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GRAFTON -- Grafton police on Monday, Jan. 27 released surveillance video showing a brazen theft inside DICK'S Sporting Goods -- a crime that ended in a serious crash on I-43 near Silver Spring Drive on Jan. 19. Darrell Brown, 37, and Letosha Walton, 36, both of Milwaukee, were each charged with retail theft -- intentionally taking greater than $500 to $5,000, as party to a crime (with an added repeater modifier for Brown).

Police said the pursuit began after the suspects stole nearly $2,000 worth of merchandise from the store -- leading to a 100 miles per hour pursuit that ended in a crash, bringing traffic to a standstill. Dashcam video showed the suspect vehicle slammed into a retaining wall and flipped another vehicle onto its hood. Thankfully, the two women inside that vehicle were not hurt.

Prosecutors said Walton was driving during the pursuit -- stopped with a PIT maneuver. Brown surrendered to police. Both received medical attention.

PHOTO GALLERY

After the crash, police sorted through items found in their vehicle.

"She got me in the car, and wouldn't take me back home," Brown said in the video. "I ain't had no business having my hands on that (expletive) with no money."

In addition to the retail theft charge out of Ozaukee County for the crime at DICK'S, Walton faces two counts of recklessly endangering safety and one count of vehicle operator flee/elude officer out of Milwaukee County in connection with the pursuit and crash.

Walton was in court Thursday, Jan. 23 in Milwaukee County, where cash bond was set at $5,000, and a preliminary hearing was scheduled for Jan. 29.

Brown was in court in Ozaukee County Jan. 21 for a bail/bond hearing and initial appearance. Cash bond was set at $15,000, and a status hearing was scheduled for Feb. 5.

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Shopping like they have a list: Video captured DICKS retail theft before pursuit, crash on I-43 - WITI FOX 6 Milwaukee

ITHACA, N.Y. Have a few minutes to burn on this chilly winter day? Spend it with us in the warm glow of your screen. This month we're looking at some (most) of the major construction projects, public and private, underway in Ithaca this winter.

Harolds Square on the Commons is moving right along. The Commons-facing side of the structure has been mostly finished from the outside with brown terra cotta panels. As you can see in the street-level photo, once the mineral wool was on, steel rails were attached to the building and the panels are clipped into place atop the rails. The westernmost face has its expansive glass installed (with metal fins to provide some respite from the direct sun), while the waterproofed exterior awaits its aluminum metal panel finish. In the taller, southern side of the building, window installation has begun on the lower levels.

According to the new website, monthly rents will range from $1,300 for a studio, to $3,000 for a top-of-the-line two-bedroom. The floorplans are included below. Note the studios are just a little above the legal minimum, at 332 SF. Truly for someone who likes to live with a small footprint, I guess. Most units come with their own washer and dryer, studios will share a common room with a washer and dryer.

There are 6 studios (which are a tiny 342 square feet), 42 one-bedroom units (749 square feet), and 29 two-bedroom units (1,088 square feet). Units come with quartz countertops, tile backsplashes, stainless steel fixtures and Energy Star appliances, vinyl plank floors, and everything is that marketing-friendly neutral color palette of subdued whites, beiges, greys and browns. Fiber optic internet is included in rent, and the units are pet-friendly. Higher-end units also have balconies.

Shared amenities include a dog washing station, 12th-floor rooftop terrace, Amazon Hub apartment lockers, keyless entry, private storage and bike storage, trash and recycling chutes on every floor, a security system and access to two high-speed elevators. All units are non-smoking. 60 kW from a solar array in the Schuyler County town of Dix will be utilized to offset the buildings carbon footprint.

Endwell-based Visions Federal Credit Union had begun their expansion into the Ithaca / Tompkins County market. The financial non-profit is proposing to build a 3,320 square-foot branch office with a parking lot containing 20 spaces and drive-up ATMs. The building will be finished out in a fairly standard mix of painted aluminum metal panel system and fiber cement, with a masonry base and aluminum window system.

More interestingly, the majority of the lot would be fenced in from the adjacent roadways and turned into an outdoor amphitheater. A 940 SF stage structure would be built at the southern end of the property, and the lawn would be maintained for use as an outdoor event and entertainment venue rough estimates put the seating capacity at about 500, with the shopping center parking lot to double as a parking area for concert series attendees (the initial plan is five concerts from May-September, with smaller events in between). The remainder of the property would be fitted out with stormwater retention areas, landscaping improvements, a small amount of sidewalk, electric vehicle charging stations, a pet-friendly outdoor waiting area next to the building and bike racks.

The site is being cleared and graded for construction at the moment. The elevated pad in the first photo is where the new branch office will be built. The third photo shows the graded site pad for the amphitheater. The $1.25 million project should take about eight months to build out, putting it on course for a late summer opening.

The new exterior cladding is going up on the renovated and expanded Maguire Ford-Lincoln at 504 South Meadow Street. Generally speaking, the materials consist of Alcoa ribbed aluminum panels on the back and sides, Alpolic aluminum panels on the front, and painted panels on the old service wing being retained and incorporated into the renovation. For automakers, aluminum panels are often the desired finish of choice because it projects a clean, modern image, and automotive sales are all about pushing the latest and greatest technologically-advanced four-wheeled machines out onto the roads. You can see on the rear wall how rails are attached to the exterior wall, and the panels are attached to the rails above the sheathing.

Many of the windows have yet to be fitted, and the old service wing is still sheathed in Tyvek house wrap while it waits for its exterior panels. The curved airfoil feature with the Ford blue oval has yet to be installed at the front entrance, but there are spaces on either side of the entrance that suggest where it will be attached to the main structure. The Lincoln logo will go above 23 black aluminum swatch on the northeast corner next to the entrance, as requested by Ford corporate design guidelines. Initially, the plan was to have an exposed concrete masonry base, but late in the review process they upgraded to stone veneer, which lends a more upscale and aesthetically pleasing appearance to the structure. It does look like some windows were changed or deleted when compared to the last set of drawings from review, but minor fenestration alterations are typically a minor enough change that re-review isnt warranted.

According to a filing with the Tompkins County Clerk on January 13th, CFCU Community Credit Union is lending the Maguire Family of Dealerships $5,362,500 to fund the renovation and expansion. This is unusually high; the Site Plan Review estimated the cost of the project at $1.5 million. The loan notes that fees and other expenses mostly related to the mortgage total $1.788 million, which still lends a very substantial $3.574 million towards the construction project itself, to be paid out in six payments, and all except about $12,000 of that going to the general contractor, G.M. Crisalli & Associates of Syracuse. The terms of the agreement stipulate a completion no later than July 1st.

Library Place is making progress over at 105 West Court Street (the new mailing address; guess we should stop saying 314 North Cayuga Street now). The concrete masonry unit (CMU) northeast elevator/stair tower has topped off, and it looks like part of the northwest tower is being assembled now. The square holes above the lower levels of the tower are most likely slots for structural steel. If Im reading the floor plans right, a third stair tower will be constructed along the south wall of the building. The concrete foundation footers have been poured, and a CMU foundation wall is being assembled; the pink materials along the outside of the wall are lightweight polystyrene insulation boards, Owens Corning Foamular from the looks of it. I see a work truck on-site for subcontractor Gorick Construction of Binghamton, but rather surprisingly theres no signage around for general contractor LeChase Construction.

