New Orleans French Quarter Patio Renovation
Classic style and the desire to entertain is the answer to the clients needs for this New Orleans French Quarter Patio Renovation. This landscape project consisted of complete removal and...
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New Orleans French Quarter Patio Renovation - Video
Updated: 01/26/2015 2:29 PM Created: 01/25/2015 1:01 PM KSTP.com By: Brandi Powell
A new state law is now in effect.
Builders are required to put sprinklers in all new homes, 4,500 square feet or larger.
Looking ahead, the controversy surrounding this issue continues.
Firefighters are in favor of putting these sprinklers in new, large homes, but builders say the sprinklers are only going to make things tough for them and homebuyers.
Local fire chiefs have pushed state lawmakers, to require sprinkler installation in large, newly-constructed houses.
"The house was not equipped with a residential fire sprinkler system, which contributed very dramatically to the loss," said Eden Prairie Fire Chief George Esbensen, on Nov. 7, 2014.
"One thing that would have helped this house is fire sprinklers," said James Van Eyll, Long Lake Fire Chief, on Dec. 31. He added, "This house would have probably been standing with minimal damage if it had a fire suppression system."
On Oct. 6, St. Paul's Fire Chief Tim Butler said, "I'll take water damage at my house any day than having my house burn to the ground or my kids die in a fire."
Long-term State Fire Marshal stats show Minnesotans are doing better with fire safety.
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Sprinkler Mandate Now in Effect: Controversy Moving Forward
Sprinkler restrictions have been imposed in Renwick and Picton from today as the pressure on water supplies continues to rise with the hot, dry weather across Marlborough.
In Renwick, water use has continued to rise despite reminders that levels were falling fast in the township's supply wells. After another hot day yesterday, demand reached an all-time high last night prompting this morning's decision to impose water restrictions.
In Picton, a pipe failure at the Esson's Valley water treatment plant has added to the problems. All of the town's water is being supplied by the Speed's Road plant and demand is running beyond its capacity.
Council's operations and maintenance engineer Stephen Rooney is appealing to residents in both areas to ease off their water use.
"Renwick residents were using 72 litres a second last night that's actually 12 per cent more water than the previous maximum use in the township set just a few weeks ago. People just don't seem to have accepted the message that they need to cut back," he said.
From today, hosing gardens must be limited to alternate days in both Renwick and Picton.
Properties with even-numbered street addresses may use sprinklers only on even-numbered calendar days and those with odd-numbered street address are restricted to the odd-numbered days.
There is no restriction on hand-held hoses but residents are asked to be sensible and keep this to a minimum. Only one tap should be used at a time to run a sprinkler or sprinkler systems.
In Renwick, the restrictions will be in place until further notice but in Picton it's hoped that it will be a short-term restriction only.
"Some of the town's reservoirs are down to just 30 per cent of normal capacity and we need people to co-operate," Rooney said. "Work is underway on the problems at the Essons Valley plant and, so long as demand eases enough for the reservoirs to refill, the hosing ban in Picton may be in place for less than a week."
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Picton and Renwick impose sprinkler restrictions
Quality Sheds from Cabins Unlimited
Cabins Unlimited build, supply and install a wide range of quality sheds and workshops in our own production facility in Norfolk. We can build to almost any ...
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Body cam video sheds light on deadly officer involved shooting
source: http://www.fox4news.com/story/27927865/body-cam-video-sheds-light-on-deadly-officer-involved-shooting *Warning - Viewer discretion advised for attached videos* A foot chase led to...
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Body cam video sheds light on deadly officer involved shooting - Video
The leader in poultry shed, chicken housing, broiler housing and agricultural shed design and construction, Santrev has over 40 years experience in all aspects of poultry housing and chicken farm development. At Santrev we dont just design and construct sheds, we build innovative farming solutions utilising superior materials and products, proven industry experience, and our commitment to developing quality farming investments for our clients.
Santrev is a 100% family owned Australian business with over 40 years of success in delivering high quality steel framed poultry buildings, barns and farming sheds. Our unsurpassed reputation is evident in the strength, durability and detailing of our poultry farms and agricultural buildings. All of our farming buildings are finished in fully hot dipped galvanising for long lasting peace of mind.
