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Metro shutting down four Orange Line stations starting Saturday

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 18:19:00 GMT

Metro will begin rail replacement work on the Orange Line in Northern Virginia, shutting down four stations for most of the month.The transit agency said it will replace 40-year-old steel rails between the Ballston-Marymount University and Vienna stations. The work will shut down the Vienna, Dunn Loring, West Falls Church and East Falls Church stations from June 3 to June 25.CLICK MAP TO ENLARGE: The stations that will be closed for most of the month of June are the farthest four stations to the left on the Orange Line. (Courtesy WMATA)Crews will also install fiber-optic cables during the shutdown to modernize communications and allow for more efficient future maintenance, Metro said.“Replacing some of the oldest tracks in our system is critical to safety and reliability, and crews will work 24/7 to complete this project as quickly as possible so we can get back to normal service,” Metro’s chief of infrastructure Andy Off said in a news release.Free shuttles will provide servi...

Alonso riding wave of enthusiasm for long-denied win ‘No. 33’ at Spanish GP

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 18:19:00 GMT

MONTMELÓ, Spain (AP) — Back when Fernando Alonso was king of Formula One nearly two decades ago, Spaniards flocked to see their idol at their home race.With Alonso now back near the top of the standings, his supporters are expected to cram the stands and grassy knolls of the Barcelona-Catalunya Circuit this weekend with some 120,000 people estimated to turn out for the Spanish Grand Prix.Alonso was greeted by several hundred fans chanting “33! 33! 33!” in reference to a long-denied 33rd race victory as he emerged from his team’s garage to soak up their adulation on Thursday following his arrival. Alonso’s fan club from his native Asturias region organized buses to make the 8-hour trip from his hometown of Oviedo and other cities in Spain’s north to come to the race.The 41-year-old Alonso took his 32nd victory right here in Montmeló a full decade ago back in May 2013 with Ferrari. After that came years of frustration and a stint away from F1 driving in other competitions, including t...

Come for the birding, stay for the brunch — Prince George’s Co. wraps up Black Birder’s Week

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 18:19:00 GMT

Maria Elena Montero wants everyone to find the same joy she feels when she goes bird watching.Montero, who works at the tourism agency Experience Prince George’s, will be leading a birding and brunch event Saturday, the final event of Black Birder’s Week.She said that, as a person of color, “I’m definitely a rare bird out there, right? I’m the only one who looks like me.”That’s why Black Birder’s Week was founded three years ago.Black bird watchers, ecologists and scientists compared notes on how they were challenged in the field after an incident in New York City in which a white woman called police after a Black birder in Central Park asked her to leash her dog.Since then, Black Birder’s Week has turned into a celebration of the increased interest in getting outdoors and the message that, as Montero said, “nature belongs to everyone.”As a longtime birder, Montero said the “healing power of nature” can be restorative. Just being outside, observing birds, listening to th...

China’s Ukraine envoy calls for governments to ‘stop sending weapons to the battlefield’ and negotiate peace

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 18:19:00 GMT

BEIJING (AP) — China’s Ukraine envoy calls for governments to ‘stop sending weapons to the battlefield’ and negotiate peace.Source

City: Opa-Locka Police Chief and former BSO Sheriff Scott Israel to announce resignation

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 18:19:00 GMT

Opa-Locka Police Chief and former Broward County Sheriff Scott Israel will announce his resignation from the law enforcement agency, city officials said.According to a release from the city, Israel will confirm he is resigning at a news conference scheduled for Friday morning at the city’s municipal complex.Israel’s resignation comes just over a year after he was named Opa-Locka’s chief of police.Israel was removed from leading the Broward Sheriff’s Office following the response to the mass shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in 2018. He was widely criticized at the time for his handling of the massacre.Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis removed Israel from his post after being a BSO sheriff for six years.

