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'Margaritaville' singer Jimmy Buffett dies at 76

Published Sat, 22 Feb 2025 10:52:24 GMT

NEW YORK (AP) — Singer-songwriter Jimmy Buffett, who popularized beach bum soft rock with the escapist Caribbean-flavored song “Margaritaville” and turned that celebration of loafing into an empire of restaurants, resorts and frozen concoctions, has died. He was 76.“Jimmy passed away peacefully on the night of September 1st surrounded by his family, friends, music and dogs,” a statement posted to Buffett's official website and social media pages said late Friday. “He lived his life like a song till the very last breath and will be missed beyond measure by so many.”The statement did not say where Buffett died or give a cause of death. Illness had forced him to reschedule concerts in May and Buffett acknowledged in social media posts that he had been hospitalized, but provided no specifics. Joe the Plumber, made famous during Obama’s 2008 campaign, dead at 49 “Margaritaville,” released on Feb. 14, 1977, quickly took on a life of its own, becoming a state of mind for those ”wastin’ a...

Public input process gets underway for replacing Upper Sioux Agency State Park recreation

Published Sat, 22 Feb 2025 10:52:24 GMT

GRANITE FALLS, Minn. — The process to identify possible recreational opportunities for the replacement of the Upper Sioux Agency State Park got underway with the first public outreach meeting on Aug. 30 in Granite Falls.“It’s a community effort,” Jeremy Losinski, regional parks and trails director for the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources, said as he opened the first of two outreach sessions held that day.Legislation authored by State Sen. Mary Kunesh, DFL-New Brighton, and State Rep. Zack Stephenson, DFL-Coon Rapids, calls for the state to transfer the roughly 1,300-acre park to the Upper Sioux Community. The DNR must submit a report to legislators on the barriers to the transfer in January 2024.The legislation allocated $5 million for the transfer process as well as for developing recreational opportunities to replace the park. Since the parklands were originally acquired with federal Lands, Waters and Conservation Lands funding, the state must provide a replacement “recre...

Warmer than normal weekend forecast with rising humidity

Published Sat, 22 Feb 2025 10:52:24 GMT

ST. LOUIS -- Temperatures will be rising throughout the weekend. Humidity will remain low today, but temperatures will be warmer than normal, reaching around 90 degrees. Expect plenty of sunshine. Overnight lows will only drop into the upper 60s to near 70. Humidity will increase on Sunday, and with highs in the low 90s, it will feel more like the mid- to upper 90s. For Labor Day, it will become even more humid, with heat index values around 100. License plate reader leads to arrests in stolen identity ring We will begin to see an increase in storm chances on Monday afternoon across southeast Missouri. For St. Louis, we can't rule out an isolated storm during the afternoon. Otherwise, rain chances will increase across the entire area by Tuesday and continue through midweek.

'Margaritaville' singer, Jimmy Buffett, died at 76

Published Sat, 22 Feb 2025 10:52:24 GMT

ST. LOUIS -- Jimmy Buffett passed away last night, September 1, peacefully in his sleep, according to a statement posted on his website. He was 76.The statement does not specify the place of death or the cause. In May, the singer had to reschedule his concerts due to health issues, which he had shared on social media, indicating his hospitalization.Jimmy Buffett is renowned for his music career, notably as a singer-songwriter celebrated for his laid-back, tropical-themed style. He is often linked to the 'Gulf and Western' or 'Trop Rock' subgenre, which blends elements of country, folk, rock, and Caribbean music. License plate reader leads to arrests in stolen identity ring His music frequently embraces a carefree, beachy lifestyle, with his most famous songs including "Margaritaville," "Cheeseburger in Paradise," and "Come Monday." Beyond his musical achievements, Buffett is recognized for his entrepreneurial ventures, such as the popular restaurant chain 'Margaritaville,' which ...

How did Broncos take on $100 million in Empower Field work over a single offseason? “It’s been quite a heavy lift”

Published Sat, 22 Feb 2025 10:52:24 GMT

You’d typically think the busiest time of year at a football stadium is football season.Not so for Empower Field at Mile High over the past several months.For all the commotion between a Nathaniel Hackett-led September win against Houston and a Jerry Rosburg-led early January win against the Los Angeles Chargers, that was all just a warmup for the frenetic offseason.When the Walton-Penner Family Ownership Group took over the franchise in August, one of the primary questions surrounding its purchase was the future of Empower Field.The owners are still determining whether they want to build a new stadium to serve as the franchise’s home, one thing they knew for certain was that they wanted to update the current one. In late 2022, the club decided on $100-plus million in upgrades to serve as Empower Field’s second act after a 22-year opening run.The challenge: Get it done in eight months.“My challenge to them was that we haven’t touched the stadium in any meaningful way sin...

