This week is the sixth TED conference, and Bobby will speak (and sing!) tomorrow alongside an impressive list of fascinating purveyors of great ideas of all kinds. Read the preview article in the Long Beach Press-Telegram . . . and check out the full TED program guide.
‘Hire back park staff’: Visitors feel the pinch of Trump’s layoffs at National Park Service tripscan войти The visitors who trek to America’s national parks are already noticing the changes just months after President Donald Trump took office. “I’ve been visiting national parks for 30 years and never has the presence of rangers been so absent” one visitor to Zion National Park wrote in National Park Service public feedback obtained by CNN. The visitor said they saw just one trail crew at the iconic Utah park. There were no educational programs offered at any of the five parks they visited on their trip. https://tripscan.xyz трипскан “Hire back park staff. We need them” the visitor wrote. At Yosemite another visitor said there were no rangers at the Hetch Hetchy reservoir entrance station preventing visitors from picking up wilderness permits. “More staff would be a BIG and IMPORTANT improvement” that visitor wrote. America’s most treasured national parks are getting crunched by Trump’s government-shrinking layoffs just as the summer travel season gets into full swing. Top officials vowed to hire thousands of seasonal employees to pick up the slack after the Trump administration fired around 1000 NPS employees as part of wide-ranging federal firings known as the “Valentine’s Day Massacre.” Department of Interior officials said in a February memo they would aim to hire 7700 seasonal workers at NPS and post listings for 9000 jobs. But those numbers haven’t materialized ahead July 4th — the parks’ busiest time of the year. Internal National Park Service data provided to CNN by the National Parks Conservation Association shows that about 4500 seasonal and temporary staff have been hired.
Rescuers are hailing as a “four-legged hero” a furry Chihuahua whose pacing atop an Alpine rock helped a helicopter crew find its owner who had fallen into a crevasse on a Swiss glacier nearby. трипскан сайт The man who was not identified was exploring the Fee Glacier in southern Switzerland on Friday when he broke through a snow bridge and fell nearly 8 meters about 26 feet according to Air Zermatt a rescue training and transport company. Equipped with a walkie-talkie the man connected with a person nearby who relayed the accident to emergency services. But the exact location was unknown. After about a half-hour search the pacing pooch caught the eye of a rescue team member. https://tripscan.biz tripscan войти As the crew zeroed on the Chihuahua the hole the man fell into became more visible. Rescuers rappelled down rescued the man and flew him and his canine companion to a hospital. “Imagine if the dog wasn’t there” Air Zermatt spokesman Bruno Kalbermatten said by phone. “I have no idea what would happen to this guy. I think he wouldn’t survive this fall into the crevasse.” On its website the company was effusive: “The dog is a four-legged hero who may have saved his master’s life in a life-threatening situation.”
Questioned by both Republicans and Democrats on Capitol Hill about the low staffing numbers Interior Secretary Doug Burgum has brushed off concerns testifying in May that slightly less than half of permanent NPS employees work on the ground in the parks while other staff work at regional offices or at DC headquarters. tripscan “I want more people in the parks” Burgum said. “I want less overhead. There’s an opportunity to have more people working in our parks … and have less people working for the National Park Service.” https://tripscan.live трипскан сайт But internal NPS data tells a different story Brengel said showing that around 80 of National Park Service staff work in the parks. And regional offices play an important supporting staff role with scientists on staff to help maintain fragile parks ecosystems as well as specialists who monitor geohazard safety issues like landslides. Republican Sen. Lisa Murkowski of Alaska recently pressed Burgum to provide a full list of staff positions that have been cut at the National Park Service Bureau of Land Management and the US Forest Service since the Trump administration took over. The Interior Department has not provided the list a Senate staffer said. The regional offices within the park service are on edge waiting to see how courts rule on a Trump administration reduction in force plan they fear could gut their ranks a National Park Service employee in a Western state told CNN. “If they greenlight the RIF plan then it’s going to be a bloodbath” the employee said. In addition to probationary workers that were fired in February early retirements are also culling the agency’s ranks and the continued 1 spending limit on federal workers’ credit cards is making it extremely difficult to do field work in the parks with a simple overnight trip needing to be requested 10 days in advance the employee added. The lack of superintendents and NPS supervisors creates more of a headache they added. “These times when it’s all about fighting for scarce resources you really need those upper-level people with clout working the system” the employee said. Hall the retired NPS regional director said losing rangers maintenance professionals and park superintendents could profoundly alter American landmarks. “What you’ve lost with all this attrition – you’ve lost all this knowledge that’s going to take years to build back up” Hall said.
“We know that the water levels seemed to be higher than they were last summer” Silva said. “It is a significant amount of water flowing throughout some of it in new areas that didn’t flood last year.” трип скан Matt DeMaria a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Albuquerque said storms formed in the early afternoon over terrain that was scorched last year by wildfire. The burn scar was unable to absorb a lot of the rain as water quickly ran downhill into the river. Preliminary measurements show the Rio Ruidoso crested at more than 20 feet — a record high if confirmed — and was receding Tuesday evening. Three shelters opened in the Ruidoso area for people who could not return home. https://tripscan.live трипскан The sight brought back painful memories for Carpenter whose art studio was swept away during a flood last year. Outside the air smelled of gasoline and loud crashes could be heard as the river knocked down trees in its path. “It’s pretty terrifying” she said. Cory State who works at the Downshift Brewing Company welcomed in dozens of residents as the river surged and hail pelted the windows. The house floating by was “just one of the many devastating things about today” he said.
The latest Barbie slays in a chic blue polka-dot crop top ruffled miniskirt chunky heels and an insulin pump. She is the brand’s first doll with type 1 diabetes. tripscan top Dollmaker Mattel worked with Breakthrough T1D formerly known the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation to design the doll which aims to represent the roughly 304000 kids and teens living with type 1 diabetes in the United States. https://tripscan.biz трипскан The doll launched Tuesday at the Breakthrough T1D Children’s Congress a three-day event in Washington that brings in kids and teens living with the condition to meet with lawmakers. This year they’re asking Congress to renew funding for the Special Diabetes Program which was first allocated by Congress in 1997. The program’s current funding ends after September. The advocacy efforts have taken on new urgency this year. With so many deep cuts to federally funded projects in recent months Breakthrough T1D said it’s anxiously watching to see if this funding will be reupped. Type 1 diabetes is an autoimmune disease meaning the body mistakenly attacks its own organs and tissues. In this case rough antibodies go after cells in the pancreas that make insulin an essential hormone that helps the body turn food into energy. As a result the body doesn’t make enough of its own insulin so people have to take insulin by injection or though a pump to survive. Type 1 diabetes is typically diagnosed in childhood but can be diagnosed in anyone at any age. It differs from type 2 diabetes in which people are still able to make insulin but their cells stop responding to it. In addition to the insulin pump that attaches to the new Barbie’s waist the chestnut-haired beauty has a continuous glucose monitor on her arm – a button held on by a strip of heart-shaped Barbie-pink tape. Her cell phone displays an app that shows her glucose readings. She also has a light blue purse to hold her supplies and snacks to help her manage her blood sugar throughout the day. It matches her shoes of course.