Oskaloosa News Recap For February 10th, 2021
Local News
Plans Are Getting Hammered Out To Help Make A Southeast Connector A Reality
Ecumenical Cupboard Helping Individuals Impacted By Pandemic
Iowa hospitals’ financial losses mount amid COVID-19
United Way Of Mahaska County Playing Role In COVID-19 Help
2021 Eggs And Issues Set
Oskaloosa Fire Chief Talks Fire Safety
Local Sports
Indians Network
Statesmen Sports Network
North Mahaska Warhawks
Oskaloosa News Links
Obituaries
Radar and Road Conditions
Local Traffic Cameras
National and World News
National Transportation Board officials revealed Tuesday that the helicopter crash that left Kobe Bryant, his daughter and seven others dead last year, was likely caused by the pilot’s “spatial disorientation.”
The pilot, identified as Ara Zobayan, climbed sharply before banking abruptly and plunging into the hillside. The agency said there was no sign of mechanical failure and it appeared to be an accident.
An NTSB official also noted that there was likely added self-pressure on the pilot to complete the flight despite the weather, due to his relationship with the client.
Bryant’s widow, Vanessa Bryant blamed the pilot. She and the families of the other victims also faulted the companies that owned and operated the helicopter. Meanwhile, the pilot’s brother didn’t lay blame on anyone, but did note that Bryant knew the risks of flying.
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New York City has administered over 1 million COVID vaccine doses.
Mayor Bill de Blasio announced Tuesday that the milestone was a goal set for last month and blamed drug manufacturers for lag.
The city’s rolling seven-day average positive test rate is 8.09%, according to de Blasio.
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Bitcoin hit another record high on Tuesday, just one day after Tesla’s $1.5 billion investment.
The cryptocurrency peaked as high as $48,226.25 in the early morning, according to CoinDesk.
Bitcoin has surged 60% this year and nearly tripled over the past three months as the digital currency gains a broader acceptance among investors and retail traders.
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The WHO team investigating the origins of the coronavirus crisis have dropped their investigation in Wuhan.
During a news conference on Tuesday, the team downplayed the possibility that the virus leaked from a lab in Wuhan and suggested that it likely spread from an animal to humans.
The team, made up of experts from 10 countries, was created to delve into the origins of the virus, which was believed to have started in bats before being passed to humans.
The WHO and China have faced criticism from around the world over their response to the virus.
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Pfizer is promising 50 million more doses than expected during the first quarter of 2021, the White House told state governors Tuesday. Pfizer says it’s recommending getting six doses per vial, not the original five, which aggressively contributes to their expanded capacity.
There’s also a revised framework that will transfer unused second doses to places in need of first-dose allocations after 40 days.
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Elon Musk is on the verge of revolutionizing internet access for the masses.
While SpaceX develops its own private rockets and space fleet, it’s also been developing a satellite-powered internet service called Starlink. Musk says that there are currently 10,000 Starlink users in a beta test.
It works by purchasing a receiver to connect to satellites in orbit. Now, Starlink is offering a totally refundable pre-order for those receivers, plus a $99-a-month service fee, to the masses. Musk says that once he has a predictable model for cash flow, Starlink will go public.
It’s not currently available everywhere, but certainly could be with time.
WORTH NOTING: This technology would make high speed internet available everywhere on earth without wires and towers.
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Minnesota’s National Guard will be deployed to Minneapolis, St. Paul, and area communities ahead of the trials for the four police charged in killing George Floyd.
The executive order from Governor Tim Walz notes their deployment is to “keep the peace, ensure public safety and allow for peaceful demonstrations.”
WORTH ASKING: Does “defund the police” require mobilizing the military in community streets instead?
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Multiple people were injured Tuesday after a shooting at a health care clinic about 40 minutes from Minneapolis.
The suspect, who was arrested at the scene, has been identified as 67-year-old Gregory Paul Ulrich, a Buffalo resident who has been known to investigators since 2003, according to the Minneapolis Star Tribune.
