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Radiation under a Staten Island park from a 1940s landfill and a fight over who should clean it up has again halted progress on the East Shore Seawall, a key climate resiliency project.

The radiation in the planned 5.3-mile seawalls path comes from Great Kills Park, where radium-226 was first found during an anti-terror aerial survey conducted by the NYPD in 2005. The vast majority of the park has been shut since 2009.

The seawall originally was supposed to be completed this year. But now more than eight years after Superstorm Sandy devastated parts of the borough and about six years after the project was announced, construction remains stalled as the feds, city and state differ on whos responsible for getting rid of the radiation.

Now it could be 2026 before the work gets done, officials say.

The Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) told its state and city partners in August that it couldnt undertake the planned removal of hazardous materials on the land without a policy waiver from the assistant secretary of the Army for civil works, according to various city and federal officials.

But the Army Corps would first have to recommend the policy waiver, which it hasnt done.

Given there is very little precedent for [radioactive waste] remediation work to be undertaken by USACE as part of a civil works project, there is no guarantee a waiver would be approved, Jennifer Gunn, a spokesperson for the Army Corps, told THE CITY last week.

Citing federal environmental protection laws, Gunn asserted that the contamination is ultimately not her agencys responsibility.

USACE is not a potentially responsible party for the contamination located within the project site, said Gunn.

Remediation [is] the responsibility of the non-federal sponsor, New York State. USACE has every expectation the non-federal sponsor will comply with the terms of the agreements they sign, said Gunn in a statement Friday.

The Army Corps, city and the state signed an agreement in 2019 that assigned clean-up duties to the state, Gunn noted. The Army Corps has also suggested that either Albany or City Hall could take on the hazmat effort, since it is on land owned by the city, officials told THE CITY.

First Deputy Mayor Dean Fuleihan told the Army in a January letter that making the city find a contractor to do the work would delay construction, currently set to end in 2025, by at least 12 months.

But Fuleihan affirmed that, as outlined in its 2019 agreement with the Army Corps, the city would pay for the entire cost of the Army Corps or state removing the radioactive waste.

Staten Islanders were devastated by Hurricane Sandy and must be protected from future storms without delay, Jainey Bavishi, director of the Mayors Office of Resiliency told THE CITY in a statement. The city, state, and both of New Yorks senators are united in urging the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to undertake the radioactive waste remediation work that will allow this project to move forward.

The state Department of Environmental Conservations commissioner, however, didnt acknowledge any responsibility to clean the site and implored the Army Corps to take on the task in a Jan. 8 letter seeking to clarify New Yorks position regarding waste cleanup.

It was the understanding of New York State that USACE would manage any radioactive material that might be excavated during the construction of the levee/floodwall, DEC Commissioner Basil Seggos wrote, citing a project agreement.

A DEC spokesperson, Maureen Wren, pointed THE CITY to the letter when asked about the states responsibility to carry out the remediation.

Gunn said the Army Corps can provide technical oversight for clean-up sites, but it would still likely also need to contract out the work.

The urgency of the 5.3 mile seawall, which would stretch from the foot of the Verrazzano Bridge at Fort Wadsworth to Oakwood Beach, near Great Kills Park, is twofold for Staten Islanders.

The marine structure is intended to protect thousands of residents from potential rising waters, but it will also trigger immediate decreases in flood insurance premiums for East Shore homeowners once the project is half built.

Construction hasnt even started, according to Gunn. The original completion date for the project was 2021, but its been plagued by delays since its inception in 2015.

A formal contract among governmental partners wasnt signed until four years after the seawall project which includes a new boardwalk, drainage improvements, road elevation and tide gates was announced.

Staten Island Borough President James Oddo told THE CITY that this latest obstacle is especially frustrating because the city, state and federal agencies all knew about the issue of radiation when they entered into an official agreement in February 2019 to jointly execute the $615 million project.

The issue of the radiological material and the need for a clean up was not necessarily new news, said Oddo, who said that all parties were aware of this as far back as 2015.

Oddo said the key to forward momentum may lie with now U.S. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, who also implored the Army Corps to take on the clean-up in a December letter with fellow Democratic New York Senator Kristen Gillibrand

An inability of the Army Corps to move forward with remediation threatens to significantly delay completion of the seawall estimated to be at least two years, the senators and then-Rep. Max Rose (D-Staten Island, Brooklyn) wrote.

The stalemate likely means that the clean-up contract likely wont be awarded anytime soon, but the state and Army Corps will initiate construction at other segments, to expedite coastal storm risk reduction for this long-suffering, low-lying community.

New York City dumped about 15 million cubic yards of waste fill from 1944 to 1948 into the parks low lying wetlands. The National Park Service took over jurisdiction in 1972.

Chemical contaminants, including incinerator residue, sewage sludge and coal ash from a city-run incinerator used at the site are also present in the park, according to a 2017 report from NPS.

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Staten Island Seawall Delayed Over Radiation Cleanup Fight, Years After Sandy - THE CITY

The tradition of off-road racing in Parker continues with the Tensor Tire Parker 250 this weekend, Feb. 19 and 20. There will be two major races during this event. The first will be on Saturday morning, Feb. 20 and will feature motorcycles and quads. The second will be that afternoon, and it will feature utility terrain vehicles (UTVs).

In addition, there will be youth UTV races, and contingency and technical inspection will be in downtown Parker. They will be held during a street fair, the Downtown Experience.

Off-road racing in Parker dates back to the early 1970s, the early years of the sport. They were run for many years by Short Course Off-Road Enthusiasts (SCORE) International. They are now run by Las Vegas-based Best in the Desert Racing Association.

Perhaps the most notable development in recent years for this race has been the rapid growth of UTV racing. Ten to 15 years ago, when UTVs were first being introduced, there were only a handful of UTVs participating. In 2020, more UTVs participated than quads and motorcycles combined. They also posted times comparable to the best of the motorcycles and quads.

