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While some Montreal streets boom, downtown is dotted with vacant storefronts

Published Sat, 22 Feb 2025 10:24:25 GMT

MONTREAL — Wellington Street in Montreal’s Verdun borough is booming, with cheerful shop facades lining a district bustling with pedestrians.With a commercial vacancy rate the local business association pegs at about six per cent, the street, named “coolest in the world” by Time Out magazine in 2022, is a success story in the city’s battle against the empty storefronts that plague many of Montreal’s main arteries. Marie-Ève Girard, spokeswoman for the local business association, said Wellington Street benefited not only from a surge of tourists after the Time Out rankings but also from aspects of the COVID-19 pandemic, which led Verdun residents to explore their local streets. “Because people were at home, they rediscovered their neighbourhoods,” she said in a phone interview. “There was also a huge enthusiasm for buying local.” To spur even more demand, Girard’s group rents out a formerly vacant storefront one month at a t...

AFD: 10 people 'narrowly escape' east Austin house fire

Published Sat, 22 Feb 2025 10:24:25 GMT

AUSTIN (KXAN) — Austin Fire Department said a 10-person family escaped a home fire early Sunday morning. Firefighters said 10 family members "narrowly" escaped their heavily involved home on Adina Street in east Austin, AFD said on social media at 5:43 a.m. The fire is out, and the cause was ruled as improperly discarded smoking material. AFD estimated damages at $150,000 for the structure and $50,000 for the home's contents. Crews said eight adults and two children were displaced. Austin Police Department's Victim Services and Central Texas Red Cross are helping the family.

AFD investigating series of ‘suspicious’ fires in SE Austin

Published Sat, 22 Feb 2025 10:24:25 GMT

AUSTIN (KXAN) — Austin Fire officials said a series of fires that occurred over the weekend in southeast Austin were being investigated as suspicious.According to the Austin Fire Department, four fires near the 5400 block of Jimmy Clay Drive were ruled to be incendiary and suspicious.AFD said while working a second fire at the Jimmy Clay Golf Course, additional fire crews responded to an apartment next door for a mattress and trash fire near a garage.Earlier Saturday, crews also responded to the golf course for a shed fire with four lawnmowers involved. An early estimate of equipment damage was at $400,000 in connection to the incident.AFD said multiple investigators responded to the scenes, and the investigation into the fires remained open. Officials said there was currently no suspect information available.

15 world records set in Texas during 2023

Published Sat, 22 Feb 2025 10:24:25 GMT

AUSTIN (KXAN) — Throughout 2023 many in Texas were able to accomplish new goals, and in the process, even broke some Guinness World Records.As the year comes to an end, here are 15 world records that were made in Texas during 2023.Largest collection of Care Bears memorabiliaOn Jan. 23, Nicholas Cherrywood achieved the largest collection of Care Bears memorabilia.At 1,234 items, Cherrywood's collection in Dallas, Texas, is comprised of Care Bear books, DVDs, clothing and stationery. The collection also includes multiple versions of the classic teddy bears. Unique Guinness World Records done by Texans in Texas Farthest basketball shot made backwardsOn Jan. 29, Jeremy Ware accomplished the farthest basketball shot made backwards at 85 feet 5 inches. The famous shot was achieved in San Antonio, Texas.“Jeremy was lucky enough to attempt this record in the AT&T Center, home of the San Antonio Spurs of the NBA,” Guinness said. “He was happy to have achieved this record in front of th...

Harry Boyte: ‘Rustin’ and the lessons of citizenship — ‘some-bodiness’ — we need today

Published Sat, 22 Feb 2025 10:24:25 GMT

”Rustin,” the new film about Bayard Rustin, brings Rustin out of the shadows. He was an indefatigable nonviolent educator and Martin Luther King’s mentor. He was organizer of the 1963 March on Washington. He was gay and kept out of sight. In producing the film “Rustin,” Barack and Michelle Obama seek to make his contributions visible.In 2013, Obama posthumously awarded Rustin the Presidential Medal of Freedom. In the movie’s trailer, the former president says, the film “is not only about him. It’s about the thousands of ordinary folks from all walks who showed the world what America looks like at our best.”Obama highlights a little-noted aspect of the March on Washington: it made Black citizenship visible. Dignified, disciplined, and nonviolent, the marchers were civic examples needed in our time of bitter polarization and Washington dysfunction.At age 18, I participated in the March. My father, Harry George Boyte, urged me to come. After directing the Atlanta Red ...

