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Viewpoint: The answer to a more vibrant downtown D.C.? Not more cars.

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 18:55:47 GMT

In an era in which telework is more common and people have more options about where to work and live, D.C. must make downtown a great place where people want to be. The most vibrant cities are achieving this through turning their streets into wonderful, green, people-oriented places. They are prioritizing walking, biking, transit, outdoor cafes, trees, parks, active plazas and the arts.Unfortunately, proposals to favor more commuter cars moving in and out of downtown would take us in the wrong direction. We share the concern of the mayor and business leaders about downtown office vacancies and economy, but more cars will not save downtown. Instead, they would choke off the great progress the city has made in attracting the next-generation workforce and growing our population.When many people can live and work anywhere, they will choose places to work that are attractive, inviting and exciting places to be — places with wonderful parks and great places to socialize after work. Places...

Man rescued from flood waters in Aurora

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 18:55:47 GMT

AURORA, Colo. (KDVR) -- The Aurora Fire Rescue Swift Water Rescue Team got a man to safety after he was trapped in a truck in flood waters overnight. Around 1:15 a.m., dispatch received a call about a man stuck in his truck near 56th Avenue and Jackson Gap Street. AFR said the truck had reportedly been along Second Creek for days before the flooding and it took some maneuvering to locate it. Photos: Flooding around Denver area "It required responders to walk in rising waters about half mile to the scene where they found a truck flooded up above the threshold of the doors and the man inside," AFR said in a release. The rescue team set up two members and firefighters blocked the flow of the water to allow the man to be walked out safely. No one was injured in the rescue, AFR said.

Photos: Flooding around Denver area

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 18:55:47 GMT

DENVER (KDVR) -- A record amount of rainfall for May 11 totaled 2.92 inches and the rain didn't taper off until late Friday morning. The excessive precipitation flooded streams, creeks, trails, roads and several other areas in Denver and surrounding areas. Drivers caught on camera traveling through flood waters FOX31's SkyFOX flew over the metro and captured some aerial photos of the standing water. Flooding in Denver area, May 12, 2023 (photo credit: KDVR) Flooding in Denver area, May 12, 2023 (photo credit: KDVR) Flooding in Denver area, May 12, 2023 (photo credit: KDVR) Flooding in Denver area, May 12, 2023 (photo credit: KDVR) Flooding in Denver area, May 12, 2023 (photo credit: KDVR) Flooding in Denver area, May 12, 2023 (photo credit: KDVR) Flooding in Denver area, May 12, 2023 (photo credit: KDVR) Flooding in Denver area, May 12, 2023 (photo credit: KDVR) Flooding in Commerce City, May 12, 2023 (photo credit: KDVR) Flooding in Commerce City, May 12, 2023 (photo credit: KDVR...

Police investigate bomb threat reported at several Broward schools

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 18:55:47 GMT

Students at several South Florida school were evacuated due to a threat. Hollywood Police arrived at South Broward High School, located at 1901 N. Federal Highway, Friday morning. According to the Broward Sheriff’s Office, a bomb threat was called in to law enforcement . Hollywood Police do not believe the threat is credible. Students were evacuated from the school to the campus baseball field as a precaution. Other schools that received similar bomb threats include the following: Coral Glades High SchoolAttucks Middle SchoolBlanche Ely High Schoolhttps://twitter.com/CoralSpringsPD/status/1657065002975600640Police believe that the same person call in all four bomb threats. An investigation is underway as some of the schools have since cleared students to renter. Please check back on WSVN.com and 7News for more details on this developing story.

All lanes on Sagamore Bridge back open after maintenance work wraps up two weeks early

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 18:55:47 GMT

Good news for anyone heading to the Cape – maintenance work on the Sagamore Bridge has wrapped up earlier than expected.All lanes are now open two weeks ahead of schedule, with final touches on the bridge slated to be finished sometime on Saturday or Sunday.The lane closures started earlier this year, with officials originally stating that road work might go on into Memorial Day weekend.In a news release, a spokesperson for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, New England District, confirmed that would not be the case, stating how the contractor performing the maintenance work finished paving operations on the bridge Thursday morning.He said the contractor is expected to return at night over the weekend to finish “permanent line striping” and reopen the sidewalk to pedestrians and cyclists.