Please be aware there are some notable changes for this years race from races in years past. Due to the coronavirus COVID-19 pandemic, lands held by the Colorado River Indian Tribes have been closed to racing. This means the starting line, main pit area, and Parker Python, which are located on Tribal land behind Avi Suquilla Airport, will not be used.

The starting line and main pit area have been moved to a location off Shea Road outside of Parker on land held by the Bureau of Land Management. This is close to where the Parker off-road races started in the old days when SCORE ran the races.

In previous years, contingency and technical inspection were held at the BlueWater Resort & Casino. However, the coronavirus pandemic has put the BlueWater, a Tribal enterprise, on a limited opening. All special events have been cancelled until further notice. As a result, contingency and technical inspection will be held in downtown Parker on Feb. 19.

Contingency and technical inspection will be held at the same time as the Downtown Experience, a street fair sponsored by the Parker Regional Chamber of Commerce & Tourism. It runs from 8 a.m. to 6 p.m. on Friday, Feb. 19. There will be vendors selling food, merchandise and racing gear.

The big races themselves will be held on Saturday, Feb. 20, with the starting line at the previously mentioned location off Shea Road. The motorcycles and quads will begin staging at 7 a.m. and set out at 7:30 a.m. The UTVs will begin staging at 12:15 p.m. and set out at 1 p.m.

Youth UTV races have also been scheduled for Friday, Feb. 19. The first will feature the 170 Stock, 170 Limited Stock, and 250 Modified classes. Staging will be at 12 noon with the race starting at 1 p.m. The race will run 35 minutes.

The second Youth UTV race will be for the 570 Stock, 570 Modified, 800 Modified and 1000/RS1 Stock classes. Staging will begin at 2 p.m. and the race will start at 3 p.m. Again, it will run for 35 minutes.

The youth races have become popular for a couple of reasons. First, they feature the next generation of the sport of off-road racing. They are also popular because they are on a short course with continuous action and no long periods of no vehicles passing by.

The youth races will start and finish at the same location of the start and finish for the Saturday races off Shea Road. The course will be about 1 to 3 miles long.

While on BLM land, all individuals involved with the race, including racers, pit crews, officials and spectators, will be required to follow the BLMs rules and guidelines regarding the coronavirus pandemic. They will be required to wear face masks at all times, and they must follow social distancing guidelines. Those who fail to follow these rules and guidelines will be asked to leave.

Best in the Desert reminds everyone to follow all posted rules if they want the races in Parker to continue. They are also reminded to clean up their campsites if they are camping, and to take out their trash when they leave.

With the BLM, La Paz County, Town of Parker and the State of Arizona watching us closely, it is very important you follow all rules and not be that person who makes it difficult for the rest of us to continue racing in Parker, BITDs Jeff Phillips said on their website. Keep in mind, Best in the Desert does not care what your name is, who your sponsor is or how much money you have! Our goals are simple: be fair to all entrants, offer a safe race, and most importantly, do our best to make this a fun weekend.

Schedule of Events for Parker 250

Friday, Feb. 19

Downtown Experience, Technical Inspection and Contingency

8 a.m. to 6 p.m. in downtown Parker

Driver Registration, Parker Community/Senior Center, 12th Street and Laguna Avenue

8 a.m. to 10 a.m., Youth UTV

10 a.m. to 1 p.m., UTV Turbo/UTV Production

1 p.m. to 3 p.m., UTV Unlimited, UTV Sportsman

3 p.m. to 5 p.m., All Motorcycles and Quads

5 p.m. to 5:30 p.m., Late entries

Youth races

First race: 170 Stock, 170 Limited Stock, and 250 modified

12 Noon, Staging at starting line

12:30 p.m., Parade Lap

1 p.m., Youth race starts, 35 minutes plus one lap

Second race: 570 Stock, 570 Modified, 800 Modified, 1000/RS1 Stock

2 p.m., Staging at starting line

2:30 p.m., Parade Lap

3 p.m., Youth race starts, 35 minutes plus one lap

Saturday, Feb. 20

First race: Motorcycles and Quads

7 a.m., Motorcycle/Quad Staging at Start Line

7:30 a.m., Motorcycle/Quad Race starts

Second race: UTVs

12:15 p.m., UTV staging at starting line

1 p.m., UTV race starts

Due to restrictions on public gatherings due to the coronavirus COVID-19 pandemic, there will be no awards ceremony. Plaques and other awards will be mailed to the winners.

Spectator rules for the Parker 250.

There is (1) spectator area for the race and it is located on the designated side of Shea Road. The following are prohibited:

1. Camping in any area outside the designated spectator areas.

2. Parking, stopping, or standing any vehicle outside of the designated spectator areas.

3. Failure to keep your site free of trash and litter during the period of occupancy or failing to remove all personal equipment, trash, and litter upon departure.

For your safety and to protect the desert environment persons MUST NOT:

1. Cut or collect firewood of any kind, including dead and down wood or other vegetative material.

2. Possess, discharge, or use firearms, other weapons, or fireworks on Friday & Saturday Feb 19& 20.

3. Sell, give, or otherwise provide any alcoholic beverage to a person that has not reached the age of 21 years.

4. Be in possession of any alcoholic beverage unless that person has reached the age of 21 years.

5. Violate quiet hours by causing an unreasonable noise as determined by the authorized officer between the hours of 10 p.m. and 6 a.m. Arizona time.

6. Allow any pet or other animal in their care to be unrestrained at any time.

7. Operate any vehicle, including an off-highway vehicle, which is not legally registered for street and highway operation, including operation of such a vehicle in spectator viewing areas, along the racecourse, and in designated pit areas.

