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Skilling: Beautiful weekend ahead for Chicago

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 19:33:36 GMT

The weather's been so gorgeous this week—you begin to run out of superlatives. We're headed for a second consecutive 83-deg high at O'Hare Friday making this the warmest April 14th in 20 years (since 2003). An April 14th has been warmer over the past 151 years in only 2 other years------1941 (and) 2003 (85).The most recent four days (since Tuesday) have averaged an eye-catching 20.3 degree above normal. April 2023 ranks 8th warmest of the past 151 years with a month to date temp departure of. +7.4-deg. And the opening 14 days of the month are running 10-deg warmer than the same period a month ago.It's interesting to note that while today's air temp was 34-deg warmer than Friday a week ago. But in that same period, Lake Michigan has only warmest 4-deg----underscoring how slowly water warms compared to the air above it. It one reason it so easy to generate cool lake breezes in spring here in Chicago. Lake Michigan's average water temp is just 46-deg which leads us to caution again tha...

'It was terrifying': Storm destroys camper at Alabama park, 2 injured

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 19:33:36 GMT

GULF SHORES, Ala. (WKRG) — Upside down, twisted and smashed. A camper with a couple from Canada inside it was tossed by wind in Gulf State Park in Gulf Shores, Alabama, Thursday morning."It was just terrifying," said camper Charlie Raymond, whose site was nearby. "It was just awful." As the wind started building early Thursday morning at the campground at the park, he says couldn't sleep."It was blowing hard and our camper was rolling and bouncing and all kinds of squeaks and noises," said Raymond. NOAA issues El Niño watch: Here’s where and when we will feel the impact That's when he heard it. "This loud crash," Raymond recalls. "I opened the window and looked out and I see that camper just blowing across the road. Then it slammed up against another camper on the other side of the road upside down."Kayla James heard it too. "I wasn't sure what had happened," said James. "It never even crossed my mind that something like that [could happen]." She and her family were camping just ...

Jan. 6 rioter who pinned officer in door sentenced to more than 7 years in prison

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 19:33:36 GMT

A man who pinned an officer into a doorframe with a stolen riot shield during the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection, was sentenced to more than seven years in prison on Friday. A release from the U.S. attorney’s office for the District of Columbia states that Patrick McCaughey III, a 25-year-old from Connecticut, was sentenced to 90 months in prison for nine offenses. McCaughey was convicted in September on seven felony charges, including three counts of aiding or abetting or assaulting, resisting or impeding law enforcement officers and one count of obstruction of an official proceeding, and two misdemeanors. McCaughey was involved in one of the most widely known moments of the day, when Washington, D.C. Metropolitan Police Officer Daniel Hodges screamed as he was crushed into a metal door frame for more than two minutes. Hodges was disarmed and attacked by other rioters as the mob tried to force their way through the lower west terrace tunnel. The release states that ...

More housing in Austin? Commission comes up with new zoning plan

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 19:33:36 GMT

AUSTIN (KXAN) -- In an attempt to work around Austin's decades-old Land Development Code (LDC), the planning commission is working on a new zoning category intended to incentivize more housing.The new zoning category would allow developers to come to the city with desired height, setbacks and parking, among other zoning standards in exchange for some affordable housing. The city would still get the final say.Council Member Ryan Alter explained the new zoning category like this: It "creates a base level of your allowable use -- whether that's height, floor area ratio, impervious cover -- and then what they do is they say 'we'll give you more height, in exchange for more affordability." The proposed zoning category, called "Town Zoning," was brought forward by Commissioner Greg Anderson. He pointed at the difficult zoning cases the commission has had to work through recently because of the city's outdated LDC."This will help us get a lot of housing units -- and whatever else makes sen...

Texas House panel advances bills banning puberty blockers and hormone therapy for transgender kids

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 19:33:36 GMT

(Texas Tribune) — Texas lawmakers are a step closer to banning puberty blockers and hormone therapies for transgender youth after the House Public Health Committee advanced Senate Bill 14 and House Bill 1686 on Friday.The committee voted 6-3 to approve the two bills, and they will now have to get through the Calendars Committee before getting to the House floor. The Senate has already passed a version of the legislation, and a majority of Texas House members have signed on to an earlier version of HB 1686.The versions of SB 14 and HB 1686 approved Friday would require trans youth already receiving puberty blockers or hormone therapy to be “weaned off the prescription drug over a period of time and in a manner that is safe and medically appropriate.” The bills would also ban surgeries, though they are rarely performed on kids.SB 14 author Sen. Donna Campbell, R-New Braunfels, at one point wrote her bill so that trans children already receiving puberty blockers and hormone therapies c...