Jason Opal: Even as American colonists defied the British, they understood the importance of the rule of law

Published Sat, 22 Feb 2025 10:24:25 GMT

The dominant storyline of our American Revolution is about patriotic defiance — refusing to pay taxes, dumping tea into the Boston Harbor and shooting redcoats once we saw the whites of their eyes. It’s about virtuous lawbreaking in the name of freedom.There is plenty of evidence to support this narrative. Yet like all triumphant tales, this one tends to crowd out other important truths about our past and ourselves. For the revolutionaries not only rejected royal and imperial authority but also embraced what we now call the “rule of law,” first as a national privilege and then as an egalitarian ideal.The roots of that ideal stretched from Boston to India and converged in 1776 into a powerful call for a new moral and legal order for America and the world.Colonial protests began in the mid-1760s because the British Parliament’s new taxes violated the ” principles and spirit of the British constitution,” according to colonial delegates, meaning...

More than 200 Colorado cities, counties to compete for new affordable housing program

Published Sat, 22 Feb 2025 10:24:25 GMT

When voters passed Proposition 123 last year, housing and local government officials across the state were pleased that the state had supported a permanent affordable housing fund.But they had a nagging anxiety: To get a share of the nearly $300 million promised by the program, cities and counties had to voluntarily opt-in and agree to meet housing goals in the next three years. Would they?Now, with the program’s first open enrollment period over, state officials have an overwhelming answer: Yes.More than 200 jurisdictions, representing every major city and nearly 88% of Colorado’s population, opted in to the program by the Nov. 1 deadline, according to the Department of Local Affairs. Those communities have also agreed to each grow their affordable housing stock by 9% over that time, in a bid to unlock their share of funding that can be used to prevent homelessness, to finance debt and rental projects, and to acquire land for affordable developments.But that’s cre...

Avalanche Journal: New Year’s resolutions after an eventful end to 2023

Published Sat, 22 Feb 2025 10:24:25 GMT

The 2023 portion of this NHL season has often been anything but typical for the Avalanche.For a team that entered this campaign as one of the top contenders for the Stanley Cup, some of it has gone exactly as expected and other days have felt like they were extracted from a different world in an NHL multiverse.The Avs will begin 2024 atop the Central Division standings if they prevail Sunday night against the San Jose Sharks. They could also be third in the division in points percentage.They are certainly one of the best teams in the league, and might have a gear that no other club can get to. They have also had some awful, uncharacteristic performances, not to mention a few unexpected, viral postgame outbursts.As the calendar flips to the new year, what might be on Colorado’s wish list in the next couple of months as the Avs gear up for a run at a second championship in three seasons?1. Healthy returns for Lehkonen, GirardThis is an obvious one, but Artturi Lehknonen and Samuel Gir...

Nuggets Journal: New Year’s resolutions for the NBA’s defending champions in 2024

Published Sat, 22 Feb 2025 10:24:25 GMT

Happy 2024, Nuggets fans. To ring in the new calendar, here are our New Year’s Resolutions for the defending champions as they try to repeat the glory of 2023.Kentavious Caldwell-Pope: First-team All-Defense. His teammates are still capitalizing on every possible excuse to chant “first team!” at him in the locker room. Michael Malone even campaigned on Caldwell-Pope’s behalf during an ESPN sideline interview between quarters on Christmas Day, taking advantage of likely the biggest audience the Nuggets will have in any regular-season game. Entering Friday night, KCP was still second in the NBA in defensive field goal percentage (minimum 200 shot attempts against) at 40.2% on 301 attempts. Kyle Anderson was the only player ahead of him (39.8%) on 52 fewer shots faced. Caldwell-Pope also remains top-10 in steals (1.4).Nikola Jokic: Buy the referees dinner. Now that he’s cashing endorsement checks, might as well find something productive to do with the mone...

Fort Lupton wrestler D’Mitri Garza-Alarcon escaped family’s gang cycle to put himself on track to become four-time state champion

Published Sat, 22 Feb 2025 10:24:25 GMT

D’Mitri Garza-Alarcon could’ve easily led a gang life. Or, he might have been a renowned bull rider. Or, in a different dimension altogether, he could’ve been just another student at Fort Lupton High School.But wrestling changed all that. Wrestling made him. Wrestling saved him.Because of the sport, Garza-Alarcon escaped an unhealthy family cycle, taking a different path than his older brothers. He’s still a darn good bull rider, but that’s his side pursuit. And, as he goes for a fourth state title on the mat this winter, he’s definitely not just another kid in Fort Lupton.“My two older brothers were really into the violent gang life, and nobody’s really been to college in my family, nobody’s done anything great in their life yet,” Garza-Alarcon said.“Wrestling’s been the only way to help me get out of the circle that I’m in, and break the cycle. I saw the impact that drugs have on your life, the way that people change over (gang affiliation and d...