Signs along the perimeter fence advertise a Spring 2021 opening for the four-story, 86,700 square-foot building. Prices for the 66 senior housing units are not yet available. Amenities will include a restaurant, la carte home health services from an on-site agency, community room, courtyard gardens, workout facilities, warming pool, and underground parking. Senior services non-profit Lifelong will provide on-site activities and programs.

Now you see it, now you don't. The house and two apartment buildings previously on the site of INHS's new Cayuga Flats apartment project have been removed and the site is being excavated for the new 13-unit building, which will serve households making 30%-60% of area median income (about $18k-$35k/year for a one-person household). The new 12,585 square-foot will be two stories from the front (northwest) and three from the back (southeast), further downslope.

Of the 13 units, ten will be one-bedroom units, and three will be two-bedroom units. The buildings design, penned by Rochester firm SWBR Architects, is a fairly modern look with fiber cement siding with wood-like fiber cement and masonry accents.Engineering-wise, the project will be built on a 5 concrete slab resting on a vapor barrier and compacted stone base, with concrete masonry unit (CMU) or poured concrete walls and footings. This foundation wall will also serve as a retaining wall. The floord above will be a traditional lightweight wood frame common in low-rise multifamily construction. This should take about a year to build out.

For the record, this is down the street from the storm sewer that collapsed. The storm sewer that gave way is the fourth photo, and will take about two months to replace. There's no indication that the construction project and the nearby sewer collapse are related.

Here's another project undergoing site prep. The former AJ's Foreign Auto has been torn down and the site is being graded for Arthaus Ithaca, a new five-story apartment building.

Among the features are support service office space, a community room, a gallery/studio (in partnership with the Cherry Arts, according to state docs from October) and a fitness room. Its about 123 units (48 studio, 55 1-bedroom, 20 2-bedroom) of affordable housing, 50-80% of area median income, plus a one-bedroom unit for the property manager for 124 total. A breakdown of units and rents is at the end of this post and on the NYS HCR website here. Forty units (the ESSHI grant units in the rental breakdown table) will be set aside for young adults aged 19-26 for formerly foster care and homeless youth, and administered by Tompkins Community Action.

Along with the housing, the building would include parking for about 36 vehicles within and outside the building ,and 7,748 square feet of potential retail or office and amenity space geared toward artists. Also included is space for 52 bikes and 4 motorcycles, and access to Ithaca CarShare. The exterior will be finished out in light grey, medium grey and red fiber cement panels, with the internal courtyard areas having white stucco finishes. The ground level will have dark grey fiber cement panels and dark grey masonry.

A public promenade will run along the west side of the property next to the waterfront, pending approval from the NYS Department of Environmental Conservation. The project was designed by Vecinos in-house team, BW Architects and Engineers (remember, theyre a big firm that can afford to have their own architecture team). The project is also seeking to get arts groups involved in the design, to give it a unique local flair. The project will be built to state (NYSERDA) Performance Path for Energy Star standards for sustainable housing (Tier II, >25% energy savings above code). The city was looking to start off on the right foot with the upzoned waterfront, and this is exactly the kind of creative, affordable project they were hoping for.

Not every project is my private organizations; there are some municipal plans underway as well. The Brindley Street Bridge Replacement project includes the relocation of Brindley Street by connecting Taber Street with the West State-MLK Jr. Street/Taughannock Boulevard intersection. The existing Brindley Street roadway and structure will remain (with appropriate improvements) and be utilized for pedestrian traffic. The existing bridge will continue to be used by the public during construction of the new bridge and approach roadways until September or October of 2020.

The new approach roadways have been graded, rising slightly for the new bridge that will go in later this year. The new two-way bridge will make getting to and from Cherry Street just a little easier than the current 1950s one-way bridge.

The bigger, greener GreenStar Co-Op is approaching the finish line. The interior is being fitted out with equipment, the parking lot is striped, the bikes racks and street trees are in, and the new "Welcome to Ithaca" mural has been put up on the building's backside, which faces Route 13. According to GreenStar's website, the Certificate of Occupancy, the legal permit to occupy the new structure, is expected within the next few weeks, after city inspectors have gone through and make sure everything is good to go.

Of course, moving is more than just a building and equipment. The central kitchen, warehouse, administrative operations and retail store all have to relocate. Time is needed to test the new equipment and get staff acclimated to the new space. As a result, the actual opening for business is still a couple of months off. "While our goal is to transition with minimal interruptions to our business operations, we may need and will greatly appreciate your patience and understanding while we transition to our new home," GreenStar says on their website.

If you want a look at some annotated interior shots, GreenStar has them up on their website here. The Co-Op has raised the $2 million it sought for its capital campaign, and is now aiming for a reach goal of $2.5 million.

Excerpt from:
Library Place, Harold's Square and a new Amphitheater: take a look at what's being built in Ithaca - The Ithaca Voice

For the past eight years, Theresa Mannuzza has lived in her mobile home in Calverton.

Im on a fixed income and I bought it outright, says Mannuzza, 72, a retired factory worker.

She has loved living in the Lakewood Park development for everything it offers, she says the neighbors, the comfort, the convenience and the affordability.

Now she plans to sell and move to the Mastic area to live with family. But her home has served her well.

Mobile homes actually manufactured homes secured to the ground account for about 1% of all homes in Suffolk County and 6.6% of all homes nationwide, and are a way of life for thousands of people on limited incomes.

Many are buying these units either as affordable housing, or as second homes, says Tracy Cronin, a real estate agent for Gold Coast Homes & Estates, who has sold a number of units at the Suffolk Pines mobile home development in Westhampton.

Theres such a need for either low-maintenance second home locations, such as a mobile home or affordable housing, which, depending on the location, on the East End, a lot of these serve as both, says Cronin. They absolutely love the fact that garbage is taken care of, snow removal is taken care of, grounds are kept.

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Mobile homes are becoming very popular as vacation homes, too, says Cronin. There are mobile home units leasing in Montauk for $350,000, he says, which is at the high end of the mobile home market.

Originally an oceanfront campsite, Montauk Shores offers both home ownership and leasing options, with prices ranging from the $300,000s for leases to over $1 million for ownership. The development has two pools and a clubhouse and attracts well-known business owners, many of whom are second-home owners, and even second Montauk homeowners for those seeking an oceanfront residence.

Instead of spending $900,000 or $800,000 for a house and having maintenance, theyre paying less than half and theyve got no maintenance, other than inside the unit, explains Cronin of the leased units.

Mobile home owners have their own private space, says Anne Stipes, resident manager of Lakewood Park.

You still have a bit of a yard around you, Stipes says. And a lot of the parks have different amenities for the residents. I think you have a nice sense of community.

In Lakewood, which has a clubhouse, picnic/barbecue area and a pond, Stipes says, they hold Thanksgiving dinners and holiday breakfasts, among other group celebrations and activities. We try to do different things like that to get people in the community together, Stipes says.

Add to that a sense of security. Denice Sidorowicz, whos lived in mobile home in Bohemia for the past 20 years, says, Its very convenient for me, because I come and go. Im living on my own.

A part-time food demonstrator, Sidorowicz, 72, says she was going through a divorce when she bought her home. The price was right, she says.

Now shes selling because she wants to live with family in Tennessee.

She has loved living in the mobile park, she says. I have neighbors and we all get along, she says. I just get in my car and go, not worrying about my place because I know my neighbors will take care of it.

Each unit is on a 50-by-100-foot lot, Sidorowicz says, adding, Theyre not all stacked up on top of each other. Its a really nice community. Everybody has their own private stuff.

