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Austin firefighter to compete in national firefighter competition

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 15:35:59 GMT

AUSTIN (KXAN) – Not only has Jared Johnson been a firefighter for over ten years, but he has also competed annually in the Firefighter Challenge League for nearly a decade, where he has been National Champion nine times. He’s currently a firefighter with the Austin Fire Department. Despite already having an extremely hot and busy summer working, he’s competing this weekend in the 2023 United States National Firefighter Challenge Championship in Hoover, Alabama, and plans to win…again. “I have literally built my entire purpose revolving around creating a standard for firefighters and health and fitness,” said Johnson, who also owns a personal training fitness studio called Gym Force.“If I can show my absolute best, it can hopefully motivate, inspire and encourage other firefighters to do the same because when those calls drop when we're on shift, lives depend on us to show up,” he continued. In the Firefighter Challenge, firefighters compete in an obstacle course designed t...

National survey of contractors shows 'cultural shift in construction,' worker shortage

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 15:35:59 GMT

AUSTIN (KXAN) -- The Associated General Contractors of America (AGC) released results from a national survey of U.S. contractors on Wednesday, revealing a snapshot of the state of the industry.According to AGC, 88% of firms with open positions (85% of respondents) are struggling to fill those positions. The group notes that this result is uniform across respondents, regardless of size, work or union-status.AGC Chief Economist Ken Simonson spoke on the findings during a press call Wednesday."These shortages are adding to the impacts of supply chain disruptions that have made it difficult for firms to get materials delivered on time and that are driving up the cost of those materials," Simonson said. "Supply chain problems and labor shortages are making construction more expensive, undermining demand for certain types of projects."Half of survey respondents told AGC that they had projects canceled, postponed or scaled back due to cost increases, and 22% reported similar setbacks due t...

Twins held quiet in series finale loss to Cleveland

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 15:35:59 GMT

CLEVELAND — The Twins are leaving Cleveland with a pair of wins and a six-game lead in the American League Central over their closest division foe. A fantastic effort from the Guardians’ defense combined with strong pitching performances helped prevent the Twins from pulling off a sweep and giving them a commanding lead in the division.While they were close all day, the Twins fell 2-1 to Cleveland on Wednesday in the three-game series finale at Progressive Field in the last meeting between the two teams all season. With the loss, the Guardians won the season-series 7-6 and thus, earned the tiebreaker in the event that the two teams finish with the same record atop the division.But with the Twins taking the first two games, there’s a good chance that won’t matter down the road.The Twins, who scored 20 runs on Monday and eight on Tuesday, managed just two hits on Wednesday, though a few potential hits — like the balls Willi Castro and Ryan Jeffers hit to left fielder Will Brennan and ...

New Apple Valley Lunds & Byerlys opening Sept. 14 with beer taps, mushroom farm

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 15:35:59 GMT

A new Lunds & Byerlys location is scheduled to open Sept. 14 in Apple Valley with self-serve beer taps and an indoor mushroom farm.The nearly 46,000 square-foot grocery store is at the corner of 155th Street and Pilot Knob Road. During an opening ceremony at 9:30 a.m. on Sept. 14, Lunds & Byerlys CEO Tres Lund, Apple Valley Mayor Clint Hooppaw and other community and corporate leaders will give remarks, and the store will open at 10.Regularly, its hours will be 6 a.m. to 10 p.m. daily.Like other Lunds & Byerlys locations, the Apple Valley store will have wide meat, bakery and produce selections, plus a variety of prepared food bars, including tacos, wok, sushi, salad and comfort foods. A two-level indoor/outdoor seating space will also include eight taps for local beers, a feature the chain also implemented in its new Highland Bridge location in St. Paul.In addition to continuing long-standing partnerships with Caribou Coffee and Bachman’s Floral, the grocery chain is pa...

Colleen Grogan: Big Pharma is wrong. Allowing Medicare to negotiate drug prices won’t hinder new cures

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 15:35:59 GMT

Big Pharma is pulling out all the stops to avoid lowering drug prices for seniors.Several pharmaceutical companies, including Merck, Johnson & Johnson and Bristol Myers Squibb; the key pharma lobbying group Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America (PhRMA); and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce have recently filed lawsuits against President Joe Biden’s administration, arguing that the Inflation Reduction Act provision that allows Medicare to negotiate drug prices with pharmaceutical companies is unconstitutional.Their legal strategy is tantamount to “throwing the kitchen sink at the government,” as one expert described it, with various lawsuits arguing violations to the First, Fifth, and Eighth amendments.The pharmaceutical industry has argued that negotiating Medicare prices with the federal government will force them to pull back on developing groundbreaking new treatments. As Eli Lilly CEO David Ricks said in an interview this summer with CNBC, “...