For the first time, you can see Mars as it is right now

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 18:19:00 GMT

(CNN) — Mars is making its live streaming debut, and the show will reveal the red planet in a whole new light.On Friday, the European Space Agency is set to stream on YouTube an hour of the first live images directly from Mars, according to a statement from the agency.The event is celebrating the 20th anniversary of the launch of the agency’s Mars Express — a mission to take three-dimensional images of the planet’s surface to see it in more complete detail.You can watch the stream on ESA’s YouTube channel for an hour starting at 6 p.m. Central European Time, or noon ET Friday. While it won’t be truly live, there will be a new image about every 50 seconds of that hour, the agency said.Updates will also be available on ESA’s Twitter account and the hashtag #MarsLIVE, the agency said.“Normally, we see images from Mars and know that they were taken days before,” said James Godfrey, spacecraft operations manager at ESA’s mission control center in Darmstadt, Germany, in a statem...

Message for the stars: NASA’s Europa Clipper mission to carry poem and names into space

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 18:19:00 GMT

(CNN) – You’ve heard about a ‘message in a bottle,’ but what about a message in a bottle that will end up… in space?!NASA is offering an extraordinary opportunity for space enthusiasts and poetry lovers alike to become part of its upcoming Europa Clipper mission. In a unique initiative, the space agency is inviting the public to contribute their names to an original poem penned by acclaimed U.S. poet Ada Limón titled “In Praise of Mystery: A Poem for Europa.”Come October 2024, when the spacecraft embarks on its momentous journey, the poem adorned with the names of participants will be on board. This poetic masterpiece will traverse billions of miles to reach its ultimate destination, Jupiter’s intriguing moon, Europa. The primary objective of the mission is to explore the potential of the vast ocean thought to exist beneath Europa’s icy crust and investigate its ability to support life.If you wish to be part of this cosmic endeavor, ma...

Friday is National Donut Day

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 18:19:00 GMT

(CNN) — The first Friday in June — June 2 this year — is National Donut Day.Started by the Salvation Army in Chicago in 1938, the day honors the group’s “donut lassies,” who served treats and provided assistance to soldiers on the front lines during World War I. (And this isn’t to be confused with National Doughnut Day, which is in November and honors the actual food; though both days are celebrated by eating doughnuts.)Doughnuts have been around since long before the First World War, and we have the Dutch to thank for them. The Dutch would make “olykoek,” which translates to oily cake. The first Dutch doughnuts didn’t have a hole, but they were fried in hot oil and the dough was sweet.It wasn’t until 1847 that the holed-out doughnut we know and love today appeared. Hanson Gregory, 16 at the time, claimed credit. Sick of doughnuts with a raw center, he used a pepper pot to punch out holes to help his doughnuts cook more evenly.By 1920, Adolph Levitt, a Russian living in New York, ha...

Police investigating fiery fatal crash in Lynn

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 18:19:00 GMT

Police are investigating a fiery crash in Lynn on Thursday night that left a person dead and a building damaged.Officers responding to a report of a car into a building on Boston Street around 11 p.m. found a pickup truck that appeared to have hit a building that housed a paint store and a dry cleaning business.Witness video showed the pickup fully engulfed in flames.Police later confirmed the driver died in the crash. Their name has not been released.No additional information was immediately available.The crash remains under investigation.This is a developing news story; stay with 7NEWS on-air and online for the latest details.

No school Friday at Winter Hill Community School in Somerville after concrete falls from ceiling

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 18:19:00 GMT

The Winter Hill Community Innovation School in Somerville will be closed Friday after a small section of concrete fell into a stairwell inside the building, school and city officials said. Officials said the concrete fell outside school operating hours, while the school was unoccupied. The stairwell was later closed to students and staff while a structural engineer was brought in and while city Department of Public Works staff responded, according to officials. Officials said DPW crews had “conducted minor repairs” and had been monitoring the building’s interior as of Thursday night. The planned closure on Friday now comes “out of an abundance of caution,” according to officials, to let engineers “conduct a more thorough review of the building.”In a message signed by Somerville’s Interim Superintendent of Schools Jeff Curley, Mayor Katjana Ballantyne and school principal Courtney Gosselin, officials said they are working on a plan to temporarily relocate classroo...