Her development, Bunker Hill/Valley Forge, plans to add a community room this year, she says. Its just nice. People can walk around without worrying about anything.

Mobile homes, however, come with other costs. There are monthly land lease fees that are paid to the mobile home park management, ranging from $100 to $1,400. They typically include property taxes, water and sewer usage, garbage and snow removal, and access to any community amenities, such as a park or community center.

The homes are insured by the development, but residents can take out insurance policies for the contents of their homes, which are considerably cheaper than insurance coverage for non-mobile homes, Cronin says.

Many communities, however, oppose mobile home parks. In Nassau County, there are none after the Syosset Trailer Park closed in 2016. The countys minimum lot size zoning restrictions prohibit building a mobile home community, says Sean Sallie, Deputy Commissioner of Planning for the countys Department of Public Works.

Things are different in Suffolk. Many mobile home parks have been grandfathered in. Others are accepted.

The Montauk Shores Trailer Park, for instance, is a welcome part of the communitys surfer culture, Cronin says. Its sort of a cool retro style summer community, says Cronin. They are well accepted by the community and considered a cool asset to have by the owners.

In Southampton Town, there are several mobile home parks that fulfill a need for affordable living options, Supervisor Jay Schneiderman notes.

We have some excellent mobile home parks. Some of them offer a lot of amenities, says Schneiderman, adding that some parks offer exclusive home ownership while others also have rental options.

Theyre often in locations that are pretty accessible, in terms of not being far from bus stops and shopping, he says, adding, Theres a sense of community in these developments.

The mobile home communities in Southampton township exist today because they were grandfathered in through earlier zoning regulations, Schneiderman says.

All of our zoning codes, even the multifamily codes, dont allow density at that level, so all of the mobile home facilities that exist in the town today wouldnt be allowed if they were proposing a new facility.

Zoning for groundwater protection in the town is at least one acre per dwelling and mobile home developments often have about 20 units per acre, Schneiderman says.

However, mobile homes could be the future, he believes.

Noting a movement toward owning smaller homes, particularly among the young, and as televisions and appliances become more compact, Schneiderman says its expensive to maintain a large home, and that mobile homes may be a more sustainable way to live, particularly if we can hook them up to sewage treatment.

That, he says, is the biggest issue: How do you manage the sanitary flow from a facility like that?

With an eye toward the future, Schneiderman is looking to come up with some models on how to live more affordably in his town.

It may be these smaller units, whether theyre tiny homes, mobile homes, small cottages where people share one swimming pool for a whole community, one lawn and playground.

Smaller communal homes might provide a solution to both the issue of affordability and environmental protection, Schneiderman says.

Even though its something from our past, it may be a clue to how we can live in the future, he says of mobile homes.

The cost of housing has gotten so far beyond local wages. And, I think you can do it in a way that is more environmentally friendly, too, where you use solar panels and sewage treatment, and have less of an environmental impact than one large home, Schniederman says.

Here are a few mobile homes currently on the market:

Asking price: $49,400

Community: Riverhaven Mobile Park in Riverhead

Schools: Riverhead Central School District

Monthly fee: $756.72

Features: A 720-square-foot, two-bedroom, one-bath home on a 40-by-70-foot lot in a 55-and-over community, with built-ins, large side yard and deck and two parking spaces.

Listing agents: Edward Kurosz and Susan Ribeiro, Douglas Elliman Real Estate

Asking price: $65,000

Community: Gildersleeve Park in Amityville

Schools: Amityville Union Free School District

Monthly fee: $950

Features: A two-bedroom, one-bath home with central air conditioning, new burner and a no-maintenance Rainbow roof.

Listing agents: Kerry Liles and Leonardo Toribio, Exit Home Key Realty

Asking price: $39,900

Community: Lakewood Park in Calverton

Schools: Riverhead Central School District

Monthly fee: $724,

Features: Two-bedroom, one-bath home with washer/dryer, two wall AC units, shed and new refrigerator in 55 And over community, which includes a clubhouse and park with a picnic area.

Listing agents: David Lisy and Gloria Radosta, Century 21 Cor-Ace Realty

Asking price: $75,000

Community: Bunker Hill/Valley Forge in Bohemia

Schools: Connetquot Central School District

Monthly fee: $927

Features: A two-bedroom, one bath with eat-in kitchen and pantry, updated bath, private yard and shed.

Listing agents: Carine Powers and Natia Chikvadze, Century 21 Bays Edge Realty

Asking Price: $79,900

Community: Bunker Hill/Valley Forge in Bohemia

Schools: Connetquot Central School District

Monthly fee: $1,013

Features: A two bedroom, one bath home with eat-in-kitchen, washer/dryer, central air, propane gas heat and cooking.

Listing agent: Deborah DAmore, Unique Home Sales of Long Island

Heres a sampling of some of the mobile home parks scattered around the island, all of which are in Suffolk County. Syosset Mobile Home Park, the last mobile home community in Nassau, closed in 2016.

Gildersleeve Park, Amityville 157 homes

Bunker Hill/Valley Forge, Bohemia - 400 homes

Bay Shore Mobile Park, Bay Shore -- 171 homes

Riverhaven, Riverhead -- 103 homes

Lakewood, Calverton -- 108 homes

Riverwoods, Riverhead 376 homes

East Hampton Village 193 homes

In Suffolk County, mobile homes are regulated by individual townships. Nassau County has no mobile homes: Zoning restrictions in towns and villages throughout the county prohibit building any mobile home developments, notes Sean Sallie, deputy commissioner of planning for Nassau Countys Department of Public Works. Syosset Mobile Home Park, the last mobile home park in Nassau, closed in 2016.

If you were to consider a mobile home a single-family home, zoning regulations for single family homes in Nassau have a minimum lot requirement ranging from 4,000 square feet to several acres, says Sallie.

Typically, its about 6,000 square feet to 8,000 square feet, he says. You would need all that land to put just one mobile home, so its really not feasible.

If the municipality considered mobile homes multiple family, which could be zoned 20 units per acre, then there would be the issue of placing 20 mobile home units on one acre, because you cant go vertical.

So thats sort of the conundrum, explains Sallie. Its because the codes sort of prohibit [them], not expressly, but implicitly.

Mobile homeowners dont get individual tax bills, notes Sallie.

As in the case of condominiums, the landowner is taxed for the total development and then apportions part of the bill to each individual mobile homeowner.

Each mobile home is leasing the property, so they all pay the landowner and the landowner pays the bill to the municipality, Sallie says.

By Arlene Gross Special to Newsday

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Going mobile: Owning and living in a trailer on LI - Newsday

The United States is at the forefront of an economic and technological revolution driven by 5G (fifth-generation) cellular technology, which is poised to have a profound effect on health care, agriculture, education and American businesses of all sizes transforming American life as we know it

While the future has enormous potential, many states like Texas have a digital divide, and rural communities suffer most. According to the Federal Communications Commission, in 2018 only 69 percent of rural Americans had access to both 4G Long Term Evolution, or LTE, mobile services and broadband-speed service, compared with about 98 percent of urban Americans. With access to high-speed internet connectivity ubiquitous in urban areas, its imperative we increase it in rural ones.

When the 2018 merger between Sprint and T-Mobile was announced and touted Americas first nationwide 5G network, I had serious concerns about what this would mean for Texans. This is why I initially joined state attorneys general from 13 other states and the District of Columbia to challenge the merger. While I had zero doubt about the potential for 5G to change American life for the better, I was deeply concerned that working Texans, especially in rural communities, would be left behind as Americans in urban centers took a massive leap forward.