8. Park any vehicle in violation of posted restrictions, or in such a manner as to obstruct or impede normal or emergency traffic movement or the parking of other vehicles, create a safety hazard, or endanger any person, property or feature. Vehicles so parked are subject to removal and impoundment at the owners expense.

9. NO ATVs, motorcycles, bicycles and/or UTVs are allowed to be ridden in any spectator area

10. Spectators will be required to wear a face mask at all times during the duration for the event.

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Parker 250 this weekend, Feb. 19 and 20. | News | parkerpioneer.net - Parker Pioneer

Runs arent the only way to get a good cardio workout. In fact, they arent the best way to built lung-busting fitness, unless youre crushing hills or putting in speed on the track. Great cardio workouts are all about getting your heart rate up and keeping it up. The result should be obvious: Youre panting for breath and burning serious calories all the while. Yes, you can rearrange some furniture and take on such a workout at home. You dont need much space or much time (about 20 minutes), but you will need determination. Here we go.

Minutes 0-1: Warm Up/Front Lunges

How to: Clear the perimeter of your living room and walk the edges via deep lunges. Start by stepping far forward with your right leg, bending your right knee until its over your right toes, and keeping your back (left) leg straight. Push through the ball of your left foot and swing left leg far forward, landing in a low lunge on your left side. Continue alternating low lunges for 60 seconds.

Minutes 1-3: Warm Up/Side Lunges

How to: Step widely to the right with your right leg, landing in a deep lunge (right knee bent over toes, left leg straight). Push off the side of your left foot to bring feet back together and come to standing. Step right again and repeat side lunges for 60 seconds. Switch to left side lunges (lead with the left side step, push off back to standing with the right side) for 60 seconds.

Minutes 3-5: Box Steps

How to: Find a step stool or low chair and step up with your right leg, then transfer weight to your left leg, then step down again with your right, then down with your left. Do 10 box steps on your right as fast as you can; switch to do 10 on the left. Thats one set; do as many sets as you can, as fast as you can, for two minutes.

Minutes 5-9: High Knees/Butt Kickers

How to: Start by running fast in place, hiking your knees as high as they will go (aim for knees to chest) with every step for 30 seconds. Immediately shift to butt kickersrunning in place while kicking backwards (trying to hit your butt with your heel on every step). Do this for 30 seconds then switch to thigh knees again. Repeat this front/back sequence four times.

Minutes 9-11: Hop the Bench

How to: Stand facing that step stool or low chair you just used for box steps. This time, rather then step up on it, youre going to crouch low, swing your arms, spring off the floor, and jump over it. (If the stool is too high for you to clear, a stack of books or your kids toy chest will do.) Once you clear the bench, turn around and jump back to the start. Do 10 jumps without stopping; take a 20-second breather, then do 10 more.

Minutes 11-13: Ladder Drills

How to: Place a broomstick, mop, fireplace poker, duster handle, and anything else that lies flat in a straight line in a row on the floor in front of you. Space these objects10 totalabout a foot apart in a straight line. Stand at the head of the line and proceed to single-leg hop on your right leg from one space to the next, clearing the item on the floor each time and never letting your left foot touch the ground. When you get to the end of the line, turn around and hop back on your left leg. Next, turn sideways, place your feet tightly together, bend your knees and begin to side jump over the handles, never letting your feet separate. When you get to the end of the line, come back leading with your opposite side. On your third out-and-back, hopscotch the linestarting on two feet, spaced wide apart, then jumping onto a single foot, then back to both feet, wide apart, as you clear each bar until you reach the end of the line. Turn around and repeat coming back tot the start.

Minutes 13-16: Squat Jumps/Wall Pushups

How to: Start this full-body move with your feet hip-width apart, facing a wall about three feet away. Sink your butt toward the floor and bend your knees until they are over your toes. Push through your heels and jump vertically in the air. Land with soft knees, then immediately lean your weight forward, stretching your arms in front of you until they come in contact with the wall. Bend elbows and do a wall push-up. As you straighten your arms, push off the wall and back to standing upright. Get ready for another squat.

Minutes 16-18: Traveling Pushups

How to: Sneak a little full-body strength training into the mix with this high-energy sequence. Go back to your ladder of broomsticks and mop handles. Starting on the far left end, get down on all fours. Position yourself so that your body is between the two lines. Stretch your legs behind you and extend your arms so that your body forms a long line. Do a pushup. As you return to the extended plank position, step your right hand over the divider and into the next space; move your right leg to the side to follow. Bring your left hand and leg over closer to the right. Do another pushup. Repeat sequence, stepping over the handles each time until you reach the end of the line. Repeat coming back in the other direction, leading with your left side. Continue for two minutes.

Minutes 18-20: Jumping Jacks

How to: You know this one: Jump legs apart, jump legs together. But instead of the arms up/arms down traditional style, youre going to keep your arms raised in the air the whole time (which increases your heart rate). Repeat for two minutes. (To make it harder, either jump faster or grab lightweight objects in each hand for extra resistance.)

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This 20-Minute Living Room Cardio Workout Will Leave You Panting - Fatherly

It's only the second week of Destiny 2's Season of the Chosen, and already there's a new Exotic weapon for players to chase in a hidden Exotic quest. Here's what you need to find the Presage quest and get started earning Dead Man's Tale, a new Exotic scout rifle.

Your journey starts with this week's Nightfall: The Ordeal Strike, The Arms Dealer. You'll need to load into the mission in order to find the path to start Presage, so you'll want to grind your Power level up to at least 1230 to make things easier on yourself. The mission you're looking to unlock, Presage, also has a recommended Power level of 1230, so keep that in mind before you get started.

You'll need to start The Arms Dealer, this week's Nightfall: The Ordeal Strike, but the good news is that you neither have to finish the Strike nor play it at a high difficulty to find what you're looking for.