The bomb squad assisted in the investigation after a “suspicious package” was found at the scene and several more were found at a nearby motel where Ulrich was staying.
A motive is not yet clear, but investigators don’t believe it to be an act of domestic terrorism.
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The FBI has joined forces with Florida law enforcement officers to locate one or more suspects who attempted to elevate the amount of sodium hydroxide in the town of Oldsmar’s water to “dangerous levels” on Friday afternoon.
The hacker took over the system for anywhere from 3 to 5 minutes, opening a function that controls the amount of sodium hydroxide in the water and changing the amount from 100 parts-per-million to 11,100 parts-per-million. They signed out shortly after and the “plant operator immediately reduced the level back to the appropriate amount,” Pinellas County Sheriff Bob Gualtieri said.
Sodium hydroxide aka lye, is the main ingredient in liquid drain cleaners.
Officials said the affected water would not have made its way to the public until 24 to 36 hours later and was checked multiple times before it did. The public was never in danger.
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Major indexes were mixed on Tuesday as the Nasdaq notched a 20 point gain while the Dow dipped 9 points and the S&P fell 4 points. Both the Dow Jones Industrial Average and S&P 500 saw their first step back after six straight days of gains.
Oil prices moved higher for their seventh consecutive session as investors bet on increased demand in the near future. The price per barrel is currently trading near 14-month highs.
Cisco Systems Inc. announced earnings after the closing bell on Tuesday. Although they beat forecasts overall, select segments underperformed. Share prices fell more than five percent.
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The Senate decided Tuesday by a 56-44 vote that the impeachment trial of former President Trump was indeed constitutional, opening the door to the matter at hand.
Senators Susan Collins of Maine, Bill Cassidy of Louisiana, Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, Mitt Romney of Utah, Ben Sasse of Nebraska and Pat Toomey of Pennsylvania broke ranks with the party to allow the trial to move forward.
The trial will continue Wednesday.
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Tube Talk
Here’s what’s new on TV tonight:
Tough as Nails / CBS / 7:00 pm
The Goldbergs / ABC / 7:00 pm
Chicago Med / NBC / 7:00 pm
The Masked Dancer / FOX / 7:00 pm
American Housewife / ABC / 7:30 pm
SEAL Team / CBS / 8:00 pm
The Connors / ABC / 8:00 pm
Chicago Fire / NBC / 8:00 pm
Name That Tune / FOX / 8:00 pm
Call Your Mother / ABC / 8:30 pm
S.W.A.T. / CBS / 9:00 pm
For Life / ABC / 9:00 pm
Chicago P.D. / NBC / 9:00 pm
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Showbiz News
Danny Trejo wrote a memoir.
The actor, known for his roles in “Heat,” “From Dusk Till Dawn,” and “Con Air,” is releasing his book “Trejo: My Life of Crime, Redemption, and Hollywood” on July 6.
The book details the 76-year-old’s “path from crime, to prison, addiction, loss and unexpected Hollywood fame,” according to his publisher.
Trejo said the memoir was his first time to be “fearlessly honest” about his time in “the hardest prisons,” “family secrets that tore lives apart” and God playing a role in turning his life around.
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Gisele Bundchen is leaving modeling agency IMG Models after 22 years.
Page Six first reported the news, saying the 40-year-old supermodel has decided to “take her representation in-house,” giving the reigns to twin sister Patricia, who is also her manager.
Meanwhile, the agency has welcomed a few new faces in the past month: Kobe Bryant’s daughter Natalia Bryant, poet Amanda Gorman and Kamala Harris’ stepdaughter Ella Emhoff.
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Carla Gugino will star in a new crime thriller for AGC Television.
The series, titled “Leopard Skin,” centers around a gang of criminals who flee from a botched jewelry heist and are forced to hide out in a beachside estate where two women live in seclusion. The group faces tension, betrayal and desire, all while awaiting their fate.
