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Seven days of triple-digit heat

Published Mon, 23 Dec 2024 16:32:11 GMT

AUSTIN (KXAN) -- Overnight showers fell over parts of the Hill Country. A couple of rain gauges in San Saba County had totals between .40" and .50".Most high temperatures Friday reached the upper half of the 90s. This afternoon's maximums return to 100° and higher for many locations.Today's normal high is 94°A Heat Advisory is in effect today for the entire area. Maximum heat index readings this afternoon will likely rise to between 108° to 115° at many locations. Friday's highest heat indices were 114° at La Grange and 111° at San Marcos. Most heat index readings will top 105°A Heat Advisory will be needed tomorrow and Monday. Excessive Heat Warnings could return by Tuesday and Wednesday.High pressure over Mexico continues to be our main weather feature. The high will drift to the northeast, parking over Central Texas Tuesday and Wednesday.The heat dome is over Central Texas Tuesday and WednesdayIt's those two days that are forecast to be our hottest days of the week with the ther...

Number of abortions in Texas dropped 99.5% in the months after Roe v. Wade was overturned

Published Mon, 23 Dec 2024 16:32:11 GMT

AUSTIN (KXAN) — The number of abortions performed in Texas dropped by 99.5% in the wake of the Supreme Court's overruling of Roe v. Wade one year ago.In the first half of 2022, a total of 17,126 abortions were performed in the state, according to official data from the Texas Health and Human Services Commission.That figure dropped to just 85 between July and December, a 99.5% decrease from the first six months of the year.The Supreme Court struck down Roe v. Wade in a 6-3 decision on June 24, 2022, eliminating the nearly 50-year-old constitutional right to abortion. The ruling gave states the authority to limit or ban the procedure.Despite the state’s trigger law banning most abortions not going into effect until Aug. 22, Texas saw an immediate and dramatic decrease in the number of abortions after the Supreme Court ruling.Just 68 abortions were performed on Texas residents in the state in July, a 97% decrease from June. Only 17 abortions were reported in the las...

ATCEMS: 1 adult, 1 child dead following Travis County motorcycle collision

Published Mon, 23 Dec 2024 16:32:11 GMT

AUSTIN (KXAN) — Two people died Friday night after a motorcycle collision in eastern Travis County, near Hornsby Bend, according to Austin-Travis County EMS.Officials said the incident occurred at approximately 10 p.m. in the 5500 block of Delta Post Drive.ATCEMS said medics attained two “deceased on-scene” pronouncements. One was for a pediatric patient, and the other was for an adult patient.There was no other information available from ATCEMS.

We Are Blood sees donation shortage during heat wave

Published Mon, 23 Dec 2024 16:32:11 GMT

AUSTIN (KXAN) — During record high temperatures, Central Texas blood provider We Are Blood says they are seeing a donation shortage. The blood provider said they're asking for any blood donations including an urgent need for Type O. Blood and platelet donations drop every summer because of vacations and fewer mobile drives at schools, according to the nonprofit. But the need for blood transfusions remains high. "The season’s early stretch of extreme heat has likely contributed to a shortage of donors, compounding the usual dip in donors every summer," We Are Blood said. The nonprofit said it needs 200 donors daily to meet hospital and medical center needs. We Are Blood provides blood to over 50 medical centers in 10 counties. To donate, people can schedule appointments online or by calling 512-206-1266. Donation centers are in central Austin, south Austin, Round Rock and Cedar Park.

'You're not God': Doctors and patient families say HCA hospitals push hospice care

Published Mon, 23 Dec 2024 16:32:11 GMT

(NBC) — As Marisol Perez fought for her life in a Texas hospital in autumn 2021, her mother, Alma Salas, sat with her every day praying. Perez, then 42, had such a virulent case of Covid and pneumonia that doctors at St. David’s North Austin Medical Center, an HCA Healthcare facility, had put her on a ventilator and into a coma to try to save her.Salas said she believed her daughter would pull through, but doctors and nurses at the hospital kept telling her otherwise. Over 10 days in October, less than a month after Perez entered St. David’s, Salas received repeated visits from a palliative care nurse, her hospital record shows. Every other day, Salas said, the nurse urged her to initiate end-of-life care for her daughter. Several of Perez’s doctors also pressed Salas to remove her daughter from the ventilator, she said, in visits confirmed by details from Perez’s chart.On one occasion, six or seven doctors and nurses gathered around Perez’s bed, Salas said. "We really fee...

The “Singularity” is here. Or is it? Silicon Valley nears a tipping point.

