Monthly Archives: December 2020

During a full-city plow, Spokane crews will work 24 hours a day, seven days a week until all streets are cleared.

SPOKANE, Wash. Spokane is launching a full-city plow on Wednesday as a snowstorm slams the region.

The City of Spokane launches the effort when there is at least four inches of snow on the ground. A total of six to eight inches of snow is expected in Spokane by Thursday morning, according to the National Weather Service.

City of Spokane crews will work 24 hours a day, seven days a week until they plow all streets. Additional crews from water and wastewater departments will also be part of full-city plowing efforts, with more than 50 pieces of equipment expected to be out working, spokesperson Marlene Feist said in a press release.

A full-city plow should take about three days to complete but additional snow could extend the time, Feist said.

Crews are proceeding with plowing in major roads now, and teams will be deployed to residential areas at 5:30 p.m. on Wednesday starting in hill areas.

The city has also a snowplow progress map available to view on its website. The green lines on the map mean snow removal status is complete, blue lines mean "working," red lines mean "next" and magenta lines mean "working/monitoring."

A map showing the plowing routes for residential areas in the City of Spokane is also available online.

The following is a list of maps to check plow progress in areas outside of the City of Spokane:

Driveway berms and sidewalk snow in Spokane

The City of Spokane's Street Department has outfitted 17 pieces of equipment with gates that allow plow drivers to avoid placing snow across driveways or alley access points.

These gates reduce driveway berms in residential areas, but they are still possible, especially on main roads that are frequently plowed.

Crews will plow away from the curb to help keep snow away from driveways and sidewalks. Snow may also be pushed to the center medians in some cases.

Spokane residents are asked to park on the odd side of the street in residential areas for the snow season, which runs through March 15.

Recreational vehicles, boats and trailers must be moved off the street to winter storage locations. These

Announcements will be made to prohibit on-street parking in downtown Spokane from midnight to 6 a.m. when it snows, so parking bays can be plowed out.

Signs are installed in the downtown area, indicating this rule within the boundaries of Maple to Division and I-90 to the Spokane River. Vehicles parked during prohibited times are subject to towing.

Here is a list of snow removal hotlines in the Inland Northwest:

Property owners remain responsible for clearing the sidewalk adjacent to their properties. The city is asking citizens to clear a 36-inch path to allow people with disabilities, bus riders and other pedestrians to move safety through the community. The goal is to complete that work by 9 a.m. after a snowfall.

The City of Spokane will remove sidewalk snow adjacent to its properties, too.

Seniors or disabled individuals can call 311 to help get connected with volunteer services that may be able to help them with snow shoveling.

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Spokane is launching a full-city plow. Here's how to track its progress - KREM.com

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Efforts to increase the number of female, minority and disabled employees have taken place across the intelligence community. But over an eight year period, the Government Accountability Office found the results have been modest and lower than federal standards call for. For more, Federal Drive with Tom Temin turned to the GAOs director of Defense Capabilities and Management Issues Brian Mazanec.

Tom Temin: Brian, good to have you back.

Brian Mazanec: Thanks Tom, happy to be here.

Tom Temin: Give us the numbers of the change that occurred in women, minority and disabled employees in the IC over the period studied, I believe it was eight years ending in 2019.

Brian Mazanec: Thats right, Tom. Yeah, so we analyzed the aggregate workforce data that the Office of the Director of National Intelligence puts out looking at 2011 through 2019, which was the most current available data. I should note too, we also did look at individual IC elements data, but that information is largely at a classified level. So it was not used in our public report. When we looked at the data, we found, as you mentioned, some slight progress in enhancing the representation of these different groups over the past eight years. So looking at women, we found that the proportion of women was reported mostly a stable changing from around 38.5% to around 39.5% over the period, so very slight increase. In terms of racial and ethnic minorities, we saw a little bit more of an increase going from 23%, about 26.5%. Where we saw the greatest relative proportional increase it was for persons with disabilities, where we saw an increase from 5.3% in 2011, to 11.5%, in 2019. So almost doubled as a relative percentage. And as you mentioned, while these trends represent some progress, they do remain below the federal benchmarks that we think are relevant here. The Federal Labor Force and the civilian labor force, which that data is put out by the Office of Personnel Management. And when we compared what I just walked through from the IC perspective to those benchmarks, we found that the IC was lower than the federal government overall. So for example, the proportion of women in 2019, I mentioned we found within the IC, it was 39.3%., thats lower than the federal workforce number, which was 46.9%.

