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Texas man on trip to spread father’s ashes dies of heat stroke in Utah’s Arches National Park

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 11:39:29 GMT

SALT LAKE CITY (AP) — A Texas man whose body was found in Utah’s Arches National Park is believed to have died of heat stroke while on a trip to spread his father’s ashes, according to his sister.James Bernard Hendricks, 66, of Austin, was hiking in the park and likely became disoriented from a combination of heat, dehydration and high altitude, according to Ruth Hendricks Bough.Hendricks had stopped in Utah while journeying across the West to the Sierra Nevada region of Nevada and California to spread his father’s ashes, he said in social media posts prior to his death.Rangers found his vehicle at a trailhead parking lot after Hendricks was reported overdue the morning of Aug 1, according to park officials. Hendricks’ body was found nearby off-trail and his water bottle was empty, Bough said in a social media post.“He was loved by countless people because he was an unusually kind, sweet person who made friends easily. Now all these people are grieving. It was a horrible shock...

Excessive heat warning issued for South Florida

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 11:39:29 GMT

Due to a scorching sun, a weather alert was issued. Now, all of South Florida is under an excessive heat warning, which includes the Florida Keys for the first time. To battle the high temperatures, doctors and first responders are telling people to drink plenty of water because if the body is not properly hydrated, a person could experience a heat stroke. Beating the heat is one race Pamela Giraldo is walking to win. “I’m just doing a mile and then I’m going back inside,” Giraldo said. For Giraldo, she’s cutting back on her usual exercises because of the excessive heat warning. “I usually do four,” she said. Miami-Dade County is encouraging people to be like Giraldo.The excessive heat warning means that the heat index has been at 105 degrees or higher for more than two hours.The County is encouraging people to go indoors where there is air conditioning and shade. “It’s like a sauna outside right now,” Giraldo said. But n...

National Weather Service confirms EF-1 tornado appeared in Mattapoisett

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 11:39:29 GMT

Officials with the National Weather Service confirmed that a tornado appeared in the area of Mattapoisett Tuesday morning.In an update provided by the National Weather Service – Boston/Norton office, officials said that a survey team was in the process of investigating damage after the tornado appeared around 11:30 a.m., while a Tornado Warning for the area was active.“A small EF-1 tornado touched down in the town of Mattapoisett, Massachusetts at 11:20 AM EDT. The storm was on the ground for approximately 3 minutes,” the National Weather Service National Headquarters stated in a report. “The storm moved to the northeast at approximately 20 MPH and lifted off the ground on North Street just north of Eldorado Drive. SKY7-HD later flew over the area and spotted hundreds of downed trees – a number of which landed on various homes, sheds and infrastructure throughout the area. NWS officials said the “most concentrated damage” was along th...

National monument designated around Grand Canyon 

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 11:39:29 GMT

GRAND CANYON NATIONAL PARK, Ariz. — Declaring it good “not only for Arizona but for the planet,” President Joe Biden on Tuesday signed a national monument designation for the greater Grand Canyon, turning the decades-long visions of Native American tribes and environmentalists into reality.Coming as Biden is on a three-state Western trip, the move will help preserve about 1,562 square miles just to the north and south of Grand Canyon National Park. It encompasses canyons, plateaus and tributaries that feed a range of plants and wildlife, including bison, elk, desert bighorn sheep and rare species of cactus, and it is Biden’s fifth monument designation.Tribes in Arizona have been pushing the president to use his authority under the Antiquities Act of 1906 to create a new national monument called Baaj Nwaavjo I’tah Kukveni. “Baaj Nwaavjo” means “where tribes roam,” for the Havasupai people, while “I’tah Kukveni” transla...

Boston city councilor says street sweepers used at Mass and Cass may spread diseases

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 11:39:29 GMT

City Councilor Erin Murphy has filed a hearing order to look into whether street cleaning equipment used in the area of Melnea Cass Boulevard and Massachusetts Avenue is spreading infectious diseases to other parts of Boston.Murphy said the city uses the same cleaning equipment on Southampton, Atkinson and Topeka streets as it does in other neighborhoods, including the South End, Back Bay, Beacon Hill and Bay Village.This creates the potential for contamination traveling from Mass and Cass to those other neighborhoods, Murphy said. She plans to discuss the hearing request at Wednesday’s City Council meeting.“It’s scary what they’re finding and they’re using the same equipment,” Murphy told the Herald. “It’s a public health crisis.”Murphy said she is not concerned with needles being dragged from Mass and Cass, where open-air drug dealing and homeless encampments are rampant, via the street cleaning equipment.Rather, her focus is on concerns she and other lawmakers raised in a letter ...