Like many states across the country, Texas has real unmet needs, and 5G represents our best shot at addressing them. That is why I engaged with T-Mobile and obtained results that satisfied my concerns about the merger. My office fought for and secured a number of important commitments from T-Mobile ensuring all Texans will have the opportunity to benefit from 5G technology, including affordable, high-quality wireless communications services and new innovations that will have the power to transform our growing economy.

The commitments we fought for position Texas at the center of the 5G revolution by requiring T-Mobile to build out a high-quality 5G network throughout Texas, including in rural communities, over the next six years. It also prevents the newly combined company from increasing prices for wireless services on Texans for five years after the merger is complete. Im also pleased that the agreement ensures that Texans currently employed by Sprint and T-Mobile will have substantially similar employment with the combined company.

The 3 million Texans living in rural areas face challenges every day their fellow Texans in urban areas could not imagine, including a lack of access to in-person health care and educational resources like the internet, as well as significant limitations on agriculture and business. These challenges are not unique to Texas, and they affect the 46 million Americans living in rural areas.

How can 5G help? Lets start with health care. Rural areas in Texas are especially underserved even compared with other rural areas across the country. According to the State Office of Rural Health, 64 Texas counties lack a hospital and 25 dont have a single primary care physician. Now, 5G will make telemedicine the use of online disease-management services, electronic health records, home monitoring and other services a real possibility, bringing health care to Texans who cant easily access a hospital or other facility.

A 2019 U.S. Department of Agriculture report on farm technology found a quarter of Texas nearly 247,000 farms have no internet. USDA estimated that adequate broadband infrastructure and other digital technologies in agriculture could add from $47 billion to $65 billion annually to the U.S. economy. High-quality 5G infrastructure will allow Texas farms to take advantage of technology to make farming more efficient, producing higher yields and higher profits.

Also, 5G has the potential to transform education in our state, bringing new tools into classrooms and leveling the playing field for students in rural areas. Texas has more schools in rural areas than any other state, and 5G infrastructure will give rural students access to the same learning resources as their urban counterparts. It will also allow for more connectivity and technology in our classrooms, making the vision of the school of the future a reality today.

As home to the second-largest economy in the United States, it is imperative we take the necessary steps to ensure Texas businesses of all sizes have access to the resources and technology to keep the Lone Star State competitive here in the United States and around the world. The commitments Texas obtained from T-Mobile will ensure all Texans from Amarillo to Brownsville, El Paso to Longview and everywhere in between have access to Americas first nationwide 5G network, and we will cement Texas position as a leading economic force at the forefront of the Fourth Industrial Revolution.

I am more convinced than ever the merger will support 5G deployment across America, and I urge my state counterparts to consider what this means for their rural communities. It will deliver critical benefits. Our future will be better with it.

Ken Paxton is the attorney general of Texas.

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Paxton: Sprint-T-Mobile merger will benefit all of Texas - San Antonio Express-News

Annetta Coffman has watched neighbor after neighbor get cancer. Five years ago, her son, Dalton Kincaid (left), was diagnosed, too.

Matt Eich

IN A NARROW SHADOW of land between two steep mountainsides in West Virginia, residents of a town called Minden are dying. Not in that existential were all dying a little bit every day way, but in the blotchy-lesions-and-tumor-riddled-organs-that-eventually-stop-working way.

The 250 residents are all thats left of a community that peaked at about 1,200 in 1970, and they think they know whats picking them off one by one, in a relentless, whos-next roulette. They cant avoid it in their homes. Or in their backyards. Or on the grounds of the abandoned factory where kids ride their dirt bikes. Locals have taken to calling Mindens main road Death Valley Drive.

Annetta Coffman has lived on this land for all of her 44 years. But in 2018 alone, 15 of her neighbors, people from age 12 to almost 90, died of cancer. Thats a full 6 percent of the towns current population. That year was a nightmare, she says, her voice more tired than sad a year after the fact.

Coffman lost her mother to breast, cervical, and uterine cancer in 2007. About five years ago, doctors discovered a tumor on the pituitary gland of her son, Dalton Kincaid. Hed stopped growing at four-foot-eleven and couldnt keep on weight, even if he ate 5,000 calories a day. His doctor told him he had to quit basketball, the sport he lived for, because he couldnt afford to burn extra calories. My doctor said he didnt even want me to play basketball with my friends, Kincaid says. No pickup ball, no messing around on the court on weekends.

Coffman recounts what theyve been through matter-of-factly, but her voice trembles with anxiety. Treatments shrank Kincaids tumors, yet despite a diet of 3,000 to 4,000 calories per day, even now, at age 20, hes still extremely lean. High energy and fast talking, he explains that he holds down a job at Walmart while going to school full-time at West Virginia University Tech. But recently hes been hit by blinding light sensitivity, and lately his eyes have been inflamed, like hes having an allergy attack, his mom chimes in.

Matt Eich

Coffman works two jobs in town, one at a chiropractors office and the other waiting tables at a restaurant. Minden is home, but she and the other remaining residents are desperate to move. Because theyre sure theyll die sooner if they stay. Ayne Amjad, M.D., an internist who lives 24 miles away and has become an advocate for the people of Minden, says her research estimates the cancer rate to be about 80 percent for those whove spent the majority of their lives in this valley.

Minden is a verdant place where Arbuckle Creek, the stream that carved the valley to begin with, runs between and behind its homes. The trouble is that when it rains, the water has nowhere to go but up. The creek bucks its banks maybe four, five, or six times a year, says Coffman. And when it floods, Kincaid adds, it runs for days. When the waters recede, theres sediment. In the riverbed and on the roads. In yards, in basements, in homes. Residents think that sediment, which is contaminated with leftover industrial chemicals, is what is making people sick. Its what they believe has poisoned threegoing on fourgenerations. For more than 30 years, the people of Minden have begged for help: from the state, from the feds, from anyone who will listen.

In 2017, due to their pressure, or just the way the cards flipped, the Environmental Protection Agency came to collect soil and sediment samples to determine whether Minden should be put on the National Priorities List, a government punch list of 1,335 places that have been evaluated and deemed hazardous and that require cleanup. In 2019, the townspeople felt theyd finally found an escape route when Minden was added to that list. They hoped to get moved, thinking relocation would offer a new start, as it has with other toxic sites.

Relocation was our goal, says Dr. Amjad. Brandon Richardson, a member of the Minden Community Action Team, says the news had people talking about the logistics of relocation, like whether theyd move as a group or take individual buyouts and each go their own way. But an October 2019 meeting with the EPA put residents back to where theyve been for 30 years: waiting. The EPA wouldnt even discuss relocation, Coffman says. Now Minden is in limbo, the townsfolk hoping to live long enough so that when the government finally acts, some people will be left to benefit.

Its a tough time to be a resident of a toxic community. From Minden to the Navajo Nationplaces large and small, coastal and notAmerica is dealing with the health fallout of industrial pollution. Since 2016, the federal government has proposed rollbacks on 85 environmental regulations. A number of these have gone into effect, and one in particular makes it easier for coal companies to pollute nearby streams. In addition, the governments 2018 budget slashed funding for remediation at Superfund sitesthe term for locations deemed so toxic they merit federal dollarsby 30 percent. From Love Canal (one of Americas first Superfund sites) to the Gulf of Mexico (site of the 2010 Deepwater Horizon oil spill) to Cancer Alley in Louisiana, theres a long history of industry burying toxic waste in American backyards and of residents having to raise hell to get it cleaned up. For Coffman, the sadness inside her at some point shifted to rage. Shes been holding on to that anger ever since, and joining forces with other people in and around town to try to do something about their plight.

