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Foothills and high country fire crews urge residents to stay vigilant to avoid wildfires

Published Tue, 24 Dec 2024 00:45:27 GMT

EVERGREEN, Colo. (KDVR) -- Two fires in as many days has communities in the foothills and the high country on alert, which is especially the case on red flag warning days.Fire departments in the foothills and high country communities have a very unique experience fighting fires and citizens play an important role in that."We want to empower our residents to prepare for emergencies, to mitigate the risk around their properties, to be educated so they know how to respond properly, react properly," Einar Jensen, risk reduction coordinator for Evergreen Fire Rescue, said. Recent wildfires a glaring reminder to protect your home Jensen's job is to keep people in Evergreen educated on how to keep the fire risk low."For us, in a community like this, the public is essential to preparedness," Jensen said, "mitigation, education and emergency response."Fire teams fight fires, but Jensen said citizens are just as much a part of the team as they are, especially in mountain and foothill towns....

Thunderbirds wow spectators of all ages at Wings Over Homestead air show

Published Tue, 24 Dec 2024 00:45:27 GMT

U.S. miltary pilots took to the South Florida skies this weekend for a very special performance.It had been five years since the Homestead Air Reserve Base hosted the last air show.Wings Over Homestead, held Saturday and Sunday, featured old and new aircraft.7News cameras on Saturday captured an F-16 Falcon Fighter soaring high and roaring with power.The Thunderbirds were back over Homestead, bringing lots of skills and thrills.The show kicked off with stunts in the sky before the jets zoomed off.“We’re excited to put something like this on for the local community,” said Col. Joshua Padgett, 482nd Fighter Wing Commander.Multiple aircraft zipped through the air and performed daring stunts for all to see.Despite a few clouds, thousands of people of all ages showed up for the demosntrations and felt the energy.“You could feel when it flies over you, when it goes ‘vroom!'” said attendee Frank Zamora. “You get a little chill.Besides the performan...

Time to replace Bank of England’s governor with ChatGPT

Published Tue, 24 Dec 2024 00:45:27 GMT

Izabella Kaminska is senior finance editor at POLITICO Europe.Is the governor of the Bank of England (BoE), Andrew Bailey, sending coded messages that monetary policy in the United Kingdom has reached its limits, and that his job is now redundant?Could be.In a speech to the London School of Economics (LSE) last Monday, Bailey dropped a bit of a bombshell.Focusing on all the reasons central bankers cannot be relied on to avert an economic crisis stemming from structural supply-side issues related to “technological progress, investment and innovation, and by skills and trends in the population,” Bailey abruptly added it’s important to remember that “policy decisions can have unpredictable and complex effects on the economy” — only to reveal in the next breath that the remark had come not from him but ChatGPT, the generative artificial intelligence language model.But the intermission prompts a serious question: At this point, might an AI robot do a better job at communicating monetary ...

Turkey is the headache NATO needs

Published Tue, 24 Dec 2024 00:45:27 GMT

Turkey may have finally let Finland into NATO, but it’s not budging — yet — on Sweden. And NATO just has to live with that.The unyielding blockade is the latest in a string of Turkish actions that have left the military alliance’s allies grumbling and eye rolling. In 2017, Turkey controversially decided to buy a Russian missile system. It has repeatedly attacked the very same Kurdish militia the U.S. had supported in Syria. And to this day, Turkey’s leader, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, still chats regularly with Vladimir Putin.And, until late Thursday, Turkey had also blocked Finland from joining the alliance for months, even as war raged nearby. Privately, some officials are bristling at Turkey’s obstructionist approach, its Russia-engaging foreign policies and democratic backsliding. In a symbolic move, the White House didn’t invite Turkish officials to its Summit for Democracy. And some observers are openly wondering how Turkey, a NATO member since 1952, even fits in the Western de...

Emmanuel Macron wants to charm China — after failing with Putin

Published Tue, 24 Dec 2024 00:45:27 GMT

PARIS — French President Emmanuel Macron is jetting off on an ambitious diplomatic mission to woo Beijing away from Moscow. Officials in Washington wish him luck with that. France hopes to dissuade China’s leader Xi Jinping from getting any cozier with Russian President Vladimir Putin, and wants the Chinese instead to play a mediation role over the war in Ukraine. However, it is unclear what leverage Macron has — and the backdrop to his three-day trip starting Tuesday isn’t easy. Europe continues to reel from the impact of cutting off trade ties to Russia and geopolitical tensions are ratcheting up between China and the U.S., the world’s two biggest economies. The French president wants to play a more personal card with his Chinese counterpart, after drawing fierce criticism for hours of fruitless phone calls with Putin last year — an effort that failed to stop Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine. Macron is expected to spend several hours in discussions ...

UPS drivers rally in Boston ahead of national negotiations

Published Tue, 24 Dec 2024 00:45:27 GMT

UPS drivers rallied in Boston on Sunday as their union prepares to negotiate a new contract. Negotiations with impact more than 300,000 drivers and warehouse workers across the country. The union said its ready to strike if they’re not given a contract with better pay and other protections.

Seymour Stein, record exec who signed up Madonna, dead at 80

Published Tue, 24 Dec 2024 00:45:27 GMT

NEW YORK (AP) — Seymour Stein, the brash, prescient and highly successful founder of Sire Records who helped launched the careers of Madonna, Talking Heads and many others, died Sunday at age 80. Stein, who helped found the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Foundation and was himself inducted into the Rock Hall in 2005, died of cancer in Los Angeles, according to a statement by his family.Born in 1942, Stein was a New York City native who as a teenager worked summers at Cincinnati-based King Records, James Brown’s label, and by his mid-20s had co-founded Sire Productions, soon to become Sire Records. Obsessed with the Billboard music charts since childhood, he was known for his deep knowledge and appreciation of music and would prove an astute judge of talent during the 1970s era of New Wave, a term he helped popularize, signing record deals with Talking Heads, the Ramones and the Pretenders. “Seymour’s taste in music is always a couple of years ahead of everyone else’s,” Talking Hea...

South Korea, US, Japan hold anti-North Korea submarine drill

Published Tue, 24 Dec 2024 00:45:27 GMT

SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — The South Korean, U.S. and Japanese navies began their first anti-submarine drills in six months on Monday to boost their coordination against increasing North Korean missile threats, South Korea’s military said.The two-day drills come as North Korea’s recent unveiling of a type of battlefield nuclear warhead prompted worries the country may conduct first nuclear test since 2017.The maritime exercises in international waters off South Korea’s southern island of Jeju involved the nuclear-powered USS Nimitz aircraft carrier and naval destroyers from South Korea, the U.S. and Japan, South Korea’s Defense Ministry said in a statement. The training was arranged to improve the three countries’ capacities to respond to underwater security threats posed by North Korea’s advancing submarine-launched ballistic missiles and other assets, the statement said. It said the three countries were to detect and track unmanned South Korean and U.S. underwater vehicles posing a...

TTC cash fares set to rise 10 cents on Monday

Published Tue, 24 Dec 2024 00:45:27 GMT

It is going to cost you more to get around on the TTC starting Monday. As part of the transit system’s $2.4 billion budget approved by city council earlier this year, cash fares and one-ride PRESTO tickets are going up 10 cents to $3.35. Along with the fare hike, eligibility for the Fair Pass Transit Discount program will be expanded to an extra 50,000 people while monthly pass users and seniors will see their fares frozen in 2023.Table showing TTC fare increases as of April 3, 2023. TTCThe transit advocacy group TTCriders has called the fare increase “cruel” pointing out that it targets the lowest income people in the city.The fare increase comes on the heels of the TTC’s recent service adjustments on almost 40 bus, streetcar and subway routes which took effect last month.

Bank survey shows Japan’s businesses turning pessimistic

Published Tue, 24 Dec 2024 00:45:27 GMT

TOKYO (AP) — Business sentiment among big Japanese manufacturers worsened in the first quarter of this year in the fifth straight decline, according to a central bank survey released Monday.The headline measure in the Bank of Japan quarterly survey called “tankan” found such sentiments stood at plus 1, down from plus 7 in December. It’s the worst quarterly result since December 2020.Sentiments among major non-manufacturers rose one point to plus 20, its the fourth straight quarter of improvement. The Japanese economy has tended to stagnate in recent years, with slow wage increases, and has recently been hit by inflationary pressures, even as some parts of the nation’s economy continue to experince deflation, the opposite trend in which prices continually decrease.Uncertainty about global growth is weighing on the export-reliant country. The recent turmoil over the U.S. banking sector is adding to such woes, just at a time when Russia’s war in Ukraine has sent energy prices soa...