Karl W. Smith: We may finally be witnessing a normal labor market

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 15:35:59 GMT

A passing glance at the August jobs report released last week by the U.S. Labor Department would suggest an economy headed in the wrong direction. After all, the unemployment rate shot up to 3.8% from 3.5% in July, marking the biggest increase since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic in April 2020.A more measured look, though, reveals something completely different.That jump in the unemployment rate was not a reflection of companies firing workers in anticipation of a slowdown, but rather because of very large 700,000 increase in the number of people looking for a job. This caused the labor force participation rate to jump to 62.8%, the highest since before the pandemic.What all this means is that more people are confident that they can find a job that meets their needs, skills and qualifications. We know that for much of the past 3.5 years, many workers chose to stay on the sidelines for a variety of reasons, including caring for dependents stricken by the pandemic or because of th...

Francis Wilkinson: Character counts. Just ask Brian Kemp

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 15:35:59 GMT

“The bottom line in the state of Georgia, as long as I’m governor, we’re going to follow the law and the constitution regardless of who it helps or harms politically,” Georgia Governor Brian Kemp said at a news conference last week.Kemp’s statement of fidelity to the law and state constitution was noteworthy, of course, for only one reason: Kemp is a Republican. The frontrunner for the Republican nomination for president is eager for fellow Republicans to break laws and shatter constitutions to shield him and his minions from the consequences of criminality, and to wreak vengeance on the forces of law and order that seek to constrain him.It was precisely such an attack on the law that inspired Kemp’s statement. MAGA legislators in the state have been searching for extra-legal means of releasing Donald Trump from a criminal indictment stemming from his efforts to overthrow the republic. Seemingly lacking faith in Trump’s claims of innocence, ...

NYC Comptroller doesn't approve DocGo's asylum seeker contract

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 15:35:59 GMT

ALBANY,N.Y. (NEWS10)-- New York City's comptroller is sending back the city's 432 million dollar contract with DocGo. New York City’s comptroller said it is exceedingly rare for his office not to approve contracts, sharing with Jamie DeLine the reasoning behind his decision."This contract just raised too many questions about its budget, about its vendor integrity, about its subcontractors, and in particular , about how they were chosen given that they didn’t have any experience providing shelter or services to immigrants or asylum seekers previously," explained Brad Lander, New York City's Comptroller.When asked what this means going forward, Lander said, "So, the ball is now back in the City’s court. What we did here is essentially return the contract to the city’s department of housing and preservation development, and we said you might want to reconsider given all of these concerns we have articulated whether DocGo is an appropriate contractor."New York City Hall now has three op...

Paroled sex offender arrested in Gloversville assault

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 15:35:59 GMT

GLOVERSVILLE, N.Y. (NEWS10) — Gloversville Police have a suspect in custody for an attack on a woman near the local rail trail. It’s 9:45 pm, last Tuesday night in Gloversville. A woman is walking near the intersection of South Main and Broad Streets when suddenly she’s attacked. Detectives say that attacker was 41 year old Kristerfer Passino who allegedly emerged from the wooded area of a nearby rail trail.The woman screams and is able to escape, but not without injury. The suspect's accusatory goes on to detail that Passino stabbed the victim in the abdomen once with an unspecified sharp object. A wound so severe that the victim had to be treated at a hospitalAfter releasing a picture of the suspect, detectives received a tip leading them to identify and arrest the suspect.Passino is charged with second-degree assault. NEWS10 spoke to an official at the Gloversville police department, who did not want to comment on the specifics of the ongoing investigation, but anticipates t...

State’s new Task Force on Tourism visits Fulton County

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 15:35:59 GMT

BROADALBIN, N.Y. (NEWS10) - The New York Assembly Tourism Task Force on Tourism made a stop in Fulton County while touring some of State’s hottest tourist destinations. NEWS10 met up with the new committee to check in on their progress. Summer fun winds down in the Capital Region The Task Force on Tourism is led by Republican Assemblymember, Scott gray who said that New York tourism is vital to the economy, all year long.“With weather like this, we’re hoping for a great shoulder season. And we are actually like, this year, we’re trying to build out. So, it’s not necessarily just the shoulder season. Something to function more year-round,” said Gray.The committee highlighted a few areas that need some work to improve tourism. Members said they’ll bring the concerns of area businesses to the state level. Those concerns include everything from cell phone connectivity and broadband coverage to infrastructure and access to local public beaches. Things that The Historic Broadalbin Hotel...