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Santrev is a pre-eminent, preferred design and construction partner in the Australian poultry industry, leading the way for more profitable poultry framers. Likewise, when it comes to industrial application and volume-metric buildings, we undertake extensive analysis to ensure the span, bay space, springing height, apex height, etc. are all suited to maximise our client's requirements for storage area.
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The combined Rock-Tenn and MeadWestvaco will have sales nearly twice as high as their next largest publicly traded U.S. competitor, but investors might want to take a look at Packaging Corp. of America, which has greatly outperformed the rest of the sector over the past five years.
Rock-Tenn Corp. RKT, +6.13% of Norcross, Ga., and MeadWestvaco Corp. MWV, +14.01% of Richmond, Va., announced a merger on Monday, which sent shares of Rock-Tenn up as much as 12%, while MeadWestvacos stock was up as much as 20%.
While MeadWestvaco had considerably lower sales than Rock-Tenn during 2014 and a lower market capitalization when the market closed on Friday, the companys shareholders will wind up holding 50.1% of the yet-to-be named new companys stock. But Rock-Tenns CEO Steven C. Voorhees will be the CEO of the combined company.
The combined companys net sales for 2014 came to $15.7 billion, which was nearly twice as high as the sales of the next largest U.S. competitor. The companies expect the combination to lead to $300 million in annual cost savings over the next three years.
Heres a list of all 13 S&P 1500 stocks in the Containers/Packaging subsector, with the merging companies at the top, followed by the rest, ranked by sales for the past 12 reported months (most havent yet announced results for the fourth quarter of 2014):
In comparison to those total returns, the S&P 1500 Composite Index returned 13% during 2014. The three-year total return for the index through Friday was 110% and the five-year return was 121%.
MeadWestvaco was last years best performer among the group, but Packaging Corp. of America PKG, +1.87% of Lake Forest, Ill., ran a close second and has run way ahead of the pack with a three-year return of 227% and a five-year return of 333%.
Packaging Corp of America acquired Boise Inc. in December 2013 for $2.1 billion, which helped it grow net sales for the first three quarters of 2014 by 84% to $4.42 billion. The company will announce its fourth-quarter results today, after the market close.
Packaging Corp. of America expects the Boise acquisition to lead to $175 million in annual cost savings by the end of 2016. The company said its annual run rate for cost savings had climbed to roughly $110 million at the end of the third quarter. The cost cutting is very important to investors, as PKGs operating profit margin for the third quarter declined to 12.4% from 16.9% a year earlier.
The strength of PKGs stock has reflected five years of strong sales growth, and 2015 should be a good one for the company. For starters, the decline in gasoline prices is lowering its transportation costs and freeing up more consumer cash that could be spent on packaged products, which will help most packaging manufactures. But Packaging Corp. of America will also have a boost to production, because it recently completed the conversion of its newsprint manufacturing facility in DeRidder, La., to containerboard manufacturing.
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Deep Dive: Packaging giants merger sheds light on this outperforming stock
Brain scans confirm significant differences in play behavior, brain activation patterns and stress levels in children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) as compared with typically developing children.
In a first-of-its-kind study, researchers at Vanderbilt University examined social play exchanges on multiple levels, revealing associations among brain regions, behavior and arousal in children with ASD. The results were released in the journal Social Cognitive Affective Neuroscience.
"Play is a fundamental skill in childhood and an area in which children with autism often have difficulty," said the study's principal investigator, Blythe Corbett, Ph.D., associate professor of Psychiatry and a Vanderbilt Kennedy Center investigator. "However, the psychobiological study of play in autism is seldom comprehensively investigated using multiple levels of analysis."
Corbett and colleague Kale Edmiston studied children with ASD using an innovative study design in which participants played with a typically developing child on a playground and then played a social exchange game with either the same child or a computer partner during functional imaging. To measure physiological arousal, salivary cortisol sampling was used before and after the playground protocol.
