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Story of a devastating wildfire that reads ‘like a thriller’ wins Baillie Gifford nonfiction prize

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 10:32:32 GMT

LONDON (AP) — A book about a fire that ravaged a Canadian city and has been called a portent of climate chaos won Britain’s leading nonfiction book prize on Thursday.John Vaillant’s “Fire Weather: A True Story from a Hotter World” was awarded the 50,000 pound ($62,000) Baillie Gifford Prize at a ceremony in London.Chair of the judging panel Frederick Studemann said the book tells “a terrifying story,” reading “almost like a thriller” with a “deep science backdrop.”British Columbia-based writer Vaillant recounts how a huge wildfire that engulfed the oil city of Fort McMurray in 2016. The blaze, which burned for months, drove 90,000 people from their homes, destroyed 2,400 buildings and disrupted work at Alberta’s lucrative, polluting oil sands.Studemann called “Fire Weather,” which was also a U.S. National Book Award finalist, “an extraordinary and elegantly rendered account of a terrifying climate disaster that engulfed a community and industry, underscoring our toxic relationship w...

Se forma potencial ciclón tropical Veintidós en el Caribe, según el Centro Nacional de Huracanes de EE.UU.

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 10:32:32 GMT

(CNN) — El potencial ciclón tropical Veintidós se formó sobre el mar Caribe occidental, según la actualización de las 4 pm del Centro Nacional de Huracanes (NHC por sus siglas en inglés). El sistema de tormentas se encuentra a unas 365 millas (587 kilómetros) al oeste-suroeste de Kingston, Jamaica, con vientos de 35 mph (56 km/h).Actualmente se espera que el sistema se fortalezca hasta convertirse en tormenta tropical a primera hora del sábado, momento en el que se convertiría en tormenta con nombre.La temporada de huracanes aún no termina, ¿cuándo y dónde podrían ocurrir los próximos?Se han emitido avisos de tormenta tropical para Jamaica, Haití, el sureste de las Bahamas y las Islas Turcas y Caicos.El NHC pronostica lluvias totales generalizadas de 127 a 254 mm con acumulaciones potenciales de hasta 406 mm en su camino hasta el lunes por la mañana.Crédito: NOAA“El movimiento inicial es incierto ya que el sistema aún no tiene un centro bien definido, pero el sistema de ...

Taxes, taxes taxes: What's in store for Colorado's special session

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 10:32:32 GMT

DENVER (KDVR) — Colorado lawmakers head back to the Capitol on Friday for a special session to address rising property taxes after Proposition HH failed.Now, Democrats are looking at a scaled-down, one-year version to lower property taxes by handing out uniform refunds under the Taxpayer's Bill of Rights. The tax surplus would then help fund local districts, like schools, libraries and fire departments instead. Denver Auditor decries city’s lack of safe, habitable spaces Bell Policy Center President Scott Wasserman joined “Colorado Point of View” ahead of the special session to walk through the proposals and the pushback.The leader of the left-leaning think tank said a big criticism of Prop HH was that renters felt left out. Now, Wasserman argues legislators need to focus on helping those who are really struggling. "So the question right now is: Who needs the most help, and what would make this biggest impact? So this is why we’re talking about the earned income tax credit," Wasse...

Walmart settlement funds will go to food pantries, diaper programs

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 10:32:32 GMT

DENVER (KDVR) — Colorado Attorney General Phil Weiser announced that $3 million in Walmart settlement funds will go to food banks, pantries and diaper programs throughout the state.The Colorado Department of Law will transfer $2.5 million to the Colorado Department of Human Services to provide funding to their partners, Weiser announced on Thursday. Colorado plastic surgeon sentenced in patient’s death after anesthesia mishap Some $2 million will go to food banks and pantries, while $500,000 is dedicated to diaper programs. The remaining money will be given out as grants."We committed to find a way to use those funds to support people who are struggling with food insecurity, knowing that many people are looking at their groceries saying, 'Can I afford to buy food?'" Weiser said.The funding comes from a settlement Weiser made with Walmart last year for overcharging customers.Food bank demand continues to growUnder the terms of the settlement, the funds will be used to support...

Colorado Buffaloes vs. Washington State: TV channel, time, what to know

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 10:32:32 GMT

DENVER (KDVR) — The University of Colorado Buffaloes and head coach Deion Sanders have two games left in the season, both on the road. And if they are looking at bowl eligibility, they'll need to win out.The first matchup comes Friday night against Washington State. The Buffs and the Cougars are both 4-6, meaning this should be a pretty evenly matched game for the prime-time audience. CU football announces 2024 Big 12 opponents The bigger hurdle comes next week when the Buffs travel to Utah two days after Thanksgiving.How to watch Colorado vs. Washington State on TVWhile this is a Pac-12 matchup, fans won't need to dig too far into their cable bundles to watch it. FS1 is generally included in the lower-tier packages.CU vs. Washington State kickoff: 8:30 p.m. MTChannel: FOX Sports Where to watch CU Buffs games in Boulder: Bars, breweries and pubs Forecast for Colorado vs. Washington StateFriday’s game will be held in Everett, Washington at Washington State University. The high te...