Start the mission and enter the first room, a Cabal facility where you'll fight a handful of enemies. Usually, you'd then use Ghost to hack a console and open the door at the far end of the room, which leads outside. Instead, look for another, newly opened door, near the table with the big hologram on it. This leads you to another large hallway deeper into the facility, and the path is littered with turrets.

Blast your way through the hallway to its end and you'll exit outside, but this time, onto a pair of landing pads. A Major Cabal Phalanx called Than'grot, Loyal to Caiatl, blocks the path here, as do some more turrets. Shoot through them all to open the path out onto the landing pads.

You'll see a few more turrets as you push away to the facility. Jump out to the furthest landing pad and look for a big gray crate. Interact with it to receive a Cabal Distress Signal datapad in your inventory. You can check it out for a little bit of backstory.

At this point, you're done with The Arms Dealer and you can finish the Strike as normal or just depart for orbit. Head back to the Tower and talk to Zavala. After getting a rundown of the situation, you'll unlock a new mission on the Director's Tangled Shore map. Look toward the top of the screen for the Presage mission.

When you load into Presage, you'll find yourself in the loading bay entrance of the Cabal ship called the Glykon. There's actually no way through these sealed bay doors. To find the entrance, head back down the ramp and, facing toward your ship and out into space, turn right and jump to the red pipes there. You can follow the pipes and scaffolding around the outside of the ship to find an entrance that'll let you get in.

It's better to experience Presage yourself, rather than follow a guide--the mission is heavy on puzzles and asks you to find your way through, and it's a lot of fun to figure out on your own. If you want to go it alone, stop reading now. We'll leave a few more key tips below.

If you get stuck in any given room, you probably need to shoot your way out. As in other Cabal-based missions, there are a lot of pathways that are hidden by ventilation covers that you can shoot through. If you get stuck, look for a vent you can blast open. You'll also open a lot of paths by throwing big switches (similar to those found on the Leviathan), and you'll often hear a beeping alarm that marks their locations when you get nearby.

Finally, you'll sometimes open doors or blow off vent covers to reveal a power conduit. You can shoot these to disable electrical fields or open doors, although they sometimes recharge, forcing you to destroy them and then quickly run through the path they clear. Watch for what these conduits effect, because it's not always obvious.

There's one other major mechanic throughout the Glykon. You'll often run up against glowing white barriers that burn you if you touch them. To get through, you'll need to find and shoot small round glowing balls that release spores. Stand close to the orbs when you shoot them to get a buff called Eregore Link, allowing you to pass through the white barriers. The spores only work for a short time, so you'll usually need to identify your path from the spore orbs to the barrier so you can make it before the timer runs out.

The mission culminates in a boss fight with a big Scorn enemy reminiscent of The Hangman from the Forsaken expansion. He has a giant maul he slams on the ground, sending flames shooting across the floor toward you. The room where you fight him fills with other Scorn enemies as you battle him, so keep moving as best you can so you don't get bogged down. After you do a little damage to the Locus, he'll drop down to the lower level of the room, where the floor is alight from the ship's boiler. You'll need to activate three control panels on the top level of the room in order to cool it down enough that you can continue fighting him.

When you've cleared out the smaller enemies (Ticuu's Divination does well in the standard version of the mission), look for control panels at either end of the room. Behind the panels, you'll see a wide hole in the floor where you can drop down. Don't do so until you've activated all three coolant panels, however. The third is in the small room in the middle of the upper floor, but note that when the boiler is active, this room will also inflict burning on you. The best way to deal with it is to activate the other two panels first so that when you activate the panel in the burning room, it'll turn off the flames and save you from burn damage.

After the coolant panels are active, drop down and fight the Locus of Communion on the lower floor. The battle is pretty much the same as above, except there's nowhere to hide. If you get into trouble, jump up to the top floor again so you can avoid the Locus's burning maul attack. You can give him the slip pretty easily by running to one of the other two holes in the floor to drop down and get behind him.

Knock off a third of the Locus's health and the boiler will re-activate, forcing you back up to the upper floor. Clear out the enemies and repeat the process. After you deactivate the boiler twice more, you'll be clear to kill the Locus and complete the mission.

Once you kill the Locus of Communion, you'll find Dead Man's Tale in another room. The Exotic builds up bonus damage as you stack precision hits, while also gaining faster reload speed, so land as many headshots as you can with it for maximum power. Like Hawkmoon, you can re-roll Dead Man's Tale to get different perks on the gun.

Once you've finished Presage once, you'll have access to the mission on the Director. Re-running the mission gets you a Pinnacle drop. From what we can tell, having run the mission several times now, you can get one new Dead Man's Tale roll per account per week. Presage will give you three Pinnacle drops per week, one per character, but only your first run of the mission per week will give you a new Dead Man's Tale. Running the mission on alternate characters gives you random Pinnacle-level loot.

After you clear Presage for the first time and earn the Dead Man's Tale Exotic, returning to the mission allows you to unlock additional secrets within the mission. Several of them have additional Triumphs tied to finding them. Here's what we've found so far.

To unlock more information about the story of the Glykon and its crew's demise, you can find and scan several objects hidden throughout the ship. There are five scannable objects in total; find them all and finish the mission to unlock the Figments of an Answer Triumph.

Object 1: The Cabal Bodies

Progress through the ship until you make it to the switch that opens the door to the loading ramp where you first spawned in on the Glykon. Throwing the switch unlocks the door that leads into the ship proper. As soon as you go through, you'll be confronted with some weird plantlife. In the center of the room, you'll see several Cabal bodies have been grabbed by the vines and suspended in the air. Scan them for your first hint at what's going on in this place.

