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Towering buildings could be coming to ‘Dirty 6th’

Published Mon, 23 Dec 2024 17:12:23 GMT

AUSTIN (KXAN) – The Austin City Council voted Thursday in favor of allowing taller buildings to be constructed on a portion of the Sixth Street Historic District, affectionately referred to as “Dirty 6th.” The change in zoning was needed by Stream Realty, which already owns more than 40 properties on the iconic street between Interstate 35 and Brazos. The developers want to transform the strip between Neches and Sabine Streets on Sixth into a place where people go during the day and not just at night.  MORE: Stream Realty pitches vision for bigger, safer 6th Street “Sixth Street has become a real problem,” Richard Suttle, an attorney for Stream Reality, told the Historic Landmark Commission in June. “It’s in a death spiral because you’re not going to get anyone in there…knowing they’re walking into a shooting ally.” Suttle said they plan to erect buildings that would ideally be mixed-use – such as resident, office or retail spaces – and hopefully break the cycle of new b...

Minnesota artist brings metal to life with Reelistic Replicas fish art

Published Mon, 23 Dec 2024 17:12:23 GMT

GNESEN TOWNSHIP — Brian Luoma can’t fish any more like he used to. Muscular dystrophy has robbed him of that passion, but he still remembers what they look like.Now the longtime avid angler has taken his interest in piscatorial pursuits and funneled it into art, creating incredibly lifelike images etched on steel that look like painted fish or fish photographs.“I’ve always thought the true colors of fish are just incredible. But they’re really hard to reproduce,” Luoma said.Artist Brian Luoma talks about some of his work that hangs on the walls in his Duluth home on Friday, July 7, 2023. Luoma creates the lifelike images on his computer that are etched on steel. (Jed Carlson / Forum News Service)They aren’t decals or actual photos, Luoma, 56, is quick to point out, but images he created on his computer. Another artist finishes the details and the images are transferred to a company that infuses the image onto a steel plate that has been laser-cut into the lifelike shape of a f...

Possible rainy weekend ahead for central Missouri

Published Mon, 23 Dec 2024 17:12:23 GMT

ST. LOUIS -- There is a moderate possibility of showers and thunderstorms in central and northeast Missouri, along with west central Illinois, during this afternoon and tonight. On Sunday afternoon, the chance of precipitation extends to cover the entire area. Following a relatively cool day on Friday, temperatures are expected to rise back to near normal levels by Sunday.

Broncos position preview: Specialist overhaul just one part of trying to improve ST units overall

Published Mon, 23 Dec 2024 17:12:23 GMT

Editor’s note: Eleventh and final in a series previewing the Broncos’ position groups entering training camp. Today, special teams. On the roster (four): P Riley Dixon, LS Mitchell Fraboni, PK Elliott Fry, PK Brett Maher.How many on the 53?: Three.Most impactful offseason move: Releasing veteran kicker Brandon McManus.The Broncos released McManus, the last remaining player on the roster who was on the Super Bowl 50 team, in late May. The move created salary cap flexibility but also ended an era after McManus held the franchise’s kicking duties for the better part of a decade. After working out a handful of options, Denver signed Elliott Fry to the roster. Then Friday the Broncos also signed veteran Brett Maher, setting up a potential camp competition. Change is constant in the NFL, but to give an idea of how big of an adjustment this is for the Broncos, consider that McManus — now in Jacksonville — has 274 career NFL field goal attempts. Fry has six and Maher 116.Biggest question to...

Don’t buy these on eBay, Disneyland says

Published Mon, 23 Dec 2024 17:12:23 GMT

Disneyland fans who couldn’t get tickets to Oogie Boogie Bash, a popular Halloween party at Disney California Adventure, shouldn’t buy tickets to the event on any other site, Disneyland officials warn.Tickets to the sold-out event have been listed on sites such as eBay and Craigslist for hundreds of dollars. However, officials warn that tickets for the popular Halloween party can’t be resold or transferred to other parties. New nighttime entertainment coming to Rivers of America at Disneyland “Teams at the resort have an established process for investigating resold tickets, the result of which may be voided tickets where appropriate,” a Disneyland official told KTLA.The official Disneyland website echoes a similar message saying, in part, that “in the event that duplicate Disney eTickets are presented for theme park admission, Disney reserves the right to refuse entry.”General ticket sales for Oogie Boogie Bash sold out on the first day the tickets were available. Pre-sale tickets...

