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Unemployment fell to 3.5% under Biden. For how much longer?

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 16:14:49 GMT

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Joe Biden keeps seeing good economic news and bad public approval ratings. The unemployment rate fell to 3.5% in March. More than 236,000 jobs were added. But there has been no political payoff for the president.US. adults are skipping past the jobs numbers and generally feeling horrible about the economy. White House aides can list plenty of reasons for the pessimism: high inflation, the hangover from the pandemic and the political polarization that leaves Republicans automatically believing the economy is sour under a Democratic president.Going forward, an emerging challenge for Biden might be the expectation that unemployment will get much worse this year.This is the opinion of the Federal Reserve, which expects the jobless rate to hit 4.5%. And the Congressional Budget Office (5.1%). Even the proposed budget that Biden just put forth models an increase (4.3%) from the current rate. Many Wall Street analysts are, likewise, operating under the shorthand...

Ukraine’s coal miners dig deep to power a nation at war

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 16:14:49 GMT

DNIPROPETROVSK OBLAST, Ukraine (AP) — Deep underground in southeastern Ukraine, miners work around the clock extracting coal to power the country’s war effort and to provide civilians with light and heat.Coal is central to meeting Ukraine’s energy needs following the Russia’s military’s 6-month campaign to destroy power stations and other infrastructure, the chief engineer of a mining company in Dnipropetrovsk province said. Elevators carry the company’s workers underground to the depths of the mine. From there, they operate heavy machinery that digs out the coal and moves the precious resource above ground. It is hard work, the miners said, but essential to keep the country going.“Today, the country’s energy independence is more than a priority,” said Oleksandr, the chief engineer, who, like all the coal miners interviewed, spoke on the condition of giving only his first name for security reasons. Russia’s attacks on Ukraine’s nuclear, thermal and other powe...

Quebec-based luxury spa says customer data compromised in security breach

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 16:14:49 GMT

A Quebec-based luxury spa owner says a data breach may have affected customers who recently bought gift certificates on its platform.Groupe Nordik, which operates three spa locations in Quebec, Winnipeg and Whitby, Ont., says they became aware of suspicious activity on their gift certificate system in late February and that credit card information may have been compromised. In a letter sent to affected customers, the company says the breach included “access to your personal information by a non-authorized third party, from November 4, 2022, to February 27, 2023.”The company says after learning of the breach they immediately shut down the system and hired a third-party cyber security firm to investigate. “We have since enhanced security measures on all Groupe Nordik systems, including the gift certificate system, and will continue to work with the cyber security firm to maximize the protection of our client’s data,” the company said in a statement to Cit...

Small towns reclaim abandoned ski areas as nonprofits

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 16:14:49 GMT

LA VETA, Colorado (AP) — It’s been the longest wait, their whole lives, in fact. But Race Lessar and Landen Ozzello are finally right where they want to be, on a snowy slope close to home, molding snow into a ski jump. Their local ski mountain just reopened. “I’m happy that it’s open for at least one year,” Lessar said. It opened as a nonprofit, and that may be the key. “I didn’t know that there was a hope,” he said. His ties to the mountain are so close, he’s practically named after it. His dad used to race here and named his son for what brought him joy. Chad Lessar first skied on hand-me-down gear, later worked summers at a nearby ranch to earn money for more nimble racing equipment.“We’ve never been very rich,” Chad said of Huerfano, one of the poorest counties in the state. “Its nice to see a little area open up on the cheap,” he said. The ski runs here are short, but the fact it’s affordable just might be enough to keep it up and running.Under the gaze of the impos...

China health officials lash out at WHO, defend virus search

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 16:14:49 GMT

BEIJING (AP) — Chinese health officials defended their search for the source of the COVID-19 virus and lashed out Saturday at the World Health Organization after its leader said Beijing should have shared genetic information earlier.The WHO comments were “offensive and disrespectful,” said the director of the China Center for Disease Control and Prevention, Shen Hongbing. He accused the WHO of “attempting to smear China” and said it should avoid helping others “politicize COVID-19.”The global health body’s director-general, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, said March 17 that newly disclosed genetic material gathered in Wuhan in central China, where the first cases were detected in late 2019, “should have been shared three years ago.”“As a responsible country and as scientists, we have always actively shared research results with scientists from around the world,” Shen said at a news conference.The origins of COVID-19 are still debated and the focus of bitter political d...

