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DiCamillo celebrates new fairytale — and an anniversary for ‘Despereaux’

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 16:26:22 GMT

The moon rose higher.Soon, it shone right into the sea captain’s small room, throwing a patch of light across the worn floor.“Ooooh,” said the girl. “It’s so beautiful.”“Describe it,” said the boy. The chest was open and he was faceup, but he was at such an angle that he could see nothing but the cracked ceiling.“It’s like a loving face,” said the girl. “And its looking right at me. I feel as if it has been looking for me, for all of us.”  — from “The Puppets of Spelhorst”It’ll be a double celebration Saturday when award-winning, bestselling author Kate DiCamillo introduces her newest original fairytale, “The Puppets of Spelhorst,” and the deluxe 20th-anniversary edition of “The Tale of Despereaux.” Both are published by Candlewick Press.DiCamillo, who lives in Minneapolis, is one of the most beloved authors around. Kids love to meet her and talk about her bo...

St. Louis program raises awareness of HBCUs' impact on young scholars

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 16:26:22 GMT

ST. LOUIS -- In the St. Louis metropolitan area, a program has been introducing students to historically black colleges, shedding light on their contributions and their role in shaping the academic journey of young scholars. The 6th annual St. Louis HBCU Alumni Scholarship event recently took place.Historically, black colleges and universities (HBCUs) have been dedicated to nurturing the next generation and molding scholars into future leaders. At the 6th annual St. Louis HBCU Alumni Scholarship Summit, hundreds of parents and students gathered at McClure North High School.The summit provided attendees with a range of college preparation workshops, underscoring the significance of historically black colleges and universities. The event kicked off with a warm welcome, including breakfast and spirited cheers from McClure North High School's cheerleaders and HBCU alumni.Students and parents took part in workshops covering various facets of college preparation, including financial aid, ...

PHOTOS: last day of the Greater St. Louis Hispanic Festival

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 16:26:22 GMT

ST. LOUIS – The Greater St. Louis Hispanic Festival is currently taking place in Soulard. This three-day event celebrates Hispanic Heritage Month with activities such as dancing, food, crafts, and more.This year marks the 24th year of the festival, which aims to raise regional awareness of the cultural contributions made by Hispanic musicians, dancers, artisans, and chefs.Photo by Liz DowellPhoto by Liz DowellPhoto by Liz DowellPhoto by Liz DowellPhoto by Liz DowellPhoto by Liz DowellPhoto by Liz DowellPhoto by Liz DowellPhoto by Liz DowellPhoto by Liz DowellPhoto by Liz DowellPhoto by Liz DowellPhoto by Liz DowellPhoto by Liz DowellThe festival's final day is today, and it will be open from 11 a.m. to 8 p.m. Hispanic Heritage Month is observed from September 15 to October 15, celebrating the histories, cultures, and contributions of the Hispanic community.

Showers and thunderstorms on the horizon for St. Louis

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 16:26:22 GMT

ST. LOUIS -- Isolated showers or maybe a rumble of thunder are possible at any point in time today. But more numerous showers and storms will most likely develop this afternoon and evening, especially if cloud cover is able to break up. The threat of severe weather is low. We'll have a lot of clouds and maybe just some sunshine mixing in, with highs around 80. Some scattered showers could linger into tonight. Fog is also possible overnight into Monday morning. We'll have a mix of clouds and sun Monday afternoon, with highs in the low 80s. Shower chances remain quite low, but a stray shower can't be completely ruled out in the late afternoon and evening. The rest of the week, temperatures will hold in the 80s, and we'll have slight rain chances at times.

Vast swath of Colorado public lands would be off limits to oil and gas leasing under federal plan

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 16:26:22 GMT

Federal land managers have proposed blocking future oil and gas development on more than a million acres of Colorado’s Western Slope as they reshape how they handle energy development in the face of a drying and warming West.The Bureau of Land Management’s draft management plan for a swath of land between the Utah border and Eagle would close 1.6 million acres to potential oil and gas leasing. If approved, the plan would forestall the drilling of hundreds of future wells.“What we’re seeing here is a draft management plan that is really reflecting the changing economy of the region, which is becoming less dependent on oil and gas extraction,” said Erin Riccio, advocacy director for the Carbondale-based Wilderness Workshop.The federal agency categorizes land into four categories based on the prospects for oil and gas development, rating them as having high, medium, low or no known potential. The BLM’s plan would block development in all but the appr...

