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Does landscaping increase home value?

Published Sat, 22 Feb 2025 12:00:04 GMT

Cynthia Paez Bowman | Bankrate.com (TNS)Landscaping can have a big impact on the impression a home makes. The front lawn leading to your door is usually what a visitor notices first; the view out the back can enhance the ambiance of interior rooms. The question is, how vital is it to invest in curb appeal to improve your home’s value? Is it worth prioritizing part of your home maintenance budget on your outdoor areas?The American Society of Landscape Architects (ASLA) claims professional landscaping can increase a home’s price tag 15 percent to 20 percent more at the time of resale. “High-quality landscape designs usually have an ROI of 20 percent to 30 percent of the overall house value,” says Bryan McKenzie, a landscape designer and co-founder of gardening advice site bumpercroptimes.com.However, not all projects deliver on the promise, and some can potentially decrease property value. Where you see beauty, others may see a burden or even a hazard.Let’s dig more deeply into when l...

Teens with addiction are often left to detox without medication

Published Sat, 22 Feb 2025 12:00:04 GMT

Markian Hawryluk | (TNS) KFF Health NewsDENVER — When Denver Health wanted to open an inpatient opioid detox unit specifically for teens, doctors there searched high and low for a model to copy. They didn’t find one.Teens who land in emergency rooms with an opioid overdose generally receive naloxone to reverse the effects of dangerous drugs in their system and are sent home with a list of places they can go for follow-up care. But too often, those teens never seek additional help. They are left to suffer through the agony of withdrawal with no medications to ease their cravings. As a result, many, seeking relief, go back to opioids, often with tragic consequences.Christian Thurstone, the director of behavioral health services at the Denver hospital, said six of his teen patients have died of fentanyl overdoses in the past two years. Denver Health has now opened what he believes to be the nation’s first adolescent inpatient detox unit.“I’ve been doing adolescent substance treatment h...

Home Showcase: Nothing short of opulent in Hamilton

Published Sat, 22 Feb 2025 12:00:04 GMT

There’s a “wow” factor and there’s a “WHOA” factor and the palatial property at 441 Highland Street in Hamilton is the latter.Prepare to be awed by the sheer size and careful craftsmanship found throughout the 2002 custom home. You won’t just want to host a dinner party or two, you pretty much have to. The property and its 9.45 lush acres are primed for gatherings of Great Gatsby proportions.Guests will be impressed from the moment they set foot into the double-height foyer with its elegant curved staircase to the time they’re settled in the banquet-sized dining room, taking in the views from the sun-drenched solarium, or enjoying a cookout on the mahogany wraparound deck.The heart of the home, a gourmet kitchen, is adorned with custom cherry cabinets, granite countertops, a central island, and limestone flooring. Its dining area flows seamlessly into the family room, crowned with cathedral ceilings reaching 25″ and made extra cozy by an ornate fireplace and built-in cabinetry...

What caused the Maui wildfires?

Published Sat, 22 Feb 2025 12:00:04 GMT

(KHON/NEXSTAR) – A series of wildfires raging across Maui have devastated the island and its communities, wiping out homes and businesses and destroying the historic town of Lahaina in just a few days.The death toll, which had climbed to 55 as of Friday morning, is also expected to grow as rescue workers continue recovery efforts.“The closest thing I can compare it to is perhaps a war zone or maybe a bomb went off,” Maui County Mayor Richard Bissen Jr. said Friday during an interview with ABC’s “Good Morning America.”“It was cars in the street, doors open, you know, melted to the ground. Most structures no longer exist,” Bissen said. Newest photos show devastation from Maui fire The blazes first broke out Tuesday, though the exact causes are currently unknown. What officials do know, however, is that conditions in Maui were perfect for wildfires in the months leading up to this week’s events.Maui has experienced an especially dry summer, both in terms of humidity and vegetation, e...

Detention worker suspected of having sexual relations with detainee

Published Sat, 22 Feb 2025 12:00:04 GMT

SAN DIEGO -- A case manager at the Otay Mesa Detention Facility in South Bay is suspected of having sexual relations with a detainee.According to U.S. Attorney Andrew Haden's office Thursday, 36-year-old Shantal Hernandez -- an employee of the Office of the Immigration Detention Ombudsman (OIDO) -- is being charged in a now unsealed complaint. Suspected smuggling boat intercepted near Solana Beach: CBP The complaint revealed that agents with the Office of Professional Responsibility (ICE OPR) received information that Hernandez had allegedly been spending an "unusual" amount of time with a detainee -- identified in court documents by the initials I.K.N. The attorney's office says ICE OPR obtained phone records from the detention facility. Based on the records, the office determined that I.K.N. and Hernandez engaged in a significant number of sexually explicit phone calls and electronic communications -- some of which allegedly discussed an ongoing relationship and sex acts.“Hernan...