Object 2: Scorn Helmets

Continue forward until you hit a room with a pair of big electrical barriers splitting it apart. You'll start on one side of this room and enter a narrower hallway in order to reach a switch. To get to the other side, you'll need to jump a gap, then use spores to run through a sealed Darkness doorway. Before you do that, however, jump across and check to the right of the sealed door to find two Scorn helmets lying on the floor beside the path forward.

Object 3: The Guardian's Jump Ship

After you complete the section with the trash compactor, you'll drop into a fight with some Scorn enemies and see the Locus of Communion for the first time. Keep moving until you enter the ship's hangar for a big fight with two Abomination Majors. Clear the room and head toward the back left corner, where you'll exit out the big hangar opening and go back out into space. Before you do, scan the ship right next to the exit. It belongs to the Guardian you're searching for, and it's outfitted with some Season of Opulence gear.

Object 4: Dark Ether Canisters

Before much longer, you'll hit another room with an electrical barrier, but this one will be above you. You'll unlock a door exposing a power conduit that lets you interrupt the barrier briefly so you can pass through it. On the other side, turn left to find a side room with a switch clearing the path back to the far side of the barrier. To the right of the switch are some canisters with a light blue liquid inside, your fourth piece of evidence.

Object 5: Calus's Message

The fifth and final scannable object appears after your boss fight with the Locus of Communion. Defeat it and leave the boiler room through the newly opened door. Continue until you can blow open a hole in the floor and drop down into a ventilation shaft lit in red. Instead of continuing down the clear path, turn the other way and hop over the low pile of junk to get to an open space on the other side, where you'll find a little hologram of Calus's face. Scan it for one last tidbit of info about what happened aboard the Glykon.

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Destiny 2 Presage Guide: How To Start The Voice On The Other Side Exotic Quest For Dead Man's Tale - GameSpot

In the first half of 2019, Long John Silvers charted a course for recovery, beginning with stabilization.

At the time, the business faced three main obstacles. The chain had a master lease situation hanging over its head, which presented a lot of dead rent assets. Long John Silvers was also shedding about 60 restaurants per year and was burdened with the task of buying back troubled franchises.

The strategy was to simplify the business. Long John Silvers went from 75 workers at its Restaurant Support Center to roughly 45 and renegotiated its master lease. As the process unfolded, the brand started thinking less as a national brand and more about how it can take its marketing spend and make it more local for franchisees.

The restaurant began to see wins throughout the middle of 2019, it said. Long John Silvers stared down a tough reality in the final part of the year, however, as the brand tightened its advertising budget to prepare for 2020. As a result, transactions declined.

So we had our level set starting into 2020, says Blain Shortreed, who was recently hired as CEO. And we thought that most of the assets that were part of the LoJohn [leases] that were going to be removed from our base were gone. We felt that most of the bleeding from our ad budget was done, and we were ready to reset ourselves. We got into 2020, and I think our story was starting to pan out.

Long John Silvers went from 1,000 stores in 2015 to around 740 in 2019, including 540 franchises and 200 company-run stores. In January, the chain saw positive same-store sales stacked on top of growth from the previous year. Then COVID arrived a couple of months later, and the 52-year-old brand was forced to adapt.

Two decisions from 2019 worked in its favor. First, the chain started third-party delivery. Additionally, Long John Silvers local approach to marketing prevented it from overspending. So when COVID hit, the company essentially stockpiled money.

We didn't have to spend on advertising, Shortreed says. We didn't have too many forward buys. We could actually put our advertising on hold.

Transactions declined 30 to 40 percent during peak Lenten season, which usually brings the highest sales volumes of the year. In addition, Long John Silvers switched from a 50 percent dine-in business to 95 percent drive-thru and 5 percent delivery. Business shifted overnight, but Shortreed says managers had the innate ability to adjust within days. Operators found ways to cut back on cash flows, saving Long John Silvers in the neighborhood of $200,000. They also learned ways to move from 15-day inventory to about eight days, which saved another $500,000 of working capital.

Because no capital was being spent and no one could visit restaurants, Long John Silvers considered furloughing seven to 10 employees. Instead, the brand told those workers to refocus on being productive during COVID. For example, John Haley, the brand director for development, had no funds to build out restaurants. So he switched to building shields to protect customers and employees inside stores.

Another 60 or so units shuttered in 2020, meaning roughly 300 stores have closed in the past five years. Long John Silvers currently has670 stores346 standalone, 139 co-branded with A&W, and 185 co-branded with KFC and Taco Bell.It also breaks down to 200 corporate stores and 470 franchises.

I know in this business when you have restaurants that have a problem, throwing complexity at them, being that they have to go through a drive-thru and they weren't good at drive-thru, it's not going to fix their business enough so that they can recover like the rest of the restaurants, Shortreed says. So good operators survived through that, and I think some of the ones that were already not some of our better operators, we had to take some action just to make sure that we were making headway on our overall vision to simplify our business and make sure that we're delivering on the customer experience.

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Long John Silver's Steadies the Ship Amid Choppy Waters - QSR magazine

Sculptures and artwork by a Chinese-Lithuanian artist in Hackney, which are beautifully displayed throughout his home, have been put on sale two years after his death.

Ron Hitchens was born in Poplar in 1926 and died peacefully in November 2019 at the age of 93. He was brought up in Pennyfields, the original Limehouse Chinatown to a Chinese father and a Lithuanian mother.

He spent his life working in a variety of fields, including as a tailor, a coal miner and a ceramicist but was well known for being a flamenco dancer and a sculptor. He had a passion for flamenco dancing, and even presented Ken Russells The Light Fantastic (1960), participating in and commenting on the dance sequences featured.

Hitchens was an exceptional artist, and even took the time to cover the walls in his home with stunning sculptures, and created art out of his furniture. He was known as the 'Naked Sculptor' as he 'disliked the heat of casting his pieces'. Now, his estate is selling off the contents of his house in Hackney, including his numerous pieces of art.