The cast also includes: Amelia Eve, Gentry White, Philip Winchester, Margot Bingham and Ana de la Reguera.
No network is attached to the project.
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BTS will bring a “little funk and soul” to MTV’s “Unplugged.”
The K-Pop group are the latest artists set to perform on the MTV series.
“MTV Unplugged Presents: BTS” will premiere exclusively on MTV on Feb. 23.
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This year’s Super Bowl was the least watched Super Bowl in recent history.
According to figures released yesterday by CBS Sports, the big game had a total audience of 96.4 million viewers — an 8% drop from what FOX reported for the game last year.
Super Bowl LV had the smallest network audience since 2006.
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Netflix has a new streaming hit.
According to Nielsen’s streaming chart for the week of Jan. 4-10, “Cobra Kai” knocked “Bridgerton” from its No. 1 spot.
The show racked up 2.1 billion minutes of streaming that week.
“Bridgerton” held the top spot for two weeks.
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Claudia Conway wants to be the next American Idol.
The daughter of Kellyanne Conway is seen taking her shot in front of the judges in a teaser for the show.
The teen, introduced as a “social media sensation,” tells the camera that she is “nervous but excited” before facing Katy Perry, Lionel Richie and Luke Bryan.
The teaser ends with Conway looking disheartened as the judges give their verdicts on her performance.
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Sales of Morgan Wallen’s latest album have increased, despite the recent controversy over him using a racial slur.
Less than a week after the scandal surfaced — and Wallen apologized — Billboard reports that his second album “Dangerous: The Double Album” has retained its top spot on the album charts.
While country radio swiftly cancelled the singer, fans have responded by playing him even more.
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Michelle Obama is teaming up with Netflix on a new children’s cooking show, titled “Waffles + Mochi.”
According to the streaming giant, the series will follow two puppets named Waffles and Mochi, who “blast off on global ingredient missions, traveling to kitchens, restaurants, farms and homes all over the wold, cooking up recipes with everyday ingredients alongside renowned chefs, home cooks, kids and celebrities.”
Obama will both star in and executive produce the show, which premieres on March 26.
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Authorities have shutdown a rumor that Armie Hammer is a suspect in a death investigation.
After hikers discovered human remains in the California desert on Jan. 31, social media users ran wild with speculation that linked the 34-year-old actor to the case.
One Instagram account with the name DeuxMoi posted that a shocking story about Hammer would be published soon. Meanwhile, Instagram account House of Effie — which was the first to report abuse allegations against the actor — claimed to know the information that DeuxMoi referenced. She wrote, “What he and his friends have done is worse than anything I have posted. Justice will be served.”
Other rumors circulating social media claim that Hammer had been working construction on a friend’s hotel project in an area near where the remains were found.
A spokesperson for the San Bernardino Country Sheriff told The Sun that Hammer’s name “hasn’t come up as a suspect at all” and there are no plans to investigate him.”
Hammer has not addressed the speculation.
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Sports
MLB and MLBPA reached an agreement on health and safety protocols for 2021 spring training and the regular season.
Spring training, which is set to begin next week, will look a lot like last year’s season, including using seven-inning doubleheaders and starting extra innings with a runner on second.
One change is the designated hitter rule. For this upcoming season, the universal designated hitter will not be employed, unless the sides make a separate, last-second deal.
MLB views the DH as a financial issue because it believes it offers monetary benefits to the players. Therefore, the league has wanted to exchange inclusion of a universal DH for an element that MLB wants, such as expanded playoffs. The player’s association is against extending the postseason over concerns that it could disincentivize teams.
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Day of the Year
National Cream Cheese Brownie Day
National Home Warranty Day
National Umbrella Day
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On This Date
1763 – The Seven Years’ War ends with the signing of the Treaty of Paris.