UN announces release of 5 staff members kidnapped by al-Qaida in Yemen 18 months ago

Published Sat, 22 Feb 2025 12:00:04 GMT

NEW YORK (AP) — Five United Nations staff members who were kidnapped in Yemen 18 months ago by an al-Qaida affiliate have walked free, U.N. officials said Friday.David Gressly, the U.N. humanitarian coordinator in Yemen, said the five men – four Yemenis and one who is from Bangladesh, were “in good health, good spirits … but they went through a very difficult period of isolation.”The five were freed after lengthy negotiations that included officials from Oman, the U.N. said. Gressly, who spoke to U.N. reporters after flying with the four citizens to southern Yemen’s port city of Aden, said: : “I can confirm that the hostage-takers were Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula.”Also known as AQAP, the group has been active in southern Yemen for years and is considered one of the global al-Qaeda network’s most dangerous branches. It has attempted to carry out attacks on the U.S. mainland. Gressly said the United Nations never pays ransom, which is one reason the U.N. staffe...

Coroner’s office releases names of third person killed in I-81 bus crash in Pennsylvania

Published Sat, 22 Feb 2025 12:00:04 GMT

HARRISBURG, Pa. (AP) — Authorities have released the name of the third person killed in a bus crash on a Pennsylvania interstate near the commonwealth’s capital city.The Dauphin County coroner’s office said Friday that Kadiatou Barry, 21, of Cincinnati, died in the crash that occurred shortly before midnight Sunday north of Harrisburg on Interstate 81, but did not disclose her cause of death. The office had previously announced that 39-year-old Alioune Diop of the Bronx, New York, and 26-year-old Serigne Ndiaye, whose residence is unknown, died of multiple traumatic injuries.State police have said the bus, carrying up to 50 people and heading from New York to Ohio, was traveling south on I-81 during heavy rain. It was in the right lane on a right-hand curve when it left the road, struck an embankment, turned onto its right side and hit a sport utility vehicle that had stopped in traffic in the right lane, police said.Those killed on the bus operated by the Super Lucky Tour Company o...

Avian botulism detected at California’s resurgent Tulare Lake, raising concern for migrating birds

Published Sat, 22 Feb 2025 12:00:04 GMT

SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) — Wildlife authorities have detected avian botulism at California’s resurgent Tulare Lake, raising concerns about potential die-offs during fall bird migrations.Testing confirmed the disease in a mallard duck and a wading bird called a white-faced ibis collected at the lake in the southern Central Valley, the California Department of Fish and Wildlife said in a press release Thursday.Crews are using airboats to collect dead and ill birds.“Removing carcasses will be the first step of defense in preventing further spread,” department scientist Evan King said in a statement.Tulare Lake was once the largest freshwater lake west of the Mississippi River, fed by spring snowmelt from the Sierra Nevada. But the lake eventually vanished as settlers dammed and diverted water for agriculture, turning the lakebed into farmland.The lake reappeared this year after California was hit by an extraordinary series of atmospheric rivers and by May water covered more than 1...

Man in Bosnia kills ex-wife live on Instagram and kills 2 more people before taking his own life

Published Sat, 22 Feb 2025 12:00:04 GMT

SARAJEVO, Bosnia-Herzegovina (AP) — A man in Bosnia shot and killed his ex-wife while streaming the slaying live on Instagram and then killed two other people while on the run before taking his own life Friday, according to police and media reports.The attack took place in the northeastern Bosnian town of Gradacac, where the assailant left three people wounded before he “committed suicide after being located and before being apprehended,” police in the city of Tuzla said in a statement. Bosnia is still reeling from a bloody war in the 1990s and violence against women is widespread, but the ex-wife’s livestreamed slaying shocked people in the Balkan country.Prosecutors said that after killing her, the man went onto the streets of Gradacac with a pistol and shot and killed a man and his son. He also wounded a police officer, another man and a woman at various locations in the town.“I have no words to describe what happened today in Gradacac,” said Nermin Niksic, the prime ...

Lawyer says suspect, charged with hate crime, may argue self-defense in dancer’s death

Published Sat, 22 Feb 2025 12:00:04 GMT

NEW YORK (AP) — A 17-year-old pleaded not guilty Friday to hate-motivated murder in a stabbing that followed a clash over men dancing, and his lawyer said the youth “regrets what happened” and may argue he was defending himself.Charged as an adult, Dmitriy Popov was being held without bail after his arraignment in the killing of O’Shae Sibley, a professional dancer. Prosecutors say the killing was fueled by bigotry that was trained on Sibley and his friends as they cut loose to a Beyoncé song while pumping gas at a Brooklyn filling station. Sibley, 28, was stabbed after he and a couple of his friends confronted the defendant “to speak out and protect himself and his friends from anti-gay and anti-Black slurs,” Brooklyn District Attorney Eric Gonzalez said Thursday. “Defending yourself from the anti-gay or anti-Black comments, arguing back, it’s not a cause for someone to take a weapon and do what was done in this case,” the prosecutor said.But Popov’s lawyer, Mark Pollar...