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St. Louis Health Dept. recommends masks as flu, COVID, and RSV cases surge

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 18:50:59 GMT

ST. LOUIS - The director of the St. Louis City Health Department recommends a face mask on Friday morning as respiratory illnesses are rising in the area.The director there says that respiratory illness data shows significant increases and more precautions are needed to avoid straining our healthcare system.The city health department director is recommending that all residents wear face masks when indoors in public spaces and in crowded environments where social distancing is not possible. This recommendation comes after increases in the area of illnesses, including the flu, RSV, and COVID-19.We're told that while none of these viruses are new or more deadly than in the past, the rapidly rising number of cases and hospitalizations is cause for concern. In St. Louis County, flu cases showed a 64% increase over a week ago. Positive RSV cases are up 46% from the prior week and COVID cases reveal a 7-day average of 183 reported cases per day.     When is Missouri & Illinois gettin...

Slow-speed chase takes place from Illinois to I-70 in Hazelwood

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 18:50:59 GMT

MACOUPIN COUNTY, Ill. - A slow-speed police chase from Macoupin County, Illinois, ended on I-270 in north county.This happened around 9:00 p.m. Thursday. The driver was taken into custody at Interstate 270 and I-70 in Hazelwood. Billy Joel and Sting coming to Busch Stadium for September concert Police say he choked a woman in the small town of Lake Ka-ho in Macoupin County, near Mount Olive. He crashed into a vehicle trying to block him from getting away.The police followed him slowly, from I-55 to I-270. He was taken back to Macoupin County, awaiting charges.

Dismal ski-area snowpack could get boost from weekend storm

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 18:50:59 GMT

Colorado’s ski resorts are reporting base depths far below what they were at this time in 2023, and a statewide snowpack considerably below normal — a situation that stands in sharp contrast to the abundant snowfall skiers and snowboarders reveled in a year ago.But a series of storms is forecast to arrive in Colorado’s high country over the next week — just in time for the Martin Luther King Jr. holiday weekend.“They desperately need it,” Golden resident Michael Miller said Wednesday after skiing Keystone with his son. “It was rough. In between the bumps and the bottom of the bumps, lots of rocks, twigs, trees. We were checking our skis all day for shots and scratches.”At Copper Mountain, Cara Luchies of Longmont found good skiing Tuesday on groomed intermediate trails at the center of the mountain, but after exploring the upper mountain Wednesday morning with her family, she decided to call it a day at 1 p.m.“Don’t want to...

Editorial: How to get an electric vehicle for less than $6,000 in Colorado

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 18:50:59 GMT

Some Coloradans who play their financial cards just right in 2024 could land a new Chevy Bolt eletcric car for around $5,500, according to our calculations.That price would be after using $21,000 in incentives and trading in one qualifying beater (this doesn’t include dealer fees, taxes or any of the likely hidden costs). But beggars can’t be choosers and according to our research, only four cars — two Teslas and two Chevys — currently qualify for all three programs.Over the years, we’ve been skeptical about the wisdom of incentives for electric vehicles, given that when first implemented in the 2009 American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, the tax breaks were often used for the $100,000 Tesla Roadster when the luxury electric vehicles hit the market, raising questions about if the tax credits were just a drop in the bucket for many buyers all while the Congressional Budget Office estimated the program cost $1.5 billion to $2 billion per year. Could those resources ...

Suicide, overdoses are top causes of maternal deaths in Colorado

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 18:50:59 GMT

More pregnant and postpartum women in Colorado die from suicide or drug overdoses than any other causes, and those deaths represent only a small percentage of moms who need help, advocates say.Nonprofits, state agencies and health care providers are trying to not only encourage new parents to seek out help if they need it, but also to ease the process of actually getting that support. Mental health and addiction care can be difficult to find under any circumstances, and perhaps even more so when mothers are juggling child care and may fear losing custody of their children if they admit they’re struggling.In Colorado, 174 people died during pregnancy or within a year of giving birth between 2016 and 2020. Of those, 34 died by suicide and 33 died of accidental overdoses, according to the state’s 2023 maternal mortality report. The state doesn’t publish annual data, because of the relatively small number of deaths.The problem extends beyond Colorado. Nationwide, the C...

