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After 11 years, housing voucher waitlist lottery open again for Arlington Co. renters

Published Wed, 19 Feb 2025 20:56:28 GMT

An 11-year wait for Arlington County, Virginia, renters eager to obtain a housing voucher ends Wednesday.The county’s Housing Choice Voucher Program, formerly called Section 8, opens its 10-day application process for renters at 8 a.m.The last time residents had the opportunity to get on the 5,000-slot waitlist was back in 2012.“It was a one-day application process,” Arlington County Housing Bureau director Nicole Dula said. “We had an in-person process at that time, where 5,000 folks lined up and submitted pre-applications. It has taken us until 2023 to exhaust that list of applicants.”The county needs to replenish its list of preapproved applicants who qualify for the voucher. As vouchers become available, housing workers will spend the next seven to 10 years going through the new list.The 10-day application window begins Wednesday and ends at midnight on Sept. 23.Dula said applying for a voucher doesn’t mean an automatic seat on the waitlist. T...

Teen student arrested, charged with attempted murder after cutting teacher at Bright Horizons School

Published Wed, 19 Feb 2025 20:56:28 GMT

A juvenile student has been arrested after, officials said, he cut a teacher at a school in Deerfield Beach. Broward Sheriff’s Office deputies and Broward Sheriff Fire Rescue arrived at Bright Horizons School, located at 3901 NE 1st Terrace, around 9 a.m. Tuesday morning. According to the president of the Broward Teachers Union, the 14-year-old male ninth-grade student cut the teacher with a pair of scissors. “We have one of our teachers that was attacked, chased and stabbed,” said Anna Fusco, president of the Broward Teachers Union. Authorities have not disclosed the teen’s identity but tell 7News that he faces one count of attempted felony murder and was taken to a juvenile assessment center. The injured teacher received immediate medical care for a laceration to the ear and was transported to Broward Health North with non-life-threatening injuries. Several school staff members were able to detain the suspect on campus until authorities arrived.“There was ...

Drew Barrymore defends plans to resume talk show amid entertainment strikes

Published Wed, 19 Feb 2025 20:56:28 GMT

(CNN) — Drew Barrymore is drawing the ire of the Writers Guild of America over her decision to resume production on her talk show as more than 11,000 television and film writers remain on strike.In a statement shared on Instagram over the weekend, Barrymore explained her position on bringing her show back and referenced why she had previously “made a choice to walk away from the MTV, film and television awards because I was the host and it had a direct conflict with what the strike was dealing with which was studios, streamers, film, and television.”“To be clear, our talk show actually wrapped on April 20th so we never had to shut down the show,” she wrote in her statement. “However, I am also making the choice to come back for the first time in this strike for our show, that may have my name on it but this is bigger than just me.”Production on most film and television projects have come to a halt as members of the Writers Guild and SAG-AFTRA remain at an impasse in contract ne...

Online prices plunge by the most in three years

Published Wed, 19 Feb 2025 20:56:28 GMT

New York (CNN) — Online shoppers were greeted by rapidly falling prices in August, marking another positive sign in the fight against inflation.E-commerce prices tumbled by 3.2% year over year in August, Adobe Analytics said on Tuesday. That’s the biggest annual drop in 40 months, or just over three years.The data provides further evidence that inflation is cooling across the US economy, moving back towards normal levels following aggressive interest rate hikes from the central bank.The Adobe report comes a day before the release of the Consumer Price Index, the government’s more closely watched consumer inflation report for August.For years, online shopping was the land of falling prices. That changed shortly after the pandemic began, scrambling supply chains and setting off the worst burst of inflation in four decades. Even online prices started to rise rapidly.But now, Adobe says annual online prices have been dropping for a full year.On a monthly basis, prices increased by 0.4% ...

Bad habits of night owls may lead to type 2 diabetes, study says

Published Wed, 19 Feb 2025 20:56:28 GMT

(CNN) — If you’re groggy in the morning but perky in the evening, you may be a night owl — a sleep pattern or chronotype that makes you more inclined to want to stay up late and sleep in.If so, you could be at higher risk of developing type 2 diabetes as well as a number of unhealthy lifestyle habits, a new study found.“When we looked at the relationship between chronotype and diabetes we found night owls had a 72% increased risk of developing diabetes over the eight years of our study,” said lead author Sina Kianersi, a postdoctoral research fellow at Brigham and Women’s Hospital and Harvard Medical School in Boston.Researchers also found strong connections between a “late-to-bed-and-rise” sleep style and some unhealthy behaviors — all known contributors to chronic diseases such as type 2 diabetes.“Night owls overall were more likely to have a poor diet, to be less physically active, to use alcohol in higher quantities, to have an unhealthy BMI (body mass index), to smoke and to sl...

