On the version of Hot off the Wire posted Jan. 6 at 6 a.m. CT:
WASHINGTON (AP) — The U.S. Treasury has announced that the nation’s gross national debt has surpassed $34 trillion. The record high comes after Republican lawmakers and the White House agreed to temporarily lift the nation’s $31.4 trillion debt limit last year after the government ran up against its legal borrowing capacity and needed to implement “extraordinary measures” to avoid a default. That agreement lasts until January 2025. Congress is gearing up for another funding fight.
Most of us struggle with making those New Year’s resolutions stick. This year, add some fuel — or even electricity — to your personal improvement fire with cars that can help you see your goals through to the end. Whether you want to get fit or get out, Edmunds picks five vehicles to keep you motivated. On our list are the Toyota GR Corolla, Ford Bronco, Nissan Versa, Hyundai Ioniq 6 and Mercedes-Benz GLB.
Four years after the last census, almost a dozen small communities in the Midwest are going to be counted again in hopes of getting more state funding. Eleven municipalities in Illinois and Iowa are the only cities in the U.S. so far to have signed agreements with the U.S. Census Bureau to recount their residents in 2024 and 2025 in a repeat of what happened during the 2020 census. The first year in which the special censuses can be conducted is 2024. The cities' populations have grown so fast in three years that they are leaving state funding on the table by not including the extra growth.
Investment guru Warren Buffett topped The Chronicle of Philanthropy's annual list of the biggest charitable donations in 2023, with his $541.5 million gift to the Susan Thompson Buffett Foundation, named for his first wife, who died in 2004. The 2023 list of gifts from individuals or their foundations totaled more than $3.5 billion. Four universities received big gifts, along with four scientific research institutes and a health-care system. The other gifts went to a family foundation and a racial justice group. The list has 11 gifts because of ties. Eight of the donors are multibillionaires, and their combined net worth is $305.1 billion.
NEW YORK (AP) — New York City has banned vendors from the Brooklyn Bridge. The change ends a bustling market that supplied cheap goods to tourists on the iconic crossing. Police officers were stationed in pairs Wednesday along the mile-long span. The ban is aimed at easing congestion on the bridge's heavily trafficked pedestrian walkway. Sellers acknowledge the bridge has recently been inundated with tabletop businesses selling such items as New York-branded hats and keychains, but the vendors say the city’s total ban went too far. Mayor Eric Adams is defending the prohibition as necessary to ensure pedestrian safety and clamp down on what he described as growing disorder.
NEW YORK (AP) — A new version of the federal student aid application known as the FAFSA is available for the 2024-2025 school year, but only on a limited basis as the U.S. Department of Education works on a redesign meant to make it easier to apply. That means that the application students can usually fill out starting in October isn't yet available to everyone. The redesign brings major changes such as fewer questions, the ability to list more colleges and availability in more languages. However, students will get their financial aid offers later than usual because the form hasn't been available. A soft launch period opened last week.
NEW YORK (AP) — More U.S. hospitals are requiring masks and limiting visitors as health officials face a post-holiday spike in flu and other illnesses. New York City last week instituted a mask mandate for the city’s 11 public hospitals. Similar measures were ordered at some hospitals in Los Angeles and Massachusetts. Flu and COVID-19 infections have been increasing for weeks, with high levels of flu-like illness reported in 31 states just before Christmas. Updated national numbers are to be released Friday, but health officials predict infections will grow in many states well into January.
Crib cameras are offering a clue to a rare but devastating tragedy — when seemingly healthy young children suddenly die in their sleep and autopsies can’t tell why. Similar to SIDS in babies, it’s called sudden unexplained death in childhood, or SUDC, when it happens after age 1. In a small study, researchers analyzed video that captured the deaths of seven toddlers and found seizures sometimes play a role. Now they must figure out why. Researchers from NYU Langone Health reported the findings Thursday in the journal Neurology.
A Connecticut woman who pushed for expanded access to Vermont’s law that allows people who are terminally ill to end their lives has died in Vermont. Lynda Bluestein, who had terminal cancer, ended her life by taking prescribed lethal medication on Thursday. Her husband says her last words were that she was so happy that she didn't have to suffer anymore. The group Compassion & Choices filed a lawsuit against Vermont in 2022 on behalf of Bluestein. She claimed Vermont’s residency requirement in its medically assisted suicide law violated the U.S. Constitution. The state settled the case last year, allowing Bluestein and later anyone else in her circumstances to take advantage of the law.
SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — The falling-block video game Tetris has met its match in 13-year-old Willis Gibson. In late December, he became the first player to officially beat the original Nintendo version of the game — by breaking it. Technically, Willis — aka “blue scuti” in the gaming world — made it to what gamers call a “kill screen,” a point where the Tetris code glitches, crashing the game. That might not sound like much of a victory to most people, but it’s a highly coveted achievement in the world of video games. And it’s a very big deal for Tetris, which has long been described as an “unbeatable” game.
NEW YORK (AP) — A small, rare herding dog called the Lancashire heeler is the latest breed recognized by the American Kennel Club. The organization announced Wednesday that the breed is now eligible for thousands of U.S. dog shows. Lancashire heelers historically were farm helpers that could both drive cattle and rout rats. The dogs are short-legged, long-bodied and active, and owners say contented heelers sometimes pull back their lips in a move that resembles a human smile. The Lancashire heeler is the 201st breed recognized by the AKC. Heelers’ history goes back centuries in the United Kingdom, where they’re now deemed a “vulnerable native breed” at risk of dying out in their homeland.
HANAPEPE, Hawaii (AP) — A salt patch on the island of Kauai is one of the last remaining in all of Hawaii. Salt makers from 22 Native Hawaiian families gather here in the summer months to do the hard work of making paakai or Hawaiian salt. An important part of this cultural and spiritual practice is to give away the salt. It can never be sold. The existence of this salt patch is being threatened by climate change, rising sea levels and pollution. These challenges have shrunk the salt-making season and reduced the quantity of salt produced. But the salt makers are looking for solutions to preserve this unique practice and pass on their knowledge to future generations.
—The Associated Press
About this program
Host Terry Lipshetz is managing editor of the national newsroom for Lee Enterprises. Besides producing the daily Hot off the Wire news podcast, Terry conducts periodic interviews for this Behind the Headlines program, co-hosts the Streamed & Screened movies and television program and is the former producer of Across the Sky, a podcast dedicated to weather and climate.
Lee Enterprises produces many national, regional and sports podcasts. Learn more here.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
View all episodes
By Lee Enterprises
3.9
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On the version of Hot off the Wire posted Jan. 6 at 6 a.m. CT:
WASHINGTON (AP) — The U.S. Treasury has announced that the nation’s gross national debt has surpassed $34 trillion. The record high comes after Republican lawmakers and the White House agreed to temporarily lift the nation’s $31.4 trillion debt limit last year after the government ran up against its legal borrowing capacity and needed to implement “extraordinary measures” to avoid a default. That agreement lasts until January 2025. Congress is gearing up for another funding fight.
Most of us struggle with making those New Year’s resolutions stick. This year, add some fuel — or even electricity — to your personal improvement fire with cars that can help you see your goals through to the end. Whether you want to get fit or get out, Edmunds picks five vehicles to keep you motivated. On our list are the Toyota GR Corolla, Ford Bronco, Nissan Versa, Hyundai Ioniq 6 and Mercedes-Benz GLB.
Four years after the last census, almost a dozen small communities in the Midwest are going to be counted again in hopes of getting more state funding. Eleven municipalities in Illinois and Iowa are the only cities in the U.S. so far to have signed agreements with the U.S. Census Bureau to recount their residents in 2024 and 2025 in a repeat of what happened during the 2020 census. The first year in which the special censuses can be conducted is 2024. The cities' populations have grown so fast in three years that they are leaving state funding on the table by not including the extra growth.
Investment guru Warren Buffett topped The Chronicle of Philanthropy's annual list of the biggest charitable donations in 2023, with his $541.5 million gift to the Susan Thompson Buffett Foundation, named for his first wife, who died in 2004. The 2023 list of gifts from individuals or their foundations totaled more than $3.5 billion. Four universities received big gifts, along with four scientific research institutes and a health-care system. The other gifts went to a family foundation and a racial justice group. The list has 11 gifts because of ties. Eight of the donors are multibillionaires, and their combined net worth is $305.1 billion.