NFL Picks: Playoff spots and seeding on the line and appreciation for Mike Tomlin’s greatness

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 18:50:59 GMT

Around the AFCChiefs reign. Another Week 18, another week of Patrick Mahomes donning shades instead of a helmet and watching his team. Kansas City is locked into the AFC’s No. 3 seed and, thus, isn’t playing Mahomes and likely a few others. It’s an opportunity wasted for the other teams in the division. This was the most vulnerable Kansas City team maybe of Mahomes’ career. They went 5-4 at home and are 3-2 in the division entering the final week. And yet, no sweat toward another division title. If nobody got them this year, when’s it going to happen?15.5. A year ago, the Broncos averaged 15.5 points per game in the 15 games coached by Nathaniel Hackett. That number jumped all the way to 16.9 for the season when Denver scored 55 over the final two games of the year. The 2023 New York Jets, with Hackett as the offensive coordinator, enter the final week of the season averaging… 15.7 points per game. If they score 12 points against New England on Sunday, they’ll finish at 15.5 per gam...

Jarvis: Pioneering Oregon project targets youth mental health crisis

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 18:50:59 GMT

Last year saw a stream of dismal headlines about kids’ mental health. Children and teens in the United States are struggling with higher levels of depression and anxiety. Rates of suicides and eating disorders are on the rise. But now there’s reason to be hopeful: An ambitious experiment in Oregon could point the way to a novel solution.Much of the last two years has been spent trying to parse the root cause of the alarming statistics rather than discussing what to do about them, though there has been some positive change. New guidelines recommending widespread screening for childhood anxiety and depression were a good start. So was the Biden administration’s investment in helping better connect families to behavioral and health services. And several states have expanded training for educators and improved access to telehealth.But none of those can fully address a fundamental problem: The number of kids who need help exceeds the number of available mental health providers. The pedia...

Single-family residence in Los Gatos sells for $2.1 million

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 18:50:59 GMT

137 Central Avenue – Google Street ViewThe property located in the 100 block of Central Avenue in Los Gatos was sold on Dec. 13, 2023. The $2,100,000 purchase price works out to $1,733 per square foot. The house built in 1965 has an interior space of 1,212 square feet. The property features two bedrooms, two baths, and a none. It sits on a 7,500-square-foot lot.Additional houses have recently changed hands close by:A 1,940-square-foot home on the first block of Orchard Street in Los Gatos sold in December 2023 for $3,089,000, a price per square foot of $1,592. The home has 3 bedrooms and 2 bathrooms.In June 2023, a 4,273-square-foot home on Kimble Avenue in Los Gatos sold for $4,320,000, a price per square foot of $1,011. The home has 4 bedrooms and 4 bathrooms.On Prospect Avenue, Los Gatos, in November 2023, a 3,514-square-foot home was sold for $5,563,500, a price per square foot of $1,583. The home has 4 bedrooms and 4 bathrooms. 

Guerrero: How to have a meaningful conversation with your MAGA dad

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 18:50:59 GMT

Lately, I avoid conversations with my father because of his passion for lecturing me about politics from a hard-right perspective. It began during COVID lockdowns. Not long ago, he told me he sees Tucker Carlson as a hero. Exasperated, I told him he was idolizing a guy who had mocked his daughter’s reporting on national TV.He shook his head as if I were lying or whining, then soliloquized about Carlson’s defense of traditional masculinity. “Tucker has balls down to the floor,” he said.It’s not unusual to become estranged from family members who’ve embraced ideas we view as dead wrong and dangerous. We’ve grown accustomed to our divides, which many of us see as unbridgeable. But as we enter 2024, I wonder: If we can’t have tough political conversations with some of the people we love most, how are we going to overcome our differences as a nation?This election year could determine whether our democracy lives or dies. What better New Year...

Driftwood destiny: Where all those beached logs come from and where they’re going

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 18:50:59 GMT

APTOS — All week long, the scene at local beaches has caused visitors to pause for a moment and stand in awe of what sits before them while their furry companions are sent into an insuppressible fit of joy.That’s right, there’s still plenty of driftwood piled up on Santa Cruz County shores – parked there last week by heavy rainfall and a massive tidal swell.The images aren’t so different from last January, when a powerful string of atmospheric river storms swept mountains of ocean debris and tree trunks the size of SUVs onto local shores that took officials weeks to clean up and disperse.But as crews rung in the new year with another robust mop up effort to the dismay of countless local pups, some may wonder: where does it all come from and where does it end up?Another pileupGabe McKenna, spokesperson for California State Parks which manages nine beaches across the county and several more subunit regions, said the cleanup effort in some of the hardest-hit, low-lying areas such as Se...