His art pieces have previously sold for between 100 to 400. Every part of his house is a piece of art, as doors and even his bed is made out of artwork tiles.

An account on Instagram has now sprung up dedicated to chronicling Hitchens' work, and a short documentary about his life is available to view on Vimeo.

MyLondon has put together a gallery of images inside the impressive art-filled home.

Read more here:
Inside the Hackney home of artist who covered the walls in stunning sculptures - MyLondon

If you want to learn how to build in Valheim like the worlds best Vikings, youve come to the right place. Building can be a tricky task for new players as Valheim leaves a lot for you to discover on your own fortunately weve done all the hard work for you. Constructing a solid base might seem like an impossible task at first, but the tools in Valheim are surprisingly robust, allowing you to build the home of your dreams, eventually.

Unlike a lot of survival games, Valheim has strict requirements when it comes to building structures that you must adhere to, including an overall structure strength and adequate ventilation. When you first land in the Viking afterlife, you need to craft a hammer from rogue branches you find lying around the Meadow biome. This allows you to build structures and more importantly, a Valheim workbench, which needs a roof before you can use it. This is just the beginning of why you need to build a base, as you gradually add items such as chests, beds, and eventually a blast furnace. Your base also protects you from the external elements such as a drop in temperature at night and severe weather conditions, as well as prowling enemies.

If youre just starting out in Valheim, or looking to brush up on your building skills, this guide covers some of Valheims building quirks, whether youre lacking the tools for the job, or youre trying to squeeze as many items as possible into your little Viking home. Heres everything you need to know about building in Valheim.

To live as the Vikings once did, each base must have a chimney to accommodate your indoor campfire. You can tell if your base is in desperate need of ventilation as the structure fills with smoke that cant escape through the roof, the thick grey clouds are a dead giveaway here. . Without any ventilation, you slowly take damage until you inevitably die.

The obvious solution to this is to remove a roof panel so the smoke has somewhere to go, however, this can easily let in rain which will extinguish your campfire. Instead, select a roof panel in the usual spot but rotate the panel to have it angled towards the sky. This stops any rain from entering the building while allowing the smoke to escape.

Wondering why strong gusts of wind are blowing out your campfire in the middle of the night? Its important to use the correct tiles when constructing a base. This might seem obvious, but Valheim gives you the option to use any building structure that fits when constructing a roof. While this may work visually, using floor tiles in place of roof tiles will cause you problems in the long run. Real roof tiles protect your base from windy weather, whereas floor tiles do not.Level the terrain

Valheims building mechanics can feel unintuitive, and thats mainly due to the structure strength mechanic. Its important to build a base on a flat surface this might sound easy, but the game doesnt make it clear when a surface is uneven. The hoe tool is perfect for levelling any uneven terrain, making it suitable for building a structure. You can craft a hoe at a workbench for five wood and two stone.

Though its technically possible to build on hilly terrain, this is not advised, as parts of your structure can become weak due to the lack of a solid foundation. If you built a symmetrical building but some of the panels appear to be structurally weaker on one side, double check your foundation is touching the ground. What usually happens is only half of the pieces are embedded into the ground, but this can easily be fixed by levelling the area off with the hoe.

Before building a permanent base, create a flat area using the hoe tool and immediately place floor tiles down as the foundation. Again, this might seem like an obvious tip but its extremely annoying to fix down the line. A small base might do the trick for the first few hours of the game, but as you begin to make progress youll soon find yourself trapped within the confines of your tiny home.

To Valhalla:Read about the best Viking games on PC

As you progress through the game, youll need more space to store heavy inventory and keep portals nearby, all while maintaining a fortified area to protect against nearby threats. Having a dedicated zone for your base allows you to build within your means while giving you room to spread out once you feel comfortable.

Chests become vital in the mid to late game, giving you a way to stash your precious resources. When building a large base, you need plenty of wood and stone on hand at any given time this is where chests come in. Ideally you should have a room dedicated to chests in order to keep all of your materials in one place.

If you dont have the room to spare, or you want to make things tidier, you can stack chests using the 11 wood floor tile. Place this wood tile directly above a chest on the ground, creating a shelf that can hold more chests. Once the chest is on the shelf, you can destroy the shelf and the chests will continue to hover in mid-air. You can stack up to four chests in one column if youre looking to maximise your space. Check out YouTuber Schmidtdudes video embedded above to see how its done.

And thats all you need to know about building in Valheim. If you need some more tips, check out our guide on the Valheim workbench to find out how to use this complex crafting station. Theres a lot more to this survival game than simply building a base have a look at our guide on Valheim bosses to discover the games progression system.

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Valheim building guide learn the basics of construction - PCGamesN

TikTok is a brilliant resource for home improvement hacks, and one TikTok user revealed how she created a unique pattern on her kitchen tiles with stencils and paints. The video posted by@homechroniclesgot more than 141,000 likes and other TikTokers flocked to the comment section to find out how they can achieve a similar look.Express.co.ukchatted to DIY and upcycling expert for ITVs This Morning, Georgina Burnett (also known as The Home Genie), to find out how to create a pattern on your tiles with stencils.

A home improvement blogger,@homechronicleson TikTok, has shown off her impressive DIY skills in a short video clip.

The video, which has racked up more than 2.2 million views, shows the blogger take her kitchen tiles from drab to fab with just a few licks of paint.

She starts by painting the marble-look tiles white with a paint roller brush and then paints over this with black paint.

READ MORE- 9 headboards for an easy and stylish bedroom makeover

Once that dried, she placed down some Moroccan-esque mosaic stencils and painted over this with white paint.

The bloggers end result was stunning, but we couldnt help but wonder whether the final look would last long.

