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Obituary: Woodbury man spearheaded Minnesota’s relief efforts in Sri Lanka after 2004 tsunami

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 16:21:45 GMT

Sri Lankan native Ananda Srilal “Lal” Liyanapathiranage never stopped finding ways to help people in his home country.Ananda Srilal “Lal” Liyanapathiranage.After a tsunami killed tens of thousands in Indian Ocean coastal communities in 2004, Liyanapathiranage, a resident of Woodbury, helped organize fundraisers and spent months in Sri Lanka helping on the ground. He and other members of the Minnesota Sri Lanka Friendship Foundation, a nonprofit organization he helped launch, oversaw the construction of 50 houses and a community center that includes a library, preschool and a medical clinic.“Their main concern is their children, for them to have a better learning environment and a better life,” Liyanapathiranage told the Pioneer Press in 2006. “I think we are preparing that environment. That’s why they are so grateful to see us. They know we truly care about them. They know we didn’t abandon them.”Liyanapathiranage died June 22 of a bra...

TAKE 5 top-prize ticket sold in Rhinebeck

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 16:21:45 GMT

RHINEBECK, N.Y. (NEWS10) -- The New York Lottery announced a top-prize winning ticket was sold in Rhinebeck for the July 5 TAKE 5 evening drawing. The ticket was worth $36,229.50. Get the latest, news, weather, sports and community events delivered right to your inbox! The ticket was sold at Convenience Corner, located at 142 East Market Street. TAKE 5 numbers are drawn from a field of one through 39. The drawing is televised twice daily at 2:30 p.m. and 10:30 p.m. A Lottery draw game prize of any amount may be claimed up to one year from the date of the drawing.The New York Lottery is North America’s largest and most profitable lottery, contributing $3.6B in the 2021-2022 fiscal year to support education in New York. New Yorkers struggling with a gambling problem can contact the confidential HOPEline at 1-877-846-7369 or text HOPENY (467369). Standard text rates may apply.

Gloversville's new splash pad opens for the summer

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 16:21:45 GMT

GLOVERSVILLE, N.Y. (NEWS10) -- Gloversville opened its new splash pad at Trail Station Park on West Fulton Street on July 6. The splash pad is set to have its official grand opening celebration on July 15 at 10 a.m. Get the latest, news, weather, sports and community events delivered right to your inbox! Although all of the amenities around the pad are not yet installed, the spray pad itself and the surrounding lawn and benches are completed. The splash pad is open every day, weather permitting, from 9 a.m. to 8 p.m. This is the first phase of the expansion of Trail Station Park as part of Gloversville's $10 million Downtown Revitalization Initiative grant. Before the award, the city secured a $365,000 grant to fund the expansion of the park and the splash pad. New brewery, beer garden opening in Hudson The expansion almost doubles the size of the park with amenities and landscaping over an area that was formerly a parking lot. The next phase of the project includes a new buildi...

Maryland Heights K-9 officer to retire after 7-years on duty

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 16:21:45 GMT

MARYLAND HEIGHTS, Mo. - Police bid farewell today to one of their canine officers. Nine-year-old Bax is a German shepherd. He's retiring from the force today after seven years on duty.Bax and his handler Officer Alex Waldroup covered everything from narcotics, to building searches, to finding bad guys. Today's retirement ceremony is at 1 p.m. Friday in the Maryland Heights municipal courtroom.

The 730 area code starts in southern Illinois today

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 16:21:45 GMT

BELLEVILLE, Ill. -- Southern Illinois will get a new area code today. The 618 area code is running out of phone numbers so new phones will be assigned the area code 730.This area code overlay has happened before. New numbers in area code 314 in Missouri were supplemented with area code 557 last year.