Tom Temin: Got it. So with respect to getting more employees of color, more employees with disabilities, more female employees in you have to have that before they can be promoted up into the higher ranks. Did you look at the proportions in various levels, that is beginner, mid-career and senior?

Brian Mazanec: We did Tom. And we found, and this is a story that unfortunately I think is consistent outside of the IC as well, but we found that as you go up to the mid grade and senior grade positions, the representations decrease. And thats something that IC officials we met with acknowledged, they recognize its going to take time to grow and promote and have the representation increase at the higher levels over time. So I think thats not a unique story to the IC.

Tom Temin: And also in the report, you list, lets see, theres nine best practices for increasing diversity within a workforce. And all of the IC elements did some of those things, but none of them did all of those steps in terms of recruitment and getting people, best practices in for their workforce. Give us a more detailed assessment of what you found there.

Brian Mazanec: In addition to looking at the data itself, we did look at how each of the 17 IC elements, and I should point out to the intelligence community is made up of these 17 entities that vary pretty dramatically. Its a diverse group of agencies, they vary in size and mission, and whether or not theyre independent, or within another agency. So theres a lot of complexity there. But when we looked at all 17, we assess them individually of how they were doing and implementing the leading practices for managing workforce diversity. These are practices that weve been using since 2005 to assess this kind of thing. They include basic things such as leadership commitment, performance measures to track progress. And we found that among the 17, most were addressing seven of the nine practices. So as an example for leadership commitment, we found that within the Department of Homeland Securitys intelligence community element, the Undersecretary for DHS office of intelligence and analysis had appointed a senior leader to champion workforce diversity issues, a workforce management and engagement chief in October of last year. So thats an example of that element meeting the leadership commitment practice. But when we looked at all nine practices, we did find a couple areas where theres room for improvement. Most of the IC elements had not developed strategic plans to guide their efforts, or develop diversity related performance measures to track progress.

Tom Temin: And not withstanding the fact that it is classified what the variations were from component to component, is there one component of the IC that you can say, did most of what they should do?

Brian Mazanec: I would say most of them are implementing most of our leading practices here. Really was in these two areas of strategic planning and performance measures where most of them actually fell short. So there was some consistency there. I would highlight as a positive example, some of the elements did do well in those two areas where most fell short. The Department of Treasurys Office of Intelligence and Analysis had at department wide strategic plan, that is a diversity strategy, that was pretty good. And then on the measurement front, I would note that the Central Intelligence Agency has a really well developed diversity related performance measures that it has identified in its diversity strategic plan. So it references things such as employee climate surveys to inform the delivery of diversity, training activities, and things like that. So there are positive examples throughout. And that really, maybe is a good jumping off point to the third area that we looked at, which was how the Office of the Director of National Intelligence overall was leading the entire community in this area and in embracing interagency leading practices for coordination. And thats an opportunity where as these different 17 elements are making progress and implementing different programs, they can come together as an enterprise and share these best practices and work together to strengthen the entire communitys effort to have a maximally diverse workforce.

Tom Temin: And youve also written that, in many ways, the workforce and the diversity of the workforce is particularly important in relation to the IC mission. Maybe elaborate on that for us.

Brian Mazanec: Yeah, so workforce diversity, we believe, and I think we heard this consistently throughout our view, its critically important across the government, but particularly within the intelligence community. And its been increasingly prioritized within the IC as well. So the 2019 National Intelligence Strategy established a specific enterprise objective focused on people that emphasize that the IC would recruit, develop and retain a diverse workforce to address enduring and emerging requirements and enable mission success. And its that last part mission success, thats the key, the ICs mission is to provide intelligence decision advantage in a complex and diverse world. And thats really enabled by having a diverse workforce. And I would note, too, I think workforce diversity planning and oversight, which is what we focused on for a large part of our review, is particularly important for the IC because it also faces some unique challenges in this area. Its one of few places where a significant portion of the workforce is required to maintain a top secret security clearance, which can delay hiring considerably and create challenges for individuals or populations who cant wait for an employment offer. So they have faced a number of challenges as well.