Easter Sunday will be dry

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 16:14:49 GMT

AUSTIN (KXAN) -- There is a very low chance of rain this morning. A brief period of dry weather takes over the forecast from this afternoon to tomorrow evening.The highest rain total since Wednesday is 5.96" at the Sam Gideon Power Plant at Lake Bastrop followed by 5.67" at Buckners Creek near Muldoon. Amounts of 3 to 5 inches were common in our eastern counties. The Hill Country did not have as much with many locations under one inch. Austin's Camp Mabry picked up 2.53" Thursday and Friday. Austin-Bergstrom International Airport's recorded 2.49' Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday.Central Texas rainfall totalsIt is Easter weekend. Temperatures will be much warmer this afternoon and even warmer tomorrow. Today's normal high is 79°Sunrise Easter Sunday will be 7:11. The sky will be overcast with patchy fog.Tomorrow's sunrise will be under an overcast sky with areas of fog but no rainThe rest of Easter Sunday will be mostly cloudy with highs reaching the low to mid 70s. There will be no ...

Charges upgraded against Ely college student who mowed down 3 deer on roadway

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 16:14:49 GMT

ELY, Minn. — Charges have been upgraded in the case of the Ely college student who intentionally rammed his pickup truck into three deer on an Ely road last month, all of which were paralyzed and had to be euthanized.The Duluth News Tribune first reported the case March 27 when Casey Meadows, 20, faced a single misdemeanor charge of chasing or injuring wildlife by use of a motor vehicle, a misdemeanor with a $300 penalty, and was also issued state restitution orders of $500 for each deer, for a total penalty of $1,800.The single misdemeanor citation would have allowed Meadows to plead guilty and pay his fines without appearing in court.But due to public outcry that the charges and penalties weren’t strong enough to fit the crime, Minnesota Conservation Officer Anthony Bermel has now rescinded the original charge filed in St. Louis County District Court and recharged Meadows with three separate counts of the same crime.They are still misdemeanors, but by stacking the crimes, Meadows ...

Opinion: Rediscovering Denver’s hidden gems in retirement

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 16:14:49 GMT

Since retiring a year ago from Colorado Public Radio and the daily grind of reporting the news, I’ve been asked many times if I miss it.Often the person doing the asking is another journalist who, like I did, proudly identifies with the only profession that has First Amendment protections.Early on in my career, I couldn’t imagine not being a member of the Fourth Estate.I relished finding, deciphering, and passing on relevant information to listeners, especially stories that had a direct impact on their lives.An example is The Marshall Fire in Boulder County on December 30, 2021 in which two people died and more than 1,000 homes were destroyed.It was our duty to keep abreast of the fast-moving flames that forced hundred of Coloradans to run for their lives.I will never forget the wave of sadness that washed over me when the first damage assessments came in and I tried not to fall apart on the air, thinking about the misery.My board operator heard the sorrow in my voice and noticed th...

CDOT finds a low-cost answer to its cellular dead zones, making canyon calling possible

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 16:14:49 GMT

Flooding and massive rockslides in Glenwood Canyon in 2021 cut fiber optic lines and created a communications nightmare for the Colorado Department of Transportation, making it hard to stay in touch and share data with crews as they worked on the emergency response and later on repairs.And every day, along long stretches of Colorado highways, cellular service can be spotty or nonexistent, causing employees and vehicles to disappear off the radar screen. For a snowplow driver navigating an isolated road in a blizzard, it can be the equivalent of a pilot losing all contact with the control tower in a thunderstorm. No one would hear a distress call.Since last fall, the department has been testing a South Korean communications technology, supplied through a Denver startup called Eucast Global, along a problematic four-mile stretch of highway from the Bakerville to Silver Plume exits, east of the Eisenhower Tunnel, where the terrain makes it difficult for cellular signals.“The test...

Anatomy of a cheeseburger and fries: How inflation has pushed up the cost of this very American meal

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 16:14:49 GMT

Long gone are the days when a burger cost less than $10.When James Samara and Brendan McManus opened The Mighty Colorado Burger inside Denver Beer Co.’s Arvada location in 2017, a basic cheeseburger with fries cost $9. Now, the combo is $12, which Samara said is to make up for higher employee wages, food and distribution costs.The entire restaurant industry has been struggling to keep up under a pile of economic issues since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, including supply chain issues, labor shortages, the rising cost of minimum wage and an increase in the price of ingredients.“It’s the perfect storm,” Samara said. “We’re paying our staff much more, and their cost of living is higher, and we’re spending much more on our ingredients, so unfortunately it just has to get passed on to the customer at some point.”The Mighty Colorado Burger, which operates out of an Airstream trailer inside the brewery, isn’t the only restaurant charging double-digit sums for a burg...