When might the Orioles’ playoff games be? Here’s the MLB postseason schedule.

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 11:39:29 GMT

The Orioles are leading the American League East with less than two months left in the regular season, positioning Baltimore’s baseball team for its first playoff appearance since 2016.MLB announced its postseason schedule Tuesday, hinting at when the Orioles’ playoff run could begin.If Baltimore is unable to hold its lead in the AL East but lands one of the league’s three wild-card spots (or, in a less likely scenario, wins the division with a worse record than the winners of the AL Central and AL West), the Orioles would appear in the AL wild-card series, which runs Oct. 3-5.In those series, the top two wild-card teams face off while the division winner with the worst record faces the third wild-card team. The higher seed hosts every game in the best-of-three matchup. ESPN will televise both the AL and NL wild-card series.If Baltimore wins a wild-card series or finishes as one of the top two AL division champions, it would advance to the AL Division Series. The b...

MIAA board tweaks handbook

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 11:39:29 GMT

Those hoping for further developments with regards to Bishop Fenwick’s postseason ban will have to wait a bit longer.The MIAA Board of Directors met virtually on Tuesday morning and while a number of topics were covered including the admittance of a pair of schools and rewording of the handbook, discussion over the postseason ban levied on Bishop Fenwick was saved for executive session.Sources going into the meeting said that reconsideration of the ban was unlikely.During public discussion, the Board unanimously voted to accept Brooke Charter School and Codman Academy as members beginning with the 2023-24 school year. Former Malden principal and current head of the Henderson K-12 Inclusion School, Stephanie Sibley, was announced as the board’s new president.Much discussion on the day centered around slight changes and adjustments to the MIAA Handbook. Most of the presentation made by Associate Executive Director Richard Pearson and Assistant Executive Director Phil Napol...

Remote work giant wants workers back in the office

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 11:39:29 GMT

NEW YORK  — The company whose name became synonymous with remote work is joining the growing return-to-office trend.Zoom, the video conferencing pioneer, is asking employees who live within a 50-mile radius of its offices to work onsite two days a week, a company spokesperson confirmed in an email. The statement said the company has decided that “a structured hybrid approach – meaning employees that live near an office need to be onsite two days a week to interact with their teams – is most effective for Zoom.”The new policy, which will be rolled out in August and September, was first reported by the New York Times, which said Zoom CEO Eric Yuan fielded questions from employees unhappy with the new policy during a Zoom meeting last week.Zoom, based in San Jose, California, saw explosive growth during the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic as companies scrambled to shift to remote work, and even families and friends turned to the platform for virtual gatherings. But that...

COVID hospitalizations jump again: How bad is it in San Diego?

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 11:39:29 GMT

(NEXSTAR) – For the second week in a row, the number of people being admitted to the hospital with COVID-19 rose significantly, by more than 12%.An additional 9,056 people were hospitalized with the virus last week, according to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention – that represents a 12.5% jump. The summer wave started a few weeks ago. Last week, the number of new hospitalizations was up 12.1%.In about two dozen states, the surge in hospitalizations is far more than 12%. Alabama, Alaska, Florida, Georgia, Illinois, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Mississippi, Montana, New Hampshire, Pennsylvania, South Dakota, Vermont and Wyoming all saw more than a 20% increase in new COVID hospitalizations. Map: Does your drinking water contain ‘forever chemicals’? New Hampshire saw the biggest jump in a single week – 96%, or a near doubling in the number of people being admitted. Hover over your state on the map (below) to see the percent incre...

Health advocacy work helped to heal Mark Holland during mental health crisis

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 11:39:29 GMT

OTTAWA — Advocating for the health of Canadians gave Mark Holland a sense of purpose he needed to help pull him out of the darkest period of his life, the newly appointed health minister said in an interview. After moving from government House leader to the health portfolio, he says it’s “the dream” to work in a ministerial posting he’s so passionate about. Holland was a career politician when he lost his seat in the 2011 election, serving first as an Ontario city councillor in Pickering and Durham before running for federal office in 2004.When he lost, he fell into despair. “I had lost my sense of professional purpose, I’d lost politics,” he said.He spoke candidly last fall about the mental-health struggle he endured at that time. He was told he was toxic, that no organization would want to hire him. His marriage failed and he was “not in a good place” with his children.Holland said that he had tried to take his own life.“...