Tom Temin: And youve got a fairly extensive list of recommendations, seven of them, all of them are kind of open at this point, I guess, as the IC, receives them and decides what to say, but just characterize the recommendations for us.

Brian Mazanec: So we had seven recommendations. And we were pleased to see that the Office of the Director of National Intelligence did concur with all seven, they expressed some reservations about the extent to which they can instruct other IC elements in these areas. But we think weve crafted the recommendations in a way that they could be implemented. And theyre intended to have the Director of National Intelligence clarify for the full community, the requirements for developing, as I mentioned earlier, strategic plans for specific elements, developing some of those performance measures at the element level, and then also enacting a level of accountability for the entire community in terms of developing some measures that ODNI could use that are really time bound and specific to ensure that the entire community is making progress in this area.

Tom Temin: And just a final detail question on recruiting. Do the people that do recruiting on behalf of the IC components? I guess each agency acts independently in that sense. Do they visit the say, historically black colleges and universities for example, and make efforts to get to where the incoming people might be?

Brian Mazanec: Yeah, Tom, that actually, youve identified one of the leading practices that we looked at specifically for each IC element, it is recruitment. And that is exactly one of the examples that we saw at most elements that they were doing. So for example, the National Security Agency has a recruitment strategy that is very specific in identifying recruitment methods, goals and activities to attract diverse candidates, which includes going to various universities in places where theres a great proportion of that particular demographic that they might be seeking to recruit. That is a key element of the efforts that the elements are taking here.

Tom Temin: So overall, this report is optimistic, it sounds like?

Brian Mazanec: Yeah, overall, we found that IC elements efforts to improve workforce diversity and ODNIs efforts across the entire enterprise were following most of our leading practices, but theres definitely room for improvement, again in the areas of strategic planning, measurement and accountability.

Tom Temin: Brian Mazanec is director of defense capabilities and management issues at the Government Accountability Office. Thanks so much.

Brian Mazanec: Thanks Tom.

See the article here:

Intelligence community making limited progress in diverse recruiting - Federal News Network

We are closing out 2020 and pray for a outstanding 2021. This has been a year for the record books, but that is not what I want to talk about in this column.

I want to talk about the Pontotoc Progress and the people who make this paper happen each week.

Like any industry, people would be surprised at what happens behind the scenes to produce any product.

The people at the Progress work day and night to insure you get the best paper possible week in and week out.

This is a small staff and even on their vacation and holidays, they work to make sure they get their jobs done. This is a staff that does the work they do because they care about this community and want to give you the information that you need to know about what is going on in Pontotoc.

David Helms, Editor, leads the news gathering. David writes a column each week that rivals any paper with his humor and insight. No one works more diligently than David in making sure every story in the paper is accurate and fair in its reporting. You would be surprised at the hours he spends not only writing but reading for accuracy. David is an accomplished photographer and he insist on having lots of pictures of the people of Pontotoc in the paper each week.

Regina Butler, Reporter, is the only other full-time reporter on staff. Regina writes a column and does a lot of the features and special section stories. When reading the paper, you will know if it is one of Reginas stories without seeing the by-line. Regina writes from the heart and it overflows in the words she writes. She is the one we can call on to go out and shoot pictures and cover an event any day and at any time of the day or night.

Jonathan Wise, Sports Editor, is the only full-time sports writer on staff covering our three schools with multiple sports being played all year long. Jonathan not only covers the sports and coordinates what we call stringers, people who will cover a sporting event and send Jonathan the story, to make sure he gets as many stories with the names of as many young athletics as possible about their high school accomplishments as he can. Like David, Jonathan is an accomplished photographer and makes sure we have the faces of as many children as possible in the paper each week.

Galen Holley, Stringer, who is really one of the family, has been working with the Progress for several years now and brings so much to the paper. He is one of the best feature writers I have ever read. He can write a feature on anything and will bring you in the story and you will read every word as he carries you to the end with great interest. Galen can cover any type of story as well as being a fantastic sports writer.