WHEN THE NOW-DEFUNCT Shaffer Equipment Company started refurbishing electrical equipment for mining companies in the 1970s and 80s, Coffman was just a child. In much of West Virginia, coal keeps the lights on, and mining-adjacent businesses, like Shaffer, were welcomed in rural communities.

But at Shaffer headquarters, bosses were making decisions with far-reaching consequences: Something had to be done with the used transformers and oil. The company reportedly tasked employees with dumping the oil, which they did at several sites around town, including an old mine. Used oil was also repurposed by the company and local residents as heating fuel, and it was even sprayed on dirt roads to keep the dust down.

Matt Eich

Later it was discovered that the oil was contaminated with PCBs (polychlorinated biphenyls), heat- and pressure-resistant chemicals primarily used as insulating fluid. But those chemicals are also connected to birth defects, stillbirths, and cancer. Based on that and on the fact that PCBs can take a very long time to degrade in the environment, in 1979 the EPA ruled them a toxic substance and banned their manufacture. By then, however, the waste was all over Minden, and it was continuing to spreadin the soil, in the water, and everywhere the water went every time the creek overflowed.

Minden is so small that it doesnt have its own doctor. But in the early 80s, in nearby Oak Hill, oncologist Hassan Amjad, M.D. (Aynes father), began noticing that a disproportionate number of his cancer patients were from Minden. He raised an alarm first with the West Virginia Department of Environmental Protection and then at the federal EPA. Soon federal employees in hazmat suits were tromping through Minden, testing various places around town, including the site of the Shaffer Equipment Company. The EPA discovered that one sample, from 4,000 cubic yards of oil-soaked soil, was contaminated with PCBswhich can leach into groundwater or be inhaled. The level in the sample was 260,000 parts per million. The EPAs acceptable limit for those chemicals in soil is one part per million.

Minden residents asked the EPA to conduct a community health study, but the agency investigators response was that studies of similarly exposed populations in the U.S. had not resulted in elevated PCB blood levels.

Matt Eich

So the elder Dr. Amjad started collecting as much data as he could on his own. The problem with chemical-related cancers, especially those associated with PCBs, is that causation can be tough to prove definitively. (The kinds of cancers that PCBs seem to be linked to are the most common forms in the general population, such as lung, colon, and breast.) This makes it easy for public-health officials to say, Look at the towns smoking rates. Look at the residents diets. Look anywhere but at the chemicals. In fact, when West Virginia state senator Stephen Baldwin recently asked a state official about health in Minden, they said that if there are public-health problems here, its because of peoples poor choices, he says.

But even without a health study, the town had the EPAs ear for a minute in 1984. That December, agency workers arrived touting a new technology that would help break down the PCBs. It didnt work. The chemicals remained. So the EPA moved to plan B. It would truck out tainted soil and build a berm along Arbuckle Creek to prevent the migration of any remaining PCBs at the Shaffer site.

Percy Eddie Fruit, 65, a longtime resident whose home is within sight of one of the EPA cleanup locations, remembers watching trucks roll through town. At first, residentsincluding Fruit and Coffmanthought the EPA had done its job. So did the EPA. In December 1988, an agency team inspected the completed work and declared that the restored site area remained in excellent condition and that no threat to public health or the environment existed. Not quite.

THE PEOPLE OF MINDEN were supposed to move on with their lives. And they did. Coffman had a family. Fruit worked as a pipe fitter installing sprinkler systems. He took care of his two daughters and spent his weekends and his spare cash fixing up the home he grew up in.

But as the years passed, the residents kept seeing signs that maybe the job hadnt been finished. A cache of barrels lingered on the old Shaffer Equipment Company site. And they werent empty.

Yet all the while, people let their kids ride their bikes there, thinking it was safe, because the area hadnt been properly fenced off. Both residents and the EPA would later discover that the constructed berm isnt effective if its being eroded by the constant flooding that happens every time the skies open up.

The town organized and sent letters to the EPA and to state and local representatives, and the agency came back to Minden in 1991 and 92. Things were looking up even more in 1993, when the EPA tried to hold Shaffer accountable by suing the company to recoup the costs of cleaning up the town.

Matt Eich

But more dirt was uncovered: The suit was thrown out of trial court because the man the EPA had put in charge of the cleanup turned out to have lied to his employer. He didnt have the college degree or the masters degree in organic chemistry hed claimed. The EPA appealed and the parties ultimately settled, with Shaffer paying $600,000 to partially offset the agencys costs, now well into the millions. Minden isnt suing Shaffer, since theres no money to be had. (Shaffer has since filed for bankruptcy.)

And the town cant sue the EPA at this point. Suits typically cant be brought to challenge an EPA remedy at a Superfund site until that remedy has been finalized. Once the EPA has selected a remedy, then anyone who has standing could challenge the remedy and say its not good enough, says Kenneth Kilbert, an environmental-litigation expert at the University of Toledo College of Law. In Mindens case, the EPA is still determining what the final remedy will be. And thats not as simple as it sounds. The agency works on reducing risk to an acceptable level, not eliminating it, Kilbert says. From a risk perspective, that makes sense. But not if youre the person living next to it.

Fruit and his neighbors would agree with that. Even after additional cleanup in the early 90s, some of the residents still felt as though something wasnt right. Fruit noticed that people around him kept getting sick. I had a bunch of neighbors pass away from cancer, he says. His gut told him that the danger had not passed. Soil samples tested in 2017 showed he was correct. The toxins are still there. And the residents are, too.

IT'S STARTING TO LOOK like no one is going to save Minden except the people who live there. The residents are trying to draw a direct line between whats happening to their health and what happened to their town. For more than 30 years, the elder Dr. Amjad pushed to gather as much data as possible showing the effects of PCBs on Minden residents.

Proving causation between a chemical and a type of cancer can take years and many more dollars than Minden has. But Dr. Amjad thought he was close to discovering a new type of lymphoma linked to PCBs when he died suddenly of a heart attack in 2017, says his daughter, Ayne. She has her own medical practice, and although her father had always jokingly told Mindens residents that shed someday take over his advocacy work, she wasnt expecting to step in so soon.

But in the weeks after he died, while she was still processing her grief, everyone started calling, she says. They didnt know what to do and thought everything he did would be lost. When she had the strength to go into his office, she began sorting through decades of paperwork.

She hasnt been able to prove the lymphoma connection yet, but she has added two other strategies to the towns fight.

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The first is an effort to get the state to help collect more accurate cancer data. The second is a plan to look beyond the EPA for a solution.

Despite the fact that Minden is on the National Priorities List, the states Department of Health & Human Resources, which oversees the West Virginia Cancer Registry, says that its current data does not support the existence of a cancer cluster in the town. Thats largely due to how the data is gathered. If you live in Minden your whole life but move and are diagnosed with the disease while living elsewhere, you will no longer show up as a cancer case related to Minden.

The younger Dr. Amjad worked with Senator Baldwin to introduce legislation to change that, but the Health Department pushed back, saying it would be too complicated to sort the data any other way but by where people lived at the time of diagnosis. The necessary information cant just be pulled from basic medical records. To collate the data by where residents lived most of their lives would require in-person interviews, which the cancer registry doesnt have the manpower to conduct.

