Take this!” the lawsuit alleges Cosby said to them. “It will make you feel ...

Actor James Van Der Beek criticizes DNC for not allowing Biden debate

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 11:38:43 GMT

(The Hill) — Actor James Van Der Beek criticized the Democratic National Committee (DNC) on Wednesday over its decision not to sponsor any primary debates with President Biden ahead of the 2024 election.Van Der Beek, best known for his role in the 1990s' teen drama "Dawson’s Creek," suggested that Biden has “obviously declining mental faculties” and accused the DNC of “openly ignoring, bypassing the will of the people.” Biden falls on stage during Air Force graduation ceremony “I cannot get over the fact that the Democratic National Committee is saying there will not be a debate to decide the nominee for president,” Van Der Beek said in a TikTok video on Memorial Day. “Are you f------ kidding me?” “There’s no debate?” he continued. “There’s no debate over an 80-year-old man who, if he lives, would be the oldest sitting president in the history of the country? And if he doesn’t live, has a vice president whose approval rating is worse than his?” “You are shoehorning your pick ...

Trump responds to Biden's fall on stage: 'Well, I hope he wasn't hurt'

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 11:38:43 GMT

(The Hill) – Former President Trump appeared to commiserate with President Biden over his fall at the Air Force Academy commencement on Thursday, recalling his own unsteady walk down a “slippery” ramp at the West Point commencement in 2020.“Well, I hope he wasn’t hurt,” Trump said during one of several appearances in Iowa on Thursday, after a member of the crowd informed him of the incident to a chorus of cheers.“You gotta be careful about that because you don’t want that, even if you have to tip toe down the ramp,” he added. Biden falls on stage at Air Force graduation Trump faced scrutiny over his tentative walk down a ramp at the close of commencement exercises at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point in June 2020.“That was the best speech I think I’ve ever made, and it was pouring rain and it was horrible and cold and windy,” the former president said on Thursday. “And they have a ramp that was pure like an ice-skating rink, and it was like 25 feet long.”“I’m talking to the ...