Angie Quarles, Advertising Director, is the person that goes out and works with the local businesses to help them develop their advertising message. She helps them with taking pictures of the people and products to help you not only read about their stores but can have a visual. Angie is one of hardest working people I have had the honor of working with. She juggles the advertising of every business in Pontotoc for the paper each week and all the special sections and magazines that we produce each year.

Chelsea Williams, Designer, is the one that puts it all together. Angie will bring in pictures and the information for an ad and tell Chelsea to make it look pretty and she does. Chelsea is a creative person, but more importantly she cares about each and every ad that she designs. She designs the ad as if it was her own business she was designing for. Not only does she design the ads, she designs the paper and every special section and magazine. When Chelsea began working with the Progress part time almost seven years ago doing magazine work the design of our magazines took on a new style that took our paper and products to a new level. She joined the staff almost four years ago full time and if you see something new in the design of the paper or magazines, Chelsea is the one responsible for that.

Tonya Criddle, Office Manager, is the one that keeps everything working around here. She handles all the legal, classifieds, circulation, she makes sure all the bills get paid, that we have the supplies we need and tries to keep up with who is where so when a call comes in she can know how to route a call. If I tried to list everything she does for the paper you would get tired of reading the many task she keeps up with. Working with this group of people is like herding cats, but she manages with ease.

I cant tell you enough good things about this group of people and their dedication to this community and this newspaper.

They work their family life around their responsibilities here at the paper and that is not an easy task, but they do it as a team and support and help each other.

I am proud to be a small part of this team and am grateful they continue to do the work they do each week.

See the article here:

People of the Progress | Pontotoc Progress | djournal.com - Northeast Mississippi Daily Journal

Laura Damon|Newport Daily News

NEWPORT In May, the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis while in police custody brought scores of people nationwide to the streets in protest.

Cries for racial justice arguably characterized the summer of 2020. And as demands to "defund the police" and criticism of departmentsswirled, Randy Butler had an idea.

Lets talk it out.

The founder of the Butler Basketball Club organized a community discussion with Newport police in June to talk strategies and plans for a brighter future and stronger police-community bond.

The Daily News spoke with Butler in December to gauge if the changes this community discussion catalyzed.

The summer of 2020 also yielded Newport City Council resolutions thatcondemned hate speech and called for African heritage history education in all public schools statewide, starting in the 2021-22 academic year. The Daily News sought updates on those initiatives, too, on the cusp of the New Year.

Community Discussion

[With] the police, we have been doing a lot of ventures since [the community discussion in June], Butler said in a phone conversation. There have been between eight and nine events that police have collaborated on with community organizations and individuals, including a backpack giveaway, Butler said.

Any time I go to them, its always a yes. Its never a no.

Asked if the discussion in June strengthened community-police relations, Butler said by far it has. Hes seen longtime Newport families talking with police now in a casual setting, something the Newport nativehadnever seen before.

They broke the ice…they see that the police are out there trying to do something…even the kids, I think it broke the ice.

Butler said hell hold another community discussion in 2021; COVID-19 restrictions have put an event any sooner on hold.

The more things that we all do together, the better as a whole community were going to get, Butler said. Our progress is moving in the right direction.

Resolution condemning hate speech

The City Council in June passed on a 6-1 vote a resolution that condemned hate speech and instructed the city manager to provide implicit bias training for city employees and councilors.

Though it passed, the discussions around the resolution at that summer meeting were impassioned.

The Daily News asked councilor Jamie Bova, who was mayor at the time and sponsored the resolution, what she learned from those discussions.

Looking at it from a larger perspective…I think it did help to break the ice [and was] the start of a deeper conversation for the council, for the city government, Bova said in phone conversation in December.

Since that meeting, I do think that systemic racism has been discussed on the council in ways that it hadnt been before."

Plus, the discussion surrounding the resolution gave constituents insight into the thoughts and feelings of elected officials, Bova said. I think that people heard from their councilors in a way that they hadnt before.

Asked the status of the implicit bias training, Tom Shevlin, the communications officer for the city, said in an email Dec. 23 that virtual training was offered and saw broad participation from both employees as well as council members.

Looking ahead, well also be offering additional opportunities in the New Year for staff and