This means that a lot of cancer cases arent counted. Fruits mother, who cleaned the Shaffer Equipment Company offices, died of cancer in 1992. She counts toward Mindens total. But his three brothers, all of whom have had bouts of cancer that they have so far survived, dont, because they moved away.

Fruit doesnt really like talking about cancer, because its been too much of a presence among the people around him. Whenever the phone rings, he gets a pang of worry about what kind of news hell be getting. Rather than talk about cancer (If I speak, its going to happen, he says), he prays. And then he gets busy. You have to put your faith into action.

ON A HOT JUNE morning last year, Fruit got out of bed early and headed to Mindens small community center. Im always in pain, he says with a dark chuckle, referring to his hip, which is badly in need of a total replacement. He knew the uphill, mile-plus hike out of the valley that Minden sits in would cause misery tomorrow. But that was tomorrows problem.

Thirty years ago, on an equally muggy June weekend, Lucian Randall, a local activist, led a march out of Minden to protest the valleys pollution with PCBs. Randall pushed an oil drumlike the ones full of PCB-contaminated oil that were dumped all over this townup one of Mindens hills.

Fruit was a young man then, off serving in the Army, but his mother kept him informed about the fight back home. He never thought that three decades later, as a 65-year-old man, hed be leading a march up the same hill protesting the same thing. But here he was, bad hip and all.

The march was supposed to draw attention to Mindens ongoing plightand nod to the pilgrimage its residents hope to someday take, marching up and out of their toxic town, when they get the funds to relocate.

In one response from the EPA, last November, the agency stated that at this time, the environmental data/risk does not show that relocation is an appropriate response action. Dr. Amjad is helping the town look elsewhere for a solution. Shes investigating whether the consistent flooding in Minden at least qualifies residents for some level of disaster relief from FEMA.

CHRIS DORST | Charleston Gazette

But for now, theyre still trapped. Living on waste has made their homes worthless. Fruit says hes put $60,000 into his home over the years. Its value today is just $38,000. Coffman owes $20,000 on her double-wide mobile home, which is too damaged from flooding to move. So Im either going to leave it and be in debt, or just stay until its paid off. That would be in another ten yearswhich is ten more years of chemical exposure.

Even if the elusive relocation happens, that still wouldnt be the end of it. The residents would have to decide if they want to move together as a community, with neighbors staying neighbors in a brand-new development built just for them, or if everyone would rather take a cash buyout for their home and start over wherever they wish.

Coffman prefers the latter. Were going to get cancer, she says. Shes spent the past 30 years raising money for people who cant afford funerals; shes been going to memorials, making casseroles for friends, planning candlelight vigils, and watching people she loves die. If all her neighbors relocated together, it would be more of the same. Weve been exposed to it for too long. People are still going to be dying. And I dont want to see that.

Kincaid doesnt want to leave. But after he graduates from collegewhere hes studying criminal justice, hoping to go to law schoolhell be moving on. If I have kids one day, I dont want them to grow up here, he says. The only way hell find himself back in Minden is if, by the time hes passed the bar, things still havent changed. By that time, though, hell be armed with a law degree.

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The West Virginia Town Where Everyone's Dying and the Land Is Toxic - Men's Health

Ever since the news of Major League Baseballs plan to overhaul the minor leagues emerged in October, major league and minor league officials have carried out a public relations battle, volleying statements and letters back and forth amid contentious negotiations.

On Wednesday, M.L.B. issued a pointed and heated letter in response to a minor league message that cast doubt over whether the two sides could ever reach an agreement on the future of their relationship.

Dan Halem, the deputy commissioner and lead negotiator for M.L.B., wrote that the minor leagues, known as MiLB, and its president, Pat OConner, were doing significant damage to your relationship with the 30 clubs by attacking M.L.B. publicly and in the political realm.

Halem added that M.L.B. teams were united in our negotiating position and misinformation tactics you have employed have only made the 30 clubs more resolute.

The sharp missive came as the two sides were negotiating over an M.L.B. proposal that would, among other changes, cut off major league ties for as many as 42 minor league affiliates and replace them with independent teams in what it would call a Dream League which would not include any players under contract with major league teams.

Minor League Baseball has vehemently objected to the proposal, and the two sides have held several negotiation sessions to reach a new agreement. The current Professional Baseball Agreement, which governs the relationship between the majors and minors, expires in September.

But with another bargaining session scheduled for Feb. 20, each side is accusing the other of spreading falsehoods and misinformation, as the tenor of the discourse becomes increasingly acrimonious.

On Jan. 23, MiLB sent an unsigned letter to M.L.B. Commissioner Rob Manfred, which was published by NBC Sports on Wednesday, outlining its opposition to contracting and reorganizing the 120-team minor-league system.

Halems response on behalf of M.L.B. struck an exasperated tone: Although we have fully explained our views on all issues both formally and informally to members of your negotiating committee, there continues to be a disconnect between MiLBs public messaging, government messaging and written communications on the one hand, and the views expressed by MiLB at the negotiating table on the other.

M.L.B. insists the restructuring can be done in a way that still preserves some form of minor league baseball in those communities. It also asserted that MiLB was hypocritical because of how frequently its owners moved teams around on their own.

Minor league owners routinely leave communities because the team is not economically viable, or the owner receives a better offer elsewhere, Halem wrote. And when they do leave, neither MiLB nor the owner, typically offers anything as a replacement to the community, such as the case in Pawtucket (2020), New Orleans (2019), Mobile (2019) and Helena (2018) in the last two years alone.

Representatives of minor league baseball did not immediately respond to requests for comment, and a spokesman for M.L.B. said Halems letter spoke for itself.

M.L.B. has drawn widespread criticism for its proposal, including from federal lawmakers. Four members of the House of Representatives introduced a bipartisan resolution on Tuesday asking M.L.B. to abandon its restructuring proposal.

Minor League Baseball teams have had a major impact on small communities, Representative David McKinley, Republican of West Virginia, said in a statement. These teams provide an enormous cultural and economic benefit to the communities they call home. Doing away with 42 teams is not a reasonable solution.

Wednesdays letter underscored M.L.B. officials belief that MiLB, instead of negotiating in good faith, had instead sought to build outside pressure to prevent any changes to the existing agreement. If a new deal is not reached by September, M.L.B. could choose to continue operating under the current P.B.A., or it could leave it to individual M.L.B. teams to act as they see fit. In that case, several major league clubs could cut their affiliations with their minor league teams on their own.

Major league teams generally pay for the minor league teams players and coaching staffs, and the farm teams cover everything else, including travel and equipment.

In its letter last week, MiLB accused M.L.B. of false statements and outlined alternatives to M.L.B.s proposals. Instead of eliminating teams that play in substandard facilities, it proposed that the owners of those identified teams should be given time to upgrade their stadiums. If they failed to do so, then MiLB would find other ownership groups or could even move the clubs.

It also dismissed M.L.B.s description of the support it provided minor league teams: It is simply not true that M.L.B. heavily subsidizes MiLB, the letter said.

Halem, whose eight-page letter attempted to refute the MiLB letter point by point, asserted that the players were the subsidy: M.L.B. clubs pay the players and assign them to the teams. He said the players were the most valuable commodity, in an entertainment sense, to the minor league teams.