Rhode Island park vandalized with ‘racist and hateful’ fake signs

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 18:55:47 GMT

LINCOLN, R.I. (AP) — Authorities in Rhode Island are searching for whoever vandalized a popular state park by putting up “racist and hateful” signs that imitate real park signage.The two brown-and-yellow signs were attached with screws to trees at Lincoln Woods State Park. They were quickly removed after being found last weekend and on Thursday, a spokesperson for the state agency that manages the park, Evan LaCross, said Friday.The Department of Environmental Management condemned the signs via social media and emphasized that parks and natural areas “are for everyone to recreate and enjoy.”Another state official called the vandals “morons.”“We think that whoever did this, is posting these signs — whatever their intentions — that they’re hateful morons,” another DEM spokesperson Mike Healey told WLNE-TV in Providence.The park offers a pond, swimming and beach spots, ballfields, fishing, hiking and horse riding trails.State Rep. Mary Ann Shallcross Smith lives in one ...

Venezuelan woman pleads guilty in Vermont case of child sex abuse video

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 18:55:47 GMT

BURLINGTON, Vt. (AP) — A Venezuelan woman who was accused of conspiring with a Vermont man to kidnap and kill a man in South America has agreed to plead guilty to a charge related to a child sex abuse video.Moraima Escarlet Vasquez Flores, also known as Johana Martinez, 40, pleaded guilty on Thursday to aiding and abetting the receipt of child pornography.Last year, Sean Fiore, 39, of Burlington, was sentenced to 27 years in prison after he pleaded guilty to federal charges that he commissioned Vasquez Flores to make videos of a boy being tortured as well as the torture and killing of a man, records show.Vasquez Flores was arrested in Colombia and extradited to Vermont last year. She originally pleaded not guilty to four federal charges in April 2022 and has been detained ever since. A federal judge on Thursday ordered her held pending sentencing in September.Court records say Vasquez Flores sent Fiore a hyperlink in 2018 to a video file depicting what prosecutor...

Recent NL East history should serve as motivation for the struggling Mets

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 18:55:47 GMT

WASHINGTON — This time last year, the Mets were the talk of baseball. They looked as though they were running away with the NL East.Now, they limp into Washington to face the lowly Nationals, a team that has all but been out of postseason contention since Opening Day. However, the Mets (18-20) have only won two more games than the Nationals (16-21). They’re 3-7 in the last 10 games, 4-13 in their last 17 and they’ve lost their last five series, marking the first time they’ve lost five straight since 2012.“It doesn’t matter where you are in May,” Pete Alonso told the Daily News recently. “It matters where you’re at for Game 162.”While this might true, this dismal early-season stretch has left many wondering what happened to a team that won 101 games last season.The circumstances are different this year and though the roster was constructed to model the team from last year, some of the personnel is different as well. And it s...

Biscochitos: New Mexico’s state cookie strikingly similar to Jewish korzhiki

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 18:55:47 GMT

What’s in a name? Maybe a rose by any other name would smell as sweet, but when Elderhostel changed its name to Road Scholar, well, which one would you rather attend?As I write this, I am in Santa Fe, New Mexico, with my friends Anna and Felix Livits of Fullerton on a learning adventure with Road Scholar, the nonprofit educational travel organization for seniors. We are here to learn about New Mexico’s Converso and Crypto-Jews who were expelled from Spain and Portugal during the Inquisition. (Conversos were forced to convert to Christianity; Crypto-Jews have kept their Judaism a secret for centuries.)One of our fascinating lecturers was Isabelle Medina Sandoval, author of “Guardians of Hidden Treasures,” a historical novel about generations of Crypto-Jews, beginning in Spain in the late 1300s and ending in New Mexico. They hid from the Inquisition, seeking freedom in the New World.Dr. Sandoval’s own converted Catholic family, whose ancestors originated from Toledo, Spain, came to Ne...

Oregon GOP walkout threatens abortion, trans bills — and senators’ own careers

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 18:55:47 GMT

By ANDREW SELSKY (Associated Press)SALEM, Ore. (AP) — A boycott by Republican state senators in Oregon threatens to derail hundreds of bills, including on gun control and abortion rights, as a deadline looms that could also upend the protesters’ political futures. Democrats control the Statehouse in Oregon. But the GOP is leveraging rules that require two-thirds of lawmakers be present to pass legislation, which means Democrats need a certain number of Republicans to be there too.Republican and Democratic leaders in the Oregon Legislature met behind closed doors for a second day Thursday to try to bridge the divide as the boycott entered its ninth straight day, with partisan bills on abortion, gender-affirming care and gun control on the line. Lawmakers with 10 unexcused absences are barred from reelection under a constitutional amendment passed overwhelmingly last November by voters weary of repeated walkouts. Several statehouses around the nation, including in Montana ...