Moscow’s deportation of 20,000 Ukrainian children to Russia, Less than 400 have found a way back home

Published Sat, 22 Feb 2025 10:52:24 GMT

On the eve of the 54th Session of the UN Human Rights Council, the Brussels-based NGO Human Rights Without Frontiers filed a report taking stock of the deportation of Ukrainian children by Russia from the territories occupied since the beginning of the war.According to the Adviser-Commissioner of the President of Ukraine for Children’s Rights and Children’s Rehabilitation Daria Gerasymchuk, the Ukrainian authorities have collected personal data of about 20,000 cases although there might be ten times more according to incontrollable figures circulating both in Russia and in Ukraine.The report “Ukrainian Children in Search of a Way Home from Russia” reveals that only 386 children have found a way back home. They could not be returned through negotiations with the Russian side but every time it could only be achieved through a specific rescue operation.On 17 March 2023, the Pre-Trial Chamber of the International Criminal Court in The Hague issued arrest warrants for Russian President V...

High school football: AJ Cenizal runs wild for Mitty in win over Aptos

Published Sat, 22 Feb 2025 10:52:24 GMT

LOS ALTOS HILLS — The Archbishop Mitty offensive line split the Aptos defense Friday night just enough to give running back AJ Cenizal room to squeeze through. Cenizal shook off a tackle or two before seeing only grass separating him from the end zone. That’s when he turned on the jets.“I felt like I’m flying,” Cenizal recalled of his 83-yard rushing touchdown. “I look back and [an Aptos player was] closing in. It felt a little like a horror movie.”But in this film, Cenizal almost always found a way to escape and break through tackles for double-digit gains in Mitty’s 41-28 win against a tough Aptos squad to improve to 2-0 on the season.Cenizal might be only 5-foot-7 and weigh 185 pounds, but the senior running back plowed through the Mariners time and time again Friday at Foothill College, Mitty’s usual home site. During the Monarchs’ second scoring drive, Cenizal recorded back-to-back 19-yard gains. It took four Aptos pla...

Opinion: Sites Reservoir is not the water solution California needs

Published Sat, 22 Feb 2025 10:52:24 GMT

California is at yet another critical point in its struggle toward a sustainable water future, and yet we’re still talking about the wrong solutions.Sites Reservoir is the latest in a long line of proposed dams promising to end our cycle of water insecurity. However, Sites won’t add much to California’s water portfolio, and its harm to the Sacramento River, Delta ecosystem and communities that rely on them could be irreversible and ongoing.Many lamented during this unusually wet year that water was “wasted to sea,” and that more dams could have captured enough water to solve California’s ongoing water uncertainty. But water that flows to sea is essential for many uses, including salinity control for farming, wastewater treatment and aiding endangered species.If the Delta ceased to deposit water into the San Francisco Bay, ocean water would further flow into the Delta, making the Delta’s water unusable for farming and toxic for the wildlife that depends upon it.If constructed, Sites ...

POINT: Don’t let politicians take credit for economic recovery

Published Sat, 22 Feb 2025 10:52:24 GMT

Workers have much to celebrate this Labor Day. Unemployment is near its lowest level since the 1960s, and real wages are growing again. Post-pandemic inflation is finally under control, even if it’s not yet all the way back to normal.Barring another crisis, there will be a soft landing from the pandemic downturn.This is fantastic news, and President Joe Biden has quickly taken credit for it under his Bidenomics umbrella. He, along with Republicans, deserves more blame than credit, however. Neither Biden nor Congress have much control over inflation, and their massive bipartisan spending binge is doing more harm than good for working families.It helps to think of today’s primarily healthy economy as the third act of a three-act story. In the opening act, a mostly healthy economy was humming along, much like it is now.In the second act, the pandemic shut everything down.We are now in the third act, when things are getting back to normal.The economy is mostly healthy now because the pr...

COUNTERPOINT: Labor faces a partisan divide on most important issues

Published Sat, 22 Feb 2025 10:52:24 GMT

“In the wealthiest country in the history of the world, tens of millions struggle to put food on the table, find affordable housing, affordable health care, affordable prescription drugs, affordable child care and affordable educational opportunities.”That was Bernie Sanders, in New Hampshire last week, summing up some of the injustices at the source of many Americans’ discontent.It’s Labor Day 2023. The election cycle will be moving into high gear, and 2024 could determine how much we can fix these problems or whether we move backward toward increasing inequality of income, wealth and access to education.Let’s start with some good news: Over the past year, inflation has fallen from 9.1% to just 3.2%. Many economists, including Nobel Prize winners and others prominent in the profession, would say that the job is about done. The Fed’s goal is still 2% and will likely get there. But it doesn’t really have an argument that 3% is a problem.In any case, the economists and others who said...