NEW YORK (AP) — New York City has banned vendors from the Brooklyn Bridge. The change ends a bustling market that supplied cheap goods to tourists on the iconic crossing. Police officers were stationed in pairs Wednesday along the mile-long span. The ban is aimed at easing congestion on the bridge's heavily trafficked pedestrian walkway. Sellers acknowledge the bridge has recently been inundated with tabletop businesses selling such items as New York-branded hats and keychains, but the vendors say the city’s total ban went too far. Mayor Eric Adams is defending the prohibition as necessary to ensure pedestrian safety and clamp down on what he described as growing disorder.
NEW YORK (AP) — A new version of the federal student aid application known as the FAFSA is available for the 2024-2025 school year, but only on a limited basis as the U.S. Department of Education works on a redesign meant to make it easier to apply. That means that the application students can usually fill out starting in October isn't yet available to everyone. The redesign brings major changes such as fewer questions, the ability to list more colleges and availability in more languages. However, students will get their financial aid offers later than usual because the form hasn't been available. A soft launch period opened last week.
NEW YORK (AP) — More U.S. hospitals are requiring masks and limiting visitors as health officials face a post-holiday spike in flu and other illnesses. New York City last week instituted a mask mandate for the city’s 11 public hospitals. Similar measures were ordered at some hospitals in Los Angeles and Massachusetts. Flu and COVID-19 infections have been increasing for weeks, with high levels of flu-like illness reported in 31 states just before Christmas. Updated national numbers are to be released Friday, but health officials predict infections will grow in many states well into January.
Crib cameras are offering a clue to a rare but devastating tragedy — when seemingly healthy young children suddenly die in their sleep and autopsies can’t tell why. Similar to SIDS in babies, it’s called sudden unexplained death in childhood, or SUDC, when it happens after age 1. In a small study, researchers analyzed video that captured the deaths of seven toddlers and found seizures sometimes play a role. Now they must figure out why. Researchers from NYU Langone Health reported the findings Thursday in the journal Neurology.
A Connecticut woman who pushed for expanded access to Vermont’s law that allows people who are terminally ill to end their lives has died in Vermont. Lynda Bluestein, who had terminal cancer, ended her life by taking prescribed lethal medication on Thursday. Her husband says her last words were that she was so happy that she didn't have to suffer anymore. The group Compassion & Choices filed a lawsuit against Vermont in 2022 on behalf of Bluestein. She claimed Vermont’s residency requirement in its medically assisted suicide law violated the U.S. Constitution. The state settled the case last year, allowing Bluestein and later anyone else in her circumstances to take advantage of the law.
SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — The falling-block video game Tetris has met its match in 13-year-old Willis Gibson. In late December, he became the first player to officially beat the original Nintendo version of the game — by breaking it. Technically, Willis — aka “blue scuti” in the gaming world — made it to what gamers call a “kill screen,” a point where the Tetris code glitches, crashing the game. That might not sound like much of a victory to most people, but it’s a highly coveted achievement in the world of video games. And it’s a very big deal for Tetris, which has long been described as an “unbeatable” game.
NEW YORK (AP) — A small, rare herding dog called the Lancashire heeler is the latest breed recognized by the American Kennel Club. The organization announced Wednesday that the breed is now eligible for thousands of U.S. dog shows. Lancashire heelers historically were farm helpers that could both drive cattle and rout rats. The dogs are short-legged, long-bodied and active, and owners say contented heelers sometimes pull back their lips in a move that resembles a human smile. The Lancashire heeler is the 201st breed recognized by the AKC. Heelers’ history goes back centuries in the United Kingdom, where they’re now deemed a “vulnerable native breed” at risk of dying out in their homeland.
HANAPEPE, Hawaii (AP) — A salt patch on the island of Kauai is one of the last remaining in all of Hawaii. Salt makers from 22 Native Hawaiian families gather here in the summer months to do the hard work of making paakai or Hawaiian salt. An important part of this cultural and spiritual practice is to give away the salt. It can never be sold. The existence of this salt patch is being threatened by climate change, rising sea levels and pollution. These challenges have shrunk the salt-making season and reduced the quantity of salt produced. But the salt makers are looking for solutions to preserve this unique practice and pass on their knowledge to future generations.
—The Associated Press
About this program
Host Terry Lipshetz is managing editor of the national newsroom for Lee Enterprises. Besides producing the daily Hot off the Wire news podcast, Terry conducts periodic interviews for this Behind the Headlines program, co-hosts the Streamed & Screened movies and television program and is the former producer of Across the Sky, a podcast dedicated to weather and climate.
Lee Enterprises produces many national, regional and sports podcasts. Learn more here.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
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