MBTA needs $24.5 billion to fix system, officials say

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 10:32:32 GMT

MBTA officials have long been sounding the alarm about the poor state of the system’s infrastructure and lamenting years of disinvestment, and on Thursday they put an eye-watering new price tag on the myriad issues that have piled up: $24.5 billion.The T published a new analysis of the quality of its trains, tracks, signals, construction equipment and other assets, confirming the dire state of the system that is widely understood but has not been quantified in four years.Nearly two-thirds of all MBTA assets are not in a state of good repair, and it would cost $24.5 billion to fix all of those issues, the agency concluded in its latest assessment. That figure includes the costs only of addressing current problems, not regular maintenance for infrastructure in a state of good repair nor expansions, electrifications and other large-scale projects.The new estimate is nearly two and a half times more expensive than the last capital needs assessment produced in 2019 under the B...

Thousands lose power, roads flood as heavy rain and high winds lash South Florida metro areas

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 10:32:32 GMT

(CNN) — Torrential rain and powerful winds knocked out power across South Florida metro areas and prompted school closures on Thursday.Overnight flash flood warnings expired early Thursday, but South Florida could see periodic light rainfall through the day, particularly along the East Coast.Flood watches that affected millions across southeastern Florida have ended but a watch remained in place for nearly 1.5 million people along eastern Florida through the evening. High wind alerts are also in place across southern and eastern Florida, with 60 mph gusts expected in some areas.As of around 7 a.m. Thursday, more than 125,000 homes and businesses were without power in Florida, with Miami-Dade County accounting for more than half of those outages, according to outage tracking website Poweroutage.us.Even though the heaviest rainfall moved off the southeastern coast of Florida Thursday morning rain was still impacting areas where the soil is already saturated.“Drainage wi...

MBTA Police chief says new contract raises will boost competitiveness

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 10:32:32 GMT

Transit Police Chief Kenneth Green said the new four-year contract approved by the MBTA Board of Directors on Thursday will boost competitiveness and increase retention at a department that was losing 10 to 12 officers per year.The retroactive agreement between the MBTA and Police Association includes a roughly 18% wage increase over four years, from July 1, 2023 to June 30, 2027. The average annual raise is approximately 4.5%, the T said in a statement.Green, a 32-year Transit Police veteran, said the number of people applying to become police officers has declined sharply since he took his exam, from roughly 40-50,000 to 8-9,000.“That pool is being picked out by over 300 police agencies in the state, but with this new contract, what it does is it goes a long way in helping us stabilize our department, as well as to increase the headcount of the MBTA police department,” Green said. “It makes us very competitive with other departments to obtain new hires.”Related ArticlesPolitics | ...

Chris Christie returns to New Hampshire as poll numbers surge

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 10:32:32 GMT

CONCORD, N.H. — Former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie was back in the Granite State on Thursday for a string of campaign events which come just as his run toward the Republican nomination seems to be gathering some steam.Christie started the day on Main Street in Concord at the Bank of New Hampshire Stage, where he joined a veterans forum hosted and broadcast by the radio program Good Morning New Hampshire. The former federal prosecutor was then scheduled to head toward the seacoast for a business roundtable in Portsmouth, followed by a town hall in Hampton.With Christie just back from a trip to Israel, where he surveyed some of the towns struck by Hamas backed terrorists on October 7, the forum’s conversations touched briefly on the conflict in the Middle East, but focused primarily on the sacrifices made by U.S. service members and the government’s responsibility to veterans.On the subject of service, Christie posed a question he said should be answered “as a gen...

MBTA says it will cost $24.5 billion to bring system into ‘state of good repair’

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 10:32:32 GMT

The MBTA estimates that it will cost a whopping $24.5 billion to bring its dilapidated system into a “state of good repair,” a price tag that has spiked by $14.5 billion since the agency’s last capital needs analysis was conducted in 2019.The assessment, results of which were released by the T on Thursday, revealed that 64% of capital assets including tracks, trains, signals and equipment are past the end of their useful life, and are thus in need of rehabilitation or replacement.“The MBTA is one of the oldest transit agencies in the country, and while there are a number of contributing factors, it’s clear that years of underinvestment have added to the cost of bringing our system into a state of good repair,” T General Manager Phillip Eng said in a statement.The “sobering” number, as described by MBTA Board of Directors member Thomas McGee, is more than twice the $10 billion state of good repair estimate the T had been operating under for the past four years.The number represents a...