TikTok users expressed their concerns in the comments about the paint flaking off, soExpress.co.ukhas asked a DIY and upcycling expert for her views.

Georgina Burnett, aka the Home Genie, has revealed how to paint your tiles correctly.

Once totally dry, roller on tile paint primer that will be appropriate for the topcoat you will eventually use.

Georgina said: Start at the opposite end of the room, make sure theres plenty of ventilation and no little feet around!

You may need two coats for sufficient coverage, so stock up on enough paint to get the job done in one go.

The colours you choose are up to you, but if you want to copy the TikTok video you need white and black ceramic paint.

Let the primer dry and then roll black ceramic paint over the entire floor, following the instructions on the tin.

Dont miss a patch of the floor and make sure you paint over the grout.

Georgina said: You will probably need two coats so you will want to lightly sand and clean in between coats.

Once the black paint is totally dry, its time to put your stencil in place. Georgina said: Place your stencil on the tile furthest away from the entrance, you can either use masking tape to hold it in place at the corners or press down.

Then, roller white ceramic paint over the stencil and carefully lift before it totally dries, to avoid the paint from peeling away with the stencil.

Wipe the stencil of any paint and repeat on the next tile until all tiles have been decorated.

To ensure your handiwork stays in place and lasts as long as possible, Georgina recommends finishing with an appropriate sealant.

You will need to tread very carefully even after the paint is dry.

Georgina added: Follow the instructions on the paint tins, but Id be tempted to only replace furniture after a week or so, and avoid tap dancing for a few weeks!

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DIY stencilled floor: How to create a pattern on tiles with stencils - Express

This year, a favorite Michael Jordan quote of mine, Dont aspire to be the best on the teamaspire to be the best for the team, fueled my journey of using simple, practical leadership and team-building tactics to connect our remote and on-site culture at Mercury Mosaics.

When I looked for the gaps, my goal was to understand what systems we needed in place so more people could shine. We place a lot of focus on building a place that creates careers. And last year, we had zero layoffs and actually created jobs. A team approach was driving my focus to sharing leadership responsibilities. Im always saying many hands make light work.

Forty percent of our team has been working remotely since March 2020.

Sixty percent of our team has been in-studio. Most of them had no access to technology, because our existing methodology was mostly analog.

This created a clear divide and disconnection.

2020 revealed that we had been spoiled by being under the same roof (while having cute dogs running around). I was forced to ask, How do I keep people feeling connected, empowered, and ensure access to our good vibes?

Microsoft Teams was an easy setup for us. Additionally, we got everyone a company email address. This made us feel together, and being able to have specific cohorts within Teams created ways for smaller units to collaborate remotely. We started an area for announcements, and soon it became a channel for our production team to share their studio life.

What became incredibly clear to me was how many people were needed to execute various initiatives. Every part of the company, during 2020, was overhauled, as in many other organizations, Im sure. To make it more of a game, we used Asana. This empowered us to turn our cannots into can dos, dreams into plans, and on top of it all, get er done.

So many projects we had hoped to work on suddenly presented themselves as opportunities. I realized that I needed to strengthen the foundation of Mercury Mosaics, and this was a key tool for doing so.

Im a chart aficionado. If you can make a flowchart or something visual, Im all in. Having a visual chart showing the key groups and when they have recurring meetings made a big difference.

When you dont see everyone, this chart is comforting because it provides awareness of what is going down in all areas.

Weekly bulletins: One of our Mercury Mosaics traditions was potlucks. These were tough to replace during COVID-19. Id honestly compare the weekly bulletins we now roll out to some of the good vibes of a potluck (minus the satisfaction of a great meal). Having a spot to connect and shareespecially the variety of visuals that roll out from week to weekis the sweetest community builder. Ive seen people really step up to highlight the positive accomplishments of fellow teammates. The synergy from this is another important layer in our internal community building.

Quarterly meetings: We needed to come up with a way to bring remote and on-site employees together, especially as we planned to open a second manufacturing location. So we kicked off quarterly meetings in June and have had three so far.

In them, we shared shout-outs among the core teams to highlight our values in action, and each division leader shared updates in their sector. I quickly saw that with the size we had grown to, it didnt feel right for me to be out there somewhere; rather, I needed to help coach the smaller teams. This allowed me to get more clarity for my vision for Mercury Mosaics.

With more intentional systems to connect my teams, I started to see magic. At our fourth quarterly meeting, I shared a personal interview between me and one of my mentors, and in 12 minutes my teams understood the why of Mercury Mosaics and provided a new layer of meaning to our collective journey of growth.

Strategic planning was the first major thing we did to kick off 2021. The new leadership cohort of eight got to work to incorporate all employees input to update our companys mission, vision, and values. We still have a few weeks to go before we finish the tactical side of the strategic planning. However, the power of simply having clarity around this element is going to help lead us into the future.

We can use these pieces to align, whether were all under one roof or expanded and scattered into new locations. These simple tools helped make a very real connection between remote and on-site employees possible. Tackling the dismantling of our life as we knew it in 2020 has allowed us to rebuild a better businessone that fosters our community to be much more cohesive. With this foundation in place, were truly able to focus on our mission of enhancing the world one handmade tile at a time.

Mercedes Austin is the founder ofMercury Mosaics.

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How to encourage teamwork in a hybrid workforce - Fast Company

Ahead of the launch of Android 12 Developer Preview, which may be around the corner, heres a recap of all of the Android 12 leaks weve seen so far.

Normally, we learn the bigger picture features of the next version of Android when the first Developer Preview builds release, with smaller tweaks appearing in subsequent updates. This year, a significant amount of information about Android 12 has leaked out or appeared in public source code ahead of the Developer Preview, likely to begin sometime this month.

To help keep tabs on whats coming with the next release of Googles mobile operating system, weve collected all of the various Android 12 leaks into one hub, which well keep updated.