Published Mon, 23 Dec 2024 16:32:11 GMT

SAN FRANCISCO — For decades, Silicon Valley anticipated the moment when a new technology would come along and change everything. It would unite human and machine, probably for the better but possibly for the worse, and split history into before and after.The name for this milestone: the Singularity.It could happen in several ways. One possibility is that people would add a computer’s processing power to their own innate intelligence, becoming supercharged versions of themselves. Or maybe computers would grow so complex that they could truly think, creating a global brain.In either case, the resulting changes would be drastic, exponential and irreversible. A self-aware superhuman machine could design its own improvements faster than any group of scientists, setting off an explosion in intelligence. Centuries of progress could happen in years or even months. The Singularity is a slingshot into the future.Artificial intelligence is roiling tech, business and politics like nothing...

Bringing AI tools to the workplace requires a delicate balance

Published Mon, 23 Dec 2024 16:32:11 GMT

By Kevin J. Delaney, The New York Times CompanyBy midyear, all of Morgan Stanley’s thousands of wealth advisers are expected to have access to a new artificial-intelligence-powered chat tool.The tool, which is already in use by about 600 staff members, gives advisers answers to questions such as “Can you compare the investment cases for Apple, IBM and Microsoft?” and follow-ups such as “What are the risks of each of them?” An adviser can ask what to do if a client has a potentially valuable painting — and the knowledge tool might provide a list of steps to follow, along with the name of an internal expert who can help.“What we’re trying to do is make every client or every financial adviser as smart as the most knowledgeable expert on any given topic in real time,” said Jeff McMillan, the head of analytics, data and innovation for Morgan Stanley Wealth Management.Experts disagree about whether AI will wind up destroying more jobs than it creates over time. But it is clear that ...

It was once called the “Ritz-Carlton of day care.” Now this Colorado child care center is at risk of losing its license.

Published Mon, 23 Dec 2024 16:32:11 GMT

When Crème de la Crème opened its $5 million day care facility in Lone Tree in 1999, it promised to be the largest, priciest and most advanced child care center in Colorado.The Greenwood Village-based company, which now boasts 47 locations across 14 states, “aspires to be the Harvard — or perhaps the Ritz Carlton — of day care,” the Rocky Mountain News reported in a 1998 article.Its “Disneyland-like” amenities included a 32-foot-high atrium housing a Victorian cityscape of themed classrooms. The company’s centers sport mini water parks and kid-sized basketball and tennis courts.But beneath the opulent veneer lies a day care facility at risk of being shut down by the state over years of consistent violations, including repeated child abuse and neglect allegations, according to a review by The Denver Post of hundreds of pages of licensing records and police reports.At least two teachers at the company’s flagship Lone Tree day care center...

Brighton lands $250 million solar panel manufacturing plant

Published Mon, 23 Dec 2024 16:32:11 GMT

Brighton has scored a second big green energy win this year — a solar module manufacturing plant expected to employ more than 900 workers.VSK Energy Inc. (VSK), a joint venture between India-based Vikram Solar and the private equity firm Phalanx Impact Partners and the development firm Das & Co., plans to invest $250 million in a new manufacturing facility in Brighton to make solar panels, a market that overseas producers have dominated for years.“The passage of the Inflation Reduction Act was a landmark moment for the clean energy future of the United States,” said Sriram Das, chairman of VSK Energy and managing director of Das & Co, in a press release. “The Biden Administration and Congress have called for immediate action and, through our partnership in VSK, we are taking a decisive step towards achieving solar technology self-sufficiency, fortifying America’s energy security, and propelling large-scale solar deployment.”To receive fede...

New AI chatbot tutors could upend student learning

Published Mon, 23 Dec 2024 16:32:11 GMT

PALO ALTO, Calif. — A dozen students huddled at communal classroom tables one morning this spring, their gazes fixed on math lessons on their laptops.The sixth graders at Khan Lab School, an independent school with an elementary campus in Palo Alto, California, were working on quadratic equations, graphing functions, Venn diagrams. But when they ran into questions, many did not immediately summon their teacher for help.They used a text box alongside their lessons to request help from Khanmigo, an experimental chatbot tutor for schools that uses artificial intelligence.The tutoring bot quickly responded to one student, Zaya, by asking her to identify specific data points in a chart. Then Khanmigo coaxed her to use the data points to solve her math question.“It’s very good at walking you through the problem step by step,” Zaya said. “Then it congratulates you every time it helps you solve a problem.”Khan Lab School students are among the first schoolchildren in the United States...