M.L.B. has all but abandoned the Dream League concept, according to a person with knowledge of the negotiations who requested anonymity to discuss private talks. It is instead floating a different league to be played in the cities of contracted teams consisting of players preparing for the M.L.B. draft, which is likely to be cut from 40 rounds to 20.

In the conclusion of his letter, Halem issued something of a plea to his minor league counterparts: I personally do not believe that exchanging of letters of this type is productive or increases the likelihood that the parties will reach a mutually acceptable agreement.

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M.L.B.s War of Words With the Minors Hits a Boiling Point - The New York Times

Developers and demolition experts look at several factors when deciding how to demolish a building. Among other concerns, they consider the area where the building is located, the primary building materials, the purpose of the demolition, and how to dispose of the debris. Demolition methods can range from one devastating blast to careful, piece-by-piece dismantling, but in a crowded urban setting, any technique must be safe for the demolition crew and the surrounding buildings and public areas.

Implosion is by far the most dramatic way to demolish a building. It involves using explosives to knock out a building's primary vertical supports, causing the building to collapse onto itself from the inside out. The placement of the explosive charges and the sequence of detonation are critical to a successful and safe demolition. Implosion is often used to demolish large structures in urban areas.

For a successful demolition, blaster crews analyze a complete set of structural blueprints to identify the main components of the building and determine whether other areas need to be blasted in addition to those identified on the blueprints. They then determine the type of explosives to use, where to position them in the building, and how to time their detonation.

Demolition with a high reach arm is an alternative to implosion and is typically used on buildings reaching a height of more than about 66 feet. This method involves a base machine, such as an excavator, fitted with a long demolition arm consisting of three sections or a telescopic boom. A demolition tool, such as a crusher, shears, or a hammer, is attached to the end of the arm and is used to break up the building from the top down. The machine removes large pieces of the structure, and a special grounds crew breaks down the pieces and sorts them for disposal.

High reach arm demolition is used on reinforced concrete, masonry, steel, and mixed-material structures and is considered to be safer than traditional wrecking ball demolition for removing tall buildings.

Wrecking ball demolition, or crane and ball demolition, is one of the oldest and most common methods of building demolition and is typically used for concrete and other masonry structures. The wrecking ballweighing up to 13,500 poundsis suspended on a cable from a crane or other heavy equipment. The ball is either dropped onto or swung into the structure, simply crushing the building with repeated blows.

Highly skilled and experienced crane operators must perform wrecking ball demolition. Smoothness in controlling the swing of the ball is critical, since missing the target may tip or overload the crane. The size of the building that can be demolished with this method is limited by the crane's size and the working room, including proximity to power lines. Wrecking ball demolition creates a great deal of dust, vibration, and noise.

Also known as strip-out, selective demolition is gaining popularity because it allows builders to reuse or recycle the building's materials. Selective interior and exterior demolition of wood, brick, metals, and concrete allow for recycling and future use in new structures, blending the old with the new. The main goal of this method is to recover the maximum amount of primary (reusable) and secondary (recyclable) material in a safe and cost-effective procedure. However, the process is labor-intensive and can be very difficult to achieve in a timely and economical manner for light-framed buildings.

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The 4 Most Common Ways to Demolish a Building

The recent launch of large numbers of small satellites by Space X is a reminder of the troubling issues ahead for the growing fleets of satellites that are zipping across our skies. We rely on these satellites for common things like finding our way around on the streets, getting on the internet, watching television, forecasting the weather, planning crops and much more; to say nothing of national defense. Although estimates vary, since the 1960s, around 9,000 satellites have been launched by a dozen countries of which around 5,000 are still in orbit and around 2,000 are still in service. That is all dramatically changing now.

For most of this period, satellites were the primary preserve of large governments, mainly because of their great cost/complexity and military implications. Although a few U.S. and European companies either manufactured or operated communications satellites, these were either closely regulated or actually controlled by governments. A typical satellite might cost over $200 million to build and launch, take five years from start to operations, and involve as many as a dozen government approvals; not least of which were national security related.

Through the 1990s, communications and many other types of satellites were placed in a very high orbit of 23,000 miles directly above the equator, where they would orbit the Earth at the same speed the Earth itself was rotating. This geostationary (GEO) orbit would make any satellite appear to be stationary in the sky so it could serve as a suspended relay tower for TV, telephone, and data across the oceans and continents. The ground equipment consisted of large dish antennas and bunkers that often required a staff. Putting satellites into this orbit is enormously complex and costly, and consequently these GEO satellites were built to last ten years or more. And there were very few entrepreneurs.

For lots of reasons, this landscape began to change dramatically in the 1990s and more so around 20 years ago. Telecommunication deregulation, combined with the same dramatic advances in technology that gave us smart phones, opened opportunities for satellites never previously imagined. These opportunities were stimulated by a tidal wave of data and video generated through the internet and further deregulation in areas such as picture-taking (called remote sensing) satellites.

Add to all of this venture capitalists aggressively looking for the next iPhone investment, the rise of new technological and superpowers like China, India and Japan, the spread of rocket technology and the deregulation of rocket launches and you get the satellite environment of the 2020s: Hundreds of businesses have been started in over a dozen countries that would if they all took place deploy 50,000 to 100,000 new satellites.

Most of these would be small, inexpensive satellites in low earth orbit (LEO) of a few hundred miles, where they orbit the Earth every couple of hours. And they would connect to ground equipment ranging from a smart phone to a sheet of paper. By relying on smartphone-type technologies, mass production techniques, deregulation and the global outsourcing of launches and manufacturing, these new satellites will eventually wind up costing tens of thousands of dollars instead of hundreds of millions of dollars each. These dramatically lower costs will in turn create a feedback loop of new experiments, innovations and entrepreneurs that will drive the global satellite industry even further.

Governments, UN agencies and industry have been quite aware of the growing list of issues that this new satellite environment is creating, and for over a decade serious international negotiations and national programs and regulations have been under way.

Nothing has been more worrying, for example, than the prospect of tens of thousands of abandoned satellites and spent rockets zipping around the orbital lanes at 17,000 mph space debris. To prepare for this, the U.S. Air Force (and now the U.S. Space Force) which prides itself for always knowing everything orbiting the Earth, has built a massive new generation of monitoring facilities, called The Space Fence. Even various astronomy organizations have begun to voice concern over the impact of thousands of small satellites crisscrossing the skies on their ability to observe the stars. And now, proposals have surfaced for a variety of orbital garbage trucks that might pick up space debris and clear the orbital lanes.

To be sure, space including the areas of orbiting satellites is vast by any human standard. And the likelihood of small satellites or space debris colliding in the near future is remote. And many satellites can maneuver if they are aware of a pending collision. But if collisions do occur in orbit, they are likely to create thousands of tiny new debris zipping around orbital space at 17,000 mph.

While industry has done a lot to set standards, entrepreneurs have developed solutions and governments are negotiating frameworks, a core problem is the lack of an effective policy/legal framework to manage this risk on a global scale which is the only scale on which it could be effective.

Most of the international legal framework to deal with the prospect of a demolition derby in orbital space is based on the 1960s-1990s satellite era: large satellites in geostationary orbit under military supervision. There is not, for example, even a universally-accepted definition of where national air space ends and outer space begins or of who has the right-of-way in orbital space.

Many would assert that this lack of a universally-accepted, international legal framework is beneficial because it invites experimentation and innovation and would compare it to the unregulated environment that gave rise to the internet. Others suggest that unregulated orbital space compares with the high seas in that, to a large extent, what one does on the high seas has always been between that person and their own country.

But the high seas analogy gives rise to another analogy that could also emerge in orbital space: flag of convenience registrations. Just as ships in the high seas might be registered in countries described as flags of convenience for regulatory or economic reasons, little would prevent satellite operators from formally registering their satellite fleets through flag of convenience countries for regulatory or economic reasons. In the satellite environment of the 2020s, this could easily be done while outsourcing the manufacturing of the satellites to businesses in one country, the launch to businesses in another country, and the management of the satellites to businesses in yet another country.

Whether orbital space in the 2020s evolves into a nationally-regulated, an internationally-regulated, a code-of-conduct-regulated or an unregulated environment, it is rapidly changing and few of the tools developed between the 1960s and the 1990s will fit it well.

Roger Cochetti provides consulting and advisory services in Washington, D.C. He was a senior executive with Communications Satellite Corporation (COMSAT) from 1981 through 1994. He also directed internet public policy for IBM from 1994 through 2000 and later served as Senior Vice-President & Chief Policy Officer for VeriSign and Group Policy Director for CompTIA. He served on the State Departments Advisory Committee on International Communications and Information Policy during the Bush and Obama administrations, has testified on internet policy issues numerous times and served on advisory committees to the FTC and various UN agencies. He is the author of the Mobile Satellite Communications Handbook.

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What's up with a demolition derby in orbital space? | TheHill - The Hill

Returning to work after an exhausting Christmas has been very satisfying. Much as I love spending time with my family, I do get bored with dragging the children outside and away from their screens in inclement weather, trying to ignore their demands for sweets and how spoilt and ungrateful they have become after too many presents and late nights.

My mother and I decided, after a hiatus of 15 years, to buy another hotel, this time in East Sussex. We completed on the deal in mid-December, four weeks later than we had hoped, with an equivalent delay expected in respect of our opening this summer.

The builders are just back from their Christmas break, and this is a really fun part of the proceedings. We have received our planning permission and are going hell for leather with the demolition necessary to create the internal courtyard. There are clouds of dust, and I have just had my first complaint from a neighbour. It must be horrid to live next to our site. I am very sympathetic, but cant offer much immediate consolation; we are only a month into our refurbishment and my poor neighbour has months still to endure.

However, we can begin to see the impact it will have and it is satisfying indeed to look at the falling layers of ugly tiles, cracked plaster, stud walls and rotten timber.

***

It is not all pleasure, though. My mother is buying lovely pieces of furniture for the hotel while I am stuck debating the pros and cons of gas versus electric commercial dryers, cloud versus server-based phone systems, and how much it is going to cost to move the fire alarm panel.

The technological requirements of the hotel are virtually incomprehensible to me, and I hate admitting that I dont understand some of the things suppliers explain to me. It is, I keep telling myself, good for the soul; there is no chance of me getting too full of myself.

***

The weather has lifted and with it my mood. As I took the 07.23 from Clapham Junction the other morning to Polegate, near Eastbourne, and saw the gorgeous pink sunrise that presaged an icy but cloudless day, I had the encouraging feeling that we had passed the worst of winter and that spring would soon be upon us.

I spent an hour at the end of last week planting hyacinths in bowls around the house. I dont garden at all; this is pretty much the only green-fingered thing I do all year. There is a visceral satisfaction in watching my bulbs grow, scenting every room in my house. A visible harbinger of seasonal change.

***

My best friend and I took the Eurostar to Brussels for an overnight treat to compensate us for all our hard work over Christmas. There was a Magritte-Dal exhibition that we used as our excuse.

We try to get away one night a year. Two years ago it was the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam last year the altarpiece in Bruges. We manage it by the skin of our teeth every time, in spite of ill children, unreliable husbands and the demands of work. It is, pretty much, the best night of my year, and we both protect it ferociously. I come back with a smile on my face and a song in my heart, and the knowledge that I have one friend who has known me all my life and still likes me.

***

And then disaster! My wonderful, beloved nanny gave in her notice. She is going to Australia to be with her boyfriend. I am simultaneously happy for her and completely devastated not for the children, but for me.

All my plans for this year opening the hotel, doing some work on the house, my son moving school in September now fill me with dread. Like any working mother, I am only as good as the help I have at home. My in-laws have promised to help where they can, but that is just a temporary solution.

My husband, Marcus, and I are already trying to work out how we apportion the kids over the endless summer holidays. Until now, I have been able to take off a big chunk of time as I am self-employed, but I wont have that luxury this year because of the hotel. I hate missing any time with them as I can see how quickly they are growing up. But this had seemed the perfect year to work a bit harder, with my son Rocco spending another year at a school he loves, my Olga happily landed at secondary school and my Kate as capable of keeping the plates spinning as I am. The best laid plans, as they say.

***

I dont think I like having my diary with the whole year planned out already. The only way to tackle it is going to be with my grandfathers advice firmly in mind: just do one thing at a time and try to do it well. Back to the technological demands of the hotel I go

Alex Polizzi is a television presenter and writer

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The pleasures of a necessary demolition - Catholic Herald Online

After years of delay, crews began demolishing the World War II-era Riverside Terrace housing development on 5th Avenue this week, to make way for 246 new senior and family apartments.

Demolition is expected to take six months, said Israel Roizman of Roizman Development which is undertaking the approximately $105 million construction project at the 17-acre site. He said 30 buildings have to be knocked down. Site preparation work, road work, sewer and plumbing, and electricity work is being done simultaneously with demolition, he said.

Roizman said groundbreaking will likely be held in March.

Municipal officials welcomed the latest development.

Its a good sign that they have started. The property has been derelict and vacant for some time, said councilman William McKoy. He represents the 3rd Ward where the project is located. Over the past decade, the rotting housing complex became a magnet for drugs and gun violence.

McKoy said the proposed development will provide much needed housing. He also pointed to the opening of the area through new roadways. The previous development had many dead ends and the complex was isolated from the existing neighborhood. Proposed senior low-rise and the townhomes will be better integrated with the existing neighborhood, he said.

They did 2 or 3 buildings, said Lilisa Mimms, councilwoman at-large, speaking of demolition. She lives half-block away from the development. Im glad they started the process. I pray it stays on task without delays or additional costs.

Irma Gorham, director of the Paterson Housing Authority, had hoped to demolish the development in summer of 2017 and start construction in the fall of that year. However, she ran into delays in moving the existing tenants from the building.

Federal officials approved the demolition in Jul. 2018. Next month, the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) gave $1.54 million in housing choice vouchers to the Paterson Housing Authority to relocate remaining residents out of the development.

In the first phase, Roizman will build 81 senior citizen units in a low-rise building that is expected to be finished by Jul. 2021. In the second phase, he will build 160 family apartments in townhouses which is expected to be finished by Jun. 2022. The project includes a community center. Separately, the Paterson Housing Authority plans to build 55,000 square feet of retail space fronting Route 20.

Much of the funding for the new 246-unit housing development will provided by the New Jersey Housing and Mortgage Finance Agency (HMFA) and other low-income tax credits, according to officials. Roizman Development will receive an almost $13 million developers fee. Paterson Housing Authority is leasing the 17-acre site for 15 years for $1.4 million to the firm.

Were looking forward to the quality housing that will be brought back to that area, said McKoy.

Email: jay@patersontimes.com

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Paterson: Demolition starts at Riverside Terrace housing development - Paterson Times