Every major release of Android, since Cupcake in 2009, has used a dessert name that starts with a subsequent letter of the alphabet. While this practice stopped publicly with Android 10 which would have been named Queens Cake Google has continued to use these dessert names internally. For example, Android 11 was Red Velvet Cake a fact that came up in a fun easter egg of Googles virtual Android statue for 2020.

As reported by XDA, Android 12s internal dessert name is Snow Cone. Do with that information as you will.

More interestingly, mockups have leaked out depicting what Android 12 should look like, and what we see is a fairly radical redesign. You may see images from this leak sprinkled throughout this post, but its important to note that we dont know for certain whether these depict what Android 12 will look like when we finally see it. These are not screenshots, but are instead simply artist renditions of a particular design that Google is considering.

One thing you may notice throughout the leaked Android 12 design mockups is that instead of the usual white or black colorways used on Pixel phones, we find a primary color best described as sand. This is due to an in-depth theming system that is set to debut with Android 12.

Android 12s theming system should offer you a few different primary colors to choose from, from which your theme will be built. Most interestingly, Android app developers will be able to retheme their app based on your chosen themes color, if they so choose.

Of course, theres far more going on in the Android 12 design mockups than just a theming system. Theres also a massive collection of smaller tweaks like notification cards with much rounder corners, new shapes and spacing for quick settings tiles and more.

According to XDA, these may come together to form a larger whole referred to internally as Material NEXT. From what we can piece together, its possible that this may point to a third generation of Googles Material Design following the 2014 original and the 2018 Material Theming revamp. Its also possible that this Material NEXT could simply refer to updates to the use of Material Design by Androids built-in apps and UI.

Another aspect that jumps out in the leaked mockups is that Android 12 may add special Conversations widgets for use on the home screen. Each of these widgets seems to represent something like a friend who you havent talked to in a while, or a missed call you should probably return. Details are a bit scarce for now, but it seems right in line with Googles efforts toward making a People-focused operating system.

For those with taller phones, Android 12 may be bringing a native One-handed mode that will shrink down your phones screen vertically, bringing everything well within reach of your thumbs. However, unlike most versions of one-handed mode that scale down both the height and the width, it seems Android 12s may only scale down the height.

Taking cues from iOS, Android 12 seems to be working on a variety of improvements to help you be more aware of your privacy. In the top-right corner, youll reportedly find a privacy indicator that can appear in orange or green, letting you know that an app is using or has used your camera or microphone recently.

Along with the privacy indicator, its been leaked that Android 12s Settings app will get a revamped Privacy page where you can outright disable your phones camera, microphone, and location sensors.

In 2019, Google confirmed that scrolling screenshots where your phone takes a screenshot, scrolls down, takes another, and stitches the two (or more) together would indeed be coming to Android as a native feature. So far, this hasnt happened with Android 10 or 11, but according to XDA, Google has been hard at work on scrolling screenshots, which may be ready to launch with this years release.

With Android 11, Google added the ability to resize your floating picture-in-picture window by grabbing onto the corner and dragging. For Android 12, according to XDA, picture-in-picture windows will be able to be pinched to resize with precision or double-tapped to quickly jump to maximum size.

Additionally, its been leaked that picture-in-picture windows may offer a way to stash the window most of the way off-screen so that you can see more of your currently active app. With a simple tap, your stashed window will pop back out.

Android 12 set to revamp split screen with App Pairs

Given the rise of foldables and dual-screen devices, Android 12 has been leaked to include a new form of split screen called App Pairs. In the App Pairs system, you should be able to treat two separate apps as one task in your recent apps view, allowing you to quickly switch from a pair of apps to another single app. Its unknown if Android 12s App Pairs will also offer quick shortcuts to a particular pair like Samsungs App Pairs.

Our team has created a mockup of what we believe the Android 12 App Pairs system may look like.

Between the variety of games offered through Google Play Games and the growing wealth of game-streaming services like Stadia and Xbox Game Pass, gaming on Android has never been bigger. To match that growth, Android 12 could be bringing a dedicated game mode option, according to XDA. More specifically, a GameManager has been discovered, which is listed as a service to manage game-related features. For now, Android 12s potential game mode is still something of a mystery.

As a minor tidbit, XDA has reported that Android 12 will gain a Reduce Brightness tile in quick settings. From whats been discovered, Reduce Brightness seems to be an accessibility feature aimed at those with visual impairments.

While flagship phones are ever scaling up in storage space, not everyone in the world has the luxury of an expensive phone with a high capacity. To help reduce the amount of storage used on your phone, its been reported that Android 12 could introduce a way for apps to be hibernated when they arent being actively used. Details are still a bit scarce on how this hibernation will work.

This particular tidbit is not a leak, but its still a welcome improvement to Android. Google shared last year that they were listening to feedback from Android app developers and would make it easier to use a third-party app store something that isnt the Play Store or Galaxy Store, such as the Epic Games Store on Android 12.

Google hasnt shared any specifics on how this would work, but its expected to be a good compromise between Androids open nature and Googles desire to keep people safe from malware.

In addition to the broader Android 12 features that should become available for owners of essentially any phone that gets the update, Google seems to have prepared a suite of exclusive features for their Pixel phones.

The biggest leaked improvement for Pixel phones is that Android 12 should bring the double-tap gesture that we previously saw in development with Android 11. Codenamed Columbus, the Android 12 double-tap gesture should let you do things like open the Google Assistant, play/pause music, open the notification shade, and more.

Pixel phones should also gain a new option for Auto-Rotate in Android 12, which uses the camera to check which way your face is turned. Essentially, if youre laying down on your side and holding your phone sideways, your face and phone should be facing the same way, and Android 12 will know that you want to be in portrait mode.

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Heres what has leaked about Android 12 so far - 9to5Google