DENVER – Some homeowners recovering from Colorado’s most destructive wildfire in history, which decimated entire neighborhoods near Denver late last year, say they could end up paying tens of thousands of dollars more to rebuild because of environmentally sustainable construction standards passed shortly before the blaze.
Marina Eismont’s whole family cooks for soldiers, weaves camouflage nets and makes batches of a slightly modified version of this region’s notorious Molotov cocktail – a “Bandera smoothie,” named after a Ukrainian nationalist figure.
WASHINGTON – People in the U.S. from Sudan and South Sudan can stay with temporary legal status to escape the conflict and natural disasters in their homelands, the Department of Homeland Security announced Wednesday. It faces pressure to grant the same to Ukrainians.
The Pottawatomie County Board of County Commissioners approved grant funds to the County Emergency Management office during a regular meeting Monday. According to County Emergency Management Director Chad Larman, the grants are funds from the Oklahoma Department of Emergency Management and Homeland Security.
WASHINGTON – Chair Jerome Powell said Wednesday that he supports a traditional quarter-point increase in the Federal Reserve’s benchmark shortterm interest rate when the Fed meets later this month, rather than a larger increase that some of its policymakers have proposed.
BERLIN – The organization that handles claims on behalf of Jews who suffered under the Nazis said Wednesday that Germany has agreed to extend another $720 million to provide home care and other services for frail and vulnerable Holocaust survivors.
[EDITOR'S NOTE: Over the next eight weeks, two student honorees for each month of the school year will be named as nominees for the 2022 Best of Tri-County Area Preps Student of the Year award, which will be announced in June.]
MIAMI – The financial statements and structural safety reports of condominium and homeowner associations must be made public under a new law approved by the Miami-Dade County Commission following the collapse of a condo last year. The law approved Tuesday was part of a package of legislation proposed after the Champlain Towers South condominium fell June 24, killing 98 people. Commissioner René Garcia had been working on the issue before the collapse, according to spokesperson Iraida R. Mendez-Cartaya.
In an effort to raise the bar for adding to the Oklahoma constitution, some Republican legislators want to make it harder for state questions to qualify for the ballot and pass at the ballot box. GOP lawmakers on the House Rules Committee passed four joint resolutions Tuesday that could change Oklahoma’s state question laws, which ultimately would be have to be approved or rejected in a statewide vote.
NEW YORK – A Ghislaine Maxwell trial juror whose post-verdict revelation that he had suffered child sex abuse has jeopardized Maxwell’s conviction may receive immunity to testify before the judge mulling whether the verdict will stand. Prosecutors said in a submission to U.S. District Judge Alison J. Nathan on Wednesday that they were in the process of seeking approvals to offer immunity to the man to compel his testimony at a hearing next Tuesday. Maxwell was convicted of charges including sex trafficking and conspiracy.