Lionel Messi scores game-winning goal in MLS debut

Published Mon, 23 Dec 2024 17:12:23 GMT

Some people paid hundreds of dollars to be able to say they were in the stadium for Lionel Messi’s debut for Inter Miami. Some paid thousands for their seats. The team’s owners committed well over $100 million just to have a chance at moments like this.So far, it looks like money well spent.From the you-can’t-make-this-up department, Messi capped the opening night with his new club by delivering the unforgettable. His magical left foot sent a free kick into the upper left corner of the net in the 94th minute Friday night, giving Inter Miami a 2-1 win over Mexican club Cruz Azul in a Leagues Cup match.“What I saw was the goal,” Messi said in an on-field interview amid the postgame celebration. “I saw the goal. I knew that I had to score.”He makes it sound so easy. Made it look so easy, too.The game's greatest active player — a seven-time Ballon d'Or winner and a World Cup champion — sent the ball over a wall of four Cruz Azul defenders for the winning goal, unquestionably the greates...

Opinion: ‘Oppenheimer’ and Hollywood’s fear of the atomic bomb story

Published Mon, 23 Dec 2024 17:12:23 GMT

In 1945, Hollywood set in motion its first big-budget movie drama about the making and use of the atomic bomb. Almost immediately a competing project emerged (with a screenplay by Ayn Rand, no less). Yet for over seven decades, only two other major movie dramas about this epochal event emerged from a studio. Now that is changing with Friday’s arrival of Christopher Nolan’s much-anticipated “Oppenheimer,” focusing on the famed lead scientist at Los Alamos who is sometimes called “the Father of the Atomic Bomb.”In the same period, Hollywood has produced far more movies centering on D-day and the defeat of Adolf Hitler. This is unsurprising, as these narratives can focus on American valor and ultimately deliver a stirring victory (and depict U.S. forces helping to liberate the concentration camps). The atomic attacks on Hiroshima and Nagasaki are a different story. Onscreen portrayals of the bombings have been incomplete at best, sanitized at worst — and leave open the question of whet...

Opinion: An AI Bill of Rights is unenforceable, may do more harm than good

Published Mon, 23 Dec 2024 17:12:23 GMT

President Joe Biden put forward a “Blueprint for an AI Bill of Rights” that provides five guiding principles for the development and implementation of artificial intelligence. They outline aspirational goals that also align with principles in the Democratic Party platform.Technology leaders have also expressed concern about the untethered growth of AI and its impact on society, including its affect on work and the spread of misinformation. Looking to the 2024 election, now less than a year and a half away, generative AI has the potential to upend campaigns by swaying and manipulating voters. A classified Senate hearing was recently held to discuss the future of AI and the opportunities and risks it poses.Though many of the points that Biden and technology leaders have raised are worthy of discussion, the challenge of creating guidelines to reign in AI is that they are inherently unenforceable and may ultimately do more harm than good.AI is already ubiquitous, and its pathway will gr...

Kristof: Legalizing the sex trade will only increase trafficking of children

Published Mon, 23 Dec 2024 17:12:23 GMT

More than a decade ago, I met a scared 15-year-old who was trying to recover her life after having been kidnapped by a pimp and sold for sex.Melanie Thompson recalled the day her life changed: She and two other girls in New York City ran into some older boys who invited them to hang out. The girls did so, the boys provided alcohol, Melanie blacked out — and she says she woke up to being raped. She told me how a pimp then locked her with another girl in an abandoned house, and she had a new job: having sex with strangers against her will.She was 13.When we spoke two years later, she was in a residential program for formerly trafficked girls. She was thoughtful, charming and fond of poetry, but I wondered if she would be able to rebuild her life. Then I lost track of her, until a message arrived from her this spring. We met, and she filled me in on her bumpy journey — and her campaign against what she sees as misguided liberalism that would legalize pimping.Melanie spent years in fost...

From extreme heat to deadly storms, Europe has no rest from ‘summer of hell’

Published Mon, 23 Dec 2024 17:12:23 GMT

Europe is grappling with extreme weather from soaring temperatures in southern Italy to powerful storms in Croatia and Italy, piling pressure on emergency services and residents, and challenging tourists seeking some summer recuperation.Temperatures have consistently topped 40 degrees Celsius this week across southern and eastern European countries, and for some areas like Sicily there remains no respite. The Italian island was baking in 46 degrees Celsius on Saturday, according to the Met Office, with night temperatures of 29 degrees offering little in the way of comfort.The heat in parts of Greece was also pushing the mercury into the 40s on Saturday; the island of Kefalonia and the western coast of the mainland are continuing to see 40 degrees Celsius.On the island of Rhodes, firefighters entered their fifth day in a battle to bring difficult wildfires, under control, according to local media reports. And fires continue to burn in areas around Athens.In Malta, residents have been...