Taylor Swift parties: A guide to Denver events before the singer’s Eras Tour concerts

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 16:21:45 GMT

Whether or not you’re going to to Taylor Swift’s concerts at Empower Field at Mile High next week, you’re in good company.Fans of the singer-songwriter and her Eras Tour, which plays Denver on Friday, July 14, and Saturday, July 15, scrambled to snag tickets the moment they went on sale earlier this year, ensuring both instant sell-outs and disappointment.But anyone can attend these parallel yet separate Swift-themed events, in which boutique hotels, promoters, bars and upscale shopping complexes cater to people coming to (and from) the shows in downtown Denver. Getting a piece of that action means meeting fans where they are. Literally.Here’s a quick roundup of Swift-related events that are open to the public, both free and paid. Watch for The Denver Post’s photo slideshow and review of the tour’s opening night in Denver, to be posted on July 15 on denverpost.com/things-to-do/music, and check out a review and photos of her 2018 Reputation Tour sh...

Suburban residents battle noise, lead pollution from busy metro Denver airports

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 16:21:45 GMT

Charlene Willey checked her smartwatch as a sudden rumble enveloped her Westminster home less than half a mile from the runway’s end at Rocky Mountain Metropolitan Airport.“That was 70 decibels inside with the doors shut,” she said, sitting at her kitchen table as the sound — nearly the equivalent of that made by a vacuum cleaner — faded as fast as it came. “That was a piston engine.”Over the next 90 minutes, no fewer than seven airplanes roared over her roof in the Green Knolls neighborhood just east of Wadsworth Boulevard, either on approach to or takeoff from the airport.“I swear I could spit on them, they’re so low,” said the 72-year-old retired financial services planner, who has lived in the shadow of the airport for three decades but said the noise only became irritating — and then unbearable — in the last few years.Thirty miles away, Nathan Winger can’t find peace either. With an average of 360 dai...

Highlands Ranch tornado tore out 16,000 trees but helped build a sense of community

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 16:21:45 GMT

“Were you home when the tornado hit? Did you have damage?”Those are the first questions people in Highlands Ranch are asking each other when meeting up nowadays, a few weeks after the wildest weather event anyone can remember experiencing in the suburb south of Denver.The next discussion is likely about how to replace what has been destroyed, mostly the trees.On that humid Thursday afternoon, Douglas County was hit by one of those wild Colorado storms that for tens of thousands of residents in Highlands Ranch is now an indelible life moment. Thankfully, no one was hurt by the technically small (EF-1 on the Enhanced Fujita scale) but destructive tornado on June 22. Very few actually saw the twister cloaked in sheets of rain and hail as it hit Northridge Elementary School and blasted across homes and businesses for more than 6 miles just south of C-470, from Lucent Boulevard to Quebec StreetBut some doorbell cameras caught the action, like this one.Everyone who lives in the Doug...

Colorado is drought-free for the first time since 2019

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 16:21:45 GMT

Colorado is drought-free for the first time since 2019 — a stark change from a year ago, when 98% of the state was under drought conditions.A winter filled with heavy snow and a cooler, wetter-than-normal spring helped the state rebound from years of drought status, said Becky Bolinger, Colorado’s assistant state climatologist.The U.S. Drought Monitor on Thursday issued its most recent map showing a lack of drought in all regions of Colorado. The week prior, a small swath of the southeast corner of the state remained in drought conditions.Colorado on Thursday was the only state in the Western U.S. and only one of four states in the country without any drought, according to the Drought Monitor. The other three states are Maine, South Carolina and New Hampshire.About 23% of the U.S. is in moderate or more severe drought, according to the Drought Monitor. Approximately 98 million people live in those drought areas. Colorado’s neighbors to the east — Kansas and N...

United Power, Tri-State Generation’s largest member, inks deal to buy electricity elsewhere

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 16:21:45 GMT

Tri-State Generation and Transmission’s largest member, Brighton-based United Power, has agreed to start buying electricity from a different company as it prepares to end its contract with the wholesale power supplier.United Power said Wednesday that it has signed an agreement with Guzman Energy, a wholesale energy provider whose customers include other rural electric associations that have cut ties with Tri-State.United Power plans to leave Tri-State May 1, 2024. The lead-up to the planned departure has been marked by disagreements over how quickly to phase out coal as a power source, the transition to renewable energy, rates and how much of its own electricity United Power can produce.The two utilities’ dispute has played out in court and before regulators, including the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, or FERC.United Power gave notice in 2021 that it would end its contract with Tri-State. United Power will have to pay to break its contract. But after a ruling by ...