During a functional MRI (fMRI) scan, participants played a game in which they were asked to cooperate or to compete with a co-player. For half of the game, participants were told they were playing with a child they had just met on the playground. For the other half of the game, children were told they were playing with a computer. However, the children were actually playing with a computer the entire time.
"When participants with ASD were in the MRI scanner and thought they were playing with the child they had just met, their brain activation patterns did not differ from when they thought they were playing with a computer," said Edmiston, who is completing a doctorate in the Vanderbilt Brain Institute Neuroscience Graduate program. "In contrast, typically developing children showed unique activation patterns based on which partner they were playing. This suggests that social agents might not be processed in the brains of people with ASD differently than nonsocial agents."
Corbett said the findings suggest that "some children with autism not only find social engagement with peers less motivating, but it may be stressful, even aversive."
Other ongoing research in Corbett's Social Emotional NeuroScience Endocrinology (SENSE) Lab found that these behavioral and neural responses can be modified by some forms of peer-mediated treatment, including SENSE Theatre, an intervention program developed by Corbett.
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This research was supported by the National Institute of Mental Health Grant No. R01 MH085717) and NICHD P30HD15052.
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Brain study sheds light on how children with autism process social play
More details are spilling out from Gov. Mark Dayton about his upcoming budget proposal, and this time it's about new money for education programs.
Dayton told a conference of child advocacy groups Friday that he'll recommend about $372 million for expanded early education scholarships, Head Start programs and subsidized school breakfast. An aide said later that an increase in the basic per-pupil funding allowance will be part of that, too.
In addition, Dayton is set to propose around $160 million for social service programs that benefit struggling families, perhaps through extra child care assistance.
On top of $100 million Dayton has suggested for child-care tax credits, he has now disclosed his plans for the bulk of a projected $1 billion budget surplus.
His full two-year budget is due out Tuesday.
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Dayton sheds light on education funding increases in budget
The big advantage that a show like "48 hours'' has over a newspaper is time. It can spend months putting together a story, like the one that ran Saturday night on Alex Tichelman, the woman charged with manslaughter in the overdose death of Google exec Forrest Hayes.
As a devout follower of the Tichelman case, I was naturally glued. My verdict? I think the "48 Hours'' people did a solid job of reporting, particularly in shedding light on her past. But there is still a mystery about what drove a talented and beautiful woman to drugs and prostitution.
From classmates at a private school in Maine that specializes in teaching troubled young women, the television program learned that Tichelman cut herself on the arms. She made an image of herself as the devil. She was punished by having to build a road.
Then, after a sojourn working strip clubs in San Francisco, she returned to Atlanta, where she lived with a musician and entrepreneur named Dean Riopelle.
Two months before Forrest Hayes died in November, 2013, Riopelle died of a similar overdose. The show replayed Tichelman's call to 911.
Tichelman, 26, has not been charged in that case, though Santa Cruz Assistant Police Chief Steve Clark says his team was "surprised'' at the similarities between the cases.
A friend of Riopelle's named Todd makes a convincing case that Riopelle, who was besotted with Tichelman, took drugs to be closer to his girlfriend.
She was endlessly fascinating to men. Even while she was arranging a meeting with Forrest Hayes on his boat through a site called "Seeking Arrangement'' -- the show has an amusing interview with the website's proud CEO in Las Vegas -- Tichelman had a relationship with a musician named Chad Cornell. Cornell had no idea of her shadow life.
Because of the Hayes family's reticence and Google's secrecy, we know far less about Forrest Hayes, a Midwestern native who worked at Sun and Apple before joining Google X, the branch that develops such things as Google Glass and the driverless car.
The 48 Hours piece did add some details to our understanding: Clark says a crucial 7-minute video from the boat, which has not yet been made public, shows Tichelman injected herself first and then injected Hayes. (According to defense, he used the light on his smartphone to show her where to inject.) Clark says that when Hayes fell unconscious, Tichelman patted him on the cheek, and then cleaned up, wiping down fingerprints. Those details work against her. "I think it's important to see how cold she was,'' Clark says.
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Herhold: 48 Hours sheds more light on Alex Tichelman case