From the Roadshow archives: Dressing on the freeway and other bad driver stunts

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 16:26:22 GMT

Editor’s note: Mr. Roadshow wanted to share some of his favorite columns and stories from more than 30 years of informing, entertaining and getting things changed for Bay Area (and beyond) drivers. He’ll be back on the road with new material soon. In the meantime, please keep sending Mr. Roadshow your comments or questions to [email protected] story originally was published on February 1, 2005Welcome to Day Two of Crazy Driving Stunts. Today we feature drivers who use their cars as dressing rooms. Read ’em and weep. And please keep both hands — or at least one — on the wheel.Q: This happened years ago to my sister on I-280. She didn’t have a good pair of nylons and was late for work, so she stopped at a 7-Eleven and bought some pantyhose. There is a spot on I-280 where you drive uphill and then can coast down the other side, and while coasting downhill she proceeded to pull up her dress and put on her panty hose. A cop noticed her erratic d...

How a 49ers mandate saved Keena Turner’s life

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 16:26:22 GMT

The wisest soul in the organization, a 49ers lifer who has provided perspective and counsel for decades, was uncharacteristically speechless.Keena Turner heard the words yet couldn’t comprehend their meaning.It was February of 2022, and a Stanford cardiologist was routinely delivering the results of an echocardiogram, the only two words of which Turner remembers clearly were “aortic aneurysm.”Sitting in an office at 49ers headquarters, Turner can chuckle about it now.“Once I got off the floor, we didn’t really talk about what the options were because there was only one option,” Turner said. “I had to have surgery, so it was just deciding on when.”The doctors wanted to operate in March.To the consternation of friends and family, it wouldn’t be until February of 2023 that Turner had his chest opened up so that three inches of his ascending aorta could be removed and replaced by synthetic tubing.Having experienced no symptoms, Turne...

California spent $40 million on an opioid awareness campaign. Has anybody noticed?

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 16:26:22 GMT

With fentanyl killing nearly 20 Californians every day, state health care officials have staked millions of dollars on a boutique Sacramento-based advertising firm to “raise awareness, break the stigma, promote recovery, build hope and save lives” in the battle against the powerful opioid.But was there a better way to spend $40 million?That’s one of the questions rankling state lawmakers this month who say their bipartisan bills aimed at the state’s fentanyl crisis collapsed partly over funding concerns. The tension comes as California struggles to shape its strategy to address a drug that has destroyed tens of thousands of families and last year killed a record 6,095 Californians.Since 2019, the state says its Choose Change California campaign has generated 4.2 billion “impressions” on billboards, radio spots, television ads, concerts and sporting events, targeting vulnerable communities in English, Spanish, Mandarin and Cantonese. That’s the equivalent of reaching every Cali...

High school football roundup: Riordan, Moreau among Saturday’s winners

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 16:26:22 GMT

No. 7 Riordan 41, No. 12 St. Ignatius 34Archbishop Riordan freshman running back Isi Tuugamusu bowled over San Francisco rival St. Ignatius on Saturday in a five-touchdown day that saw multiple lead changes. St. Ignatius junior Odhran Kenny started the scoring with a 45-yard field goal, and Riordan’s Tuugamusu answered with a two-yard touchdown run with 3:22 left in the first quarter to give the home team to lead.St. Ignatius responded as Jarious Hogan scored two touchdowns before the end of the opening quarter, one rushing and one receiving. The first quarter ended with St. Ignatius leading 17-7. Riordan rallied in the second quarter as the Mike Mitchell Jr.-led passing attack carved up the SI defense on long scoring drives. Tuugamusu’s three- and one-yard touchdown runs gave Riordan a 21-17 at halftime.St. Ignatius forced a turnover on outside linebacker Daniel Leupold’s strip-sack after halftime, and then Hogan powered in from one yard out for his third TD of the day with 7:50 le...

The threat of wildfires is rising. So are new artificial intelligence solutions to fight them

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 16:26:22 GMT

LONDON (AP) — Wildfires fueled by climate change have ravaged communities from Maui to the Mediterranean this summer, killing many people, exhausting firefighters and fueling demand for new solutions. Enter artificial intelligence.Firefighters and startups are using AI-enabled cameras to scan the horizon for signs of smoke. A German company is building a constellation of satellites to detect fires from space. And Microsoft is using AI models to predict where the next blaze could be sparked.With wildfires becoming larger and more intense as the world warms, firefighters, utilities and governments are scrambling to get ahead of the flames by tapping into the latest AI technology — which has stirred both fear and excitement for its potential to transform life. While increasingly stretched first responders hope AI offers them a leg up, humans are still needed to check that the tech is accurate.California’s main firefighting agency this summer started testing an AI system that look...