France, Great Britain, and Spain had been fighting for more than 7 years. In America, it’s known as the French and Indian War, where French expansion into the Ohio River Valley often put them at odds with British colonies—and with Native Americans.
As conditions of peace, France surrendered Canada, and handed over Louisiana to Spain.
Britain took Spanish holdings in Florida and parts of Canada.
Twenty years later the French were still ticked at the Brits. Much of that sentiment contributed to their assistance to the Yankees in the American Revolution.
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1861 – Jefferson Davis learns that the Confederate Constitutional Convention chose him as President of the Confederacy.
Davis had been a Senator from Mississippi and served as the US Secretary of War in the 1850s.
Davis did not want the position. He wrote the he had no confidence in his abilities to do it well.
The Confederate Vice President would call him “weak and vacillating, timid, petulant, peevish, obstinate.”
After the fall of the Confederacy, he was captured and jailed for 2 years.
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1962 – American pilot Gary Powers is released from Soviet custody.
He had been a pilot flying a CIA spy plane, and was shot down over Yekaterinburg in west-central Russia. Protocol called for him to destroy the plane and kill himself with the suicide capsule, but both he and the plane fell into Soviet hands.
At first the U.S. denied any connection to Powers, but later scaled back.
While Soviets said they were releasing Powers after two years of imprisonment because of pleas from his family, Americans made it clear the switch was a spy-for-spy trade. The U.S. was giving up Rudolf Abel, a Soviet convicted of spying in America.
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1996 – Chess phenom Gary Kasparov loses to a computer.
It’s the first time a computer beats a world-class chess champion. The IBM was named Deep Blue. It evaluated 200 million moves per second.
The match lasted 3 hours.
Ultimately Kasparov came out on top—he won 3 other games in the match and tied two others.
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2009 – An outbreak of tornadoes wreak havoc across Oklahoma, Texas, and Louisiana.
A total of 15 were recorded. While property damage was extensive, casualties were minimal.
The next day another four were recorded across Louisiana, Tennessee, Indiana and Virginia, but were relatively smaller and shorter.
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2013 – Google Chairman Eric Schmidt announces plans to sell a chunk of his shares in the property over the next year, to the tune of $2.5 billion.
The legal documents outlining the trade suggested they were for personal reasons, to diversify his own wealth. His remaining 4.4 million shares are still worth nearly $3.5 billion. Only Google founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin own more stock in the company than Schmidt.
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Birthdays
Yara Shahidi – actress “black-ish” – 21
Chloë Grace Moretz – actress, “Kick-Ass”, “Greta” – 24
Emma Roberts – actress, “American Horror Story”, “We’re the Millers” – 30
Zaza Pachulia – basketball player – 37
Vic Fuentes – rock singer – 38
Emily Morris – actress, “I Kissed a Vampire”, “The Divas” – 39
Stephanie Beatriz – actress, “Brooklyn Nine-Nine”, “Modern Family” – 40
Uzo Aduba – actress “Orange Is The New Black” – 40
Elizabeth Banks – actress, “Charlie’s Angels”, “Pitch Perfect” – 47
Laura Dern – actress, “Jurassic Park”, “Big Little Lies” – 54
Robert Iger – CEO of The Walt Disney Company – 70
Born On This Date
Cliff Burton – bassist – 1962 (d. 1986)
Jerry Goldsmith – American pianist & composer – 1929 (d. 2004)
Neva Patterson – American actress, “Taxi”, “Nichols” – 1922 (d. 2010)
Olin Howland – American actor, “Gone with the Wind”, “The Blob” – 1886 (d. 1959)
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Deaths
Mary Wilson has died.
The founding member of The Supremes passed away at her home in Las Vegas, according to publicist Jay Schwartz. A cause of death was not shared, but Schwartz said that she “passed away suddenly.”
She was 76.
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Billy Brown has died.
The patriarch of the Brown family, featured in “Alaskan Bush People,” passed away Sunday night after suffering a seizure.
He was 68.
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