Turmeric might help treat your indigestion, study shows

Published Wed, 19 Feb 2025 20:56:28 GMT

(CNN) — A good treatment option for indigestion may already be in your spice rack, according to a new study.The study, published Monday in the medical journal BMJ, compared how more than 150 people with dyspepsia, or indigestion, responded to either the drug omeprazole, turmeric — which contains the compound curcumin — or a combination of the two.Omeprazole is a common medication used to treat certain heart and esophagus problems by reducing acid in the stomach, according to the Mayo Clinic.At days 28 and 56 of treatment, the people in the study were evaluated for their symptoms — which can include stomach pain, bloating, nausea or an early feeling of fullness – using the Severity of Dyspepsia Assessment, a questionnaire that rates the severity of indigestion.Researchers found no significant differences in the symptoms of the groups taking the drug, turmeric or the combination of the two, according to the study.“In addition to anti-inflammatory and antioxidant pu...

Von der Leyen vows EU strategy to combat drug trafficking

Published Wed, 19 Feb 2025 20:56:28 GMT

The European Commission is planning a strategy to combat drug trafficking with a focus on Europe’s ports.While President Ursula von der Leyen made no mention of either ports or drugs in her State of the Union address Wednesday, her letter of intent to the European Parliament and Council of the EU promised an “action plan on anti-drug trafficking,” trailing a “European Ports Alliance” as a part of that effort.The plans are among a limited number of new initiatives in response to “emerging challenges,” which von der Leyen wrote will be “detailed and complemented in our work programme for 2024.”The pledge comes amid increased worries about drug trafficking and drug-related crime in the bloc. In Belgium, Justice Minister Vincent Van Quickenborne warned earlier this year that violence had reached the “phase of narco-terrorism,” while Brussels is grappling with a crack epidemic. Last week, Belgium’s new drugs czar Ine Van Wymersch told POLITICO that a European stra...

EU risks trade war with China over electric vehicles

Published Wed, 19 Feb 2025 20:56:28 GMT

BRUSSELS — This is how it starts.In the midst of an invasion by Chinese electric cars, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen launched an anti-subsidy investigation Wednesday against Chinese imports. It’s a step that risks snowballing into a trade war that could make a tussle over solar panels with Beijing a decade ago look like a tea party.“Global markets are now flooded with cheaper Chinese electric cars. And their price is kept artificially low by huge state subsidies,” von der Leyen said in her annual State of the Union address. “This is distorting our market.”The stakes couldn’t be higher: China’s massive investments have established it as the dominant maker of the battery technology that powers clean cars. Global sales of electric vehicles are forecast to grow by nearly a third in 2023 alone to nearly more than 14 million units — worth $560 billion — and without fair competition the EU sees its industry losing out.First reported ex...

Flood Watch Up, Hurricane Lee Update

Published Wed, 19 Feb 2025 20:56:28 GMT

Another day, another flood watch is up across the area as we expect more scattered showers and storms to push through late this morning, into this afternoon. As the showers and storms rumble through, the potential for locally heavy rain is there, and where the storms line up and continue over the same areas, a quick couple inches of rain is likely, with a few localized totals pushing 3-4″. With that in mind, in addition to swollen streams and saturated grounds, it’ll be easy for additional stream/street flooding to get going, thus the flood watch. Highs today max out in the mid 70s. A few of the afternoon storms could contain strong wind gusts too. Tomorrow and Friday will be much more comfortable with highs in the 70s and a return to lower humidity. Our attention then turns to Hurricane Lee. Lee’s closest pass to us come Saturday morning/midday. As Lee’s max sustained wind lower, the wind field in Lee actually expands. That means a large wind field, capable ...

International crews in Morocco to recover bodies days after deadly 6.8 quake earthquake struck

Published Wed, 19 Feb 2025 20:56:28 GMT

IMI N’TALA, Morocco (AP) — The stench of death wafted through the village of Imi N’Tala high up in Morocco’s Atlas Mountains four days after a deadly earthquake struck, slicing off a chunk of mountain, killing residents and razing the hamlet to the ground.Bulldozers, rescue crews and Moroccan first responders work around the clock trying to dig through the wreckage to unearth the eight to ten corpses still underneath.“The mountain was split in half and started falling. Houses were fully destroyed,” Ait Ougadir Al Houcine said as rescuers worked on recovering bodies, including his sister’s. “Some people lost all their cattle. We have nothing but the clothes we’re wearing. Everything is gone.”The scene in Imi N’Tala, which mainly houses herders and famers and where 96 residents perished in Friday’s earthquake, mirrors that of dozens of places situated along the treacherous mountain roads south of Marrakech: Men in donated djellabas neatly arrange ru...