Scandia-Marine Lions Club plans day of doing good

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 19:33:36 GMT

Fifteen hands-on service projects and 21 collections are planned for this year’s Scandia-Marine Lions Club’s “Service Project Sampler Day.”Scandia-Marine Lions Club member June Eagleton cuts donated jeans at the Service Project Sampler Day on April 2, 2022 at the Scandia Community Center. The pieces were donated to Sole Hope, which made them into shoes for children in Uganda. (Courtesy of Ann Rinkenberger)The free event will be 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. Saturday at the Scandia Community Center.The service projects will benefit local, national and international nonprofit organizations, including local schools, Sole Hope, Color A Smile, Gammelgården Museum, Global Health Ministries, Northwoods Humane Society, Children’s Minnesota and the Wildlife Science Center.“It’s a great way for people who enjoy volunteering to come together to do a variety of service projects in one location,” said Ann Rinkenberger, event organizer. “Some people choose to work on one project for the entire time whi...

What will the Vikings’ next quarterback look like, and will they find him in this month’s draft?

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 19:33:36 GMT

If Kirk Cousins hasn’t taken Minnesota to the Super Bowl, which the team expected when it made him, briefly, the highest-paid quarterback in NFL history, he has been a consistently productive passer.Since arriving as a free agent in 2018, Cousins has averaged 4,448 yards and 33 touchdowns against 11 interceptions in five seasons. And if he has only one playoff victory on his resume, he showed last season that, at age 34, he can win games with his arm.In his first season in coach Kevin O’Connell’s offense, Cousins led the Vikings to 13 victories — including the biggest comeback in NFL history — and an NFC North championship.But the Vikings are planning ahead. They have to. Signed through 2024, Cousins will be 35 on Aug. 19 and has become prohibitively expensive — $30 million guaranteed in 2023 with, because of consistent restructuring, a lot of dead money against the cap through 2024.“Quarterbacks are the most important position in our sport. These aren’t things you can’t just decide...

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Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 19:33:36 GMT

Minnesota tops U.S. in wild birds confirmed dead from avian flu

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 19:33:36 GMT

Highly pathogenic avian influenza is back killing domestic poultry and wild birds in Minnesota again this spring as huge flocks of migratory birds carry it north for another season.But, in fact, the deadly bird disease never left the state, even over our long winter, with birds dying in December and January and some new research showing the killer flu virus may survive even in cold Minnesota lake water — with no host bird — during the winter.That’s the update from wildlife biologists as the great spring migration descends on Minnesota, as the snow line recedes north and ice on lakes and rivers begins to let loose.Since the disease was first reported in Minnesota just over a year ago, some 566 birds have been tested and confirmed carrying the H5N1 strain of bird flu that’s been expanding worldwide since 2020, according to data from the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Wisconsin has had 211 confirmed cases and North Dakota 310 as of April 11.6,500 wild birdsNationally, more than 6,500 ...

Transport driver raped inmate en route to Ramsey County jail, lawsuit says

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 19:33:36 GMT

A former Ramsey County jail inmate has filed a lawsuit alleging she was sexually assaulted by the driver of a private transport company contracted by the county and the sheriff’s office.Marquet Johnson, 44, assaulted the woman twice during a two-day trip from the Dallas County jail in Texas to the Ramsey County jail in June 2019, according to the lawsuit filed Monday in U.S. District Court.The lawsuit names as defendants Ramsey County, the sheriff’s office and five unnamed sheriff office supervisors. Also named are Johnson and the owner of Inmate Services Corp., his former Arkansas employer that has since shut down operations following a number of other similar lawsuits and allegations across the U.S.Johnson is in federal custody and awaiting trial after a February indictment accused him of raping a woman at gunpoint during a transport from New Mexico to Colorado on Nov. 4, 2019, while he was employed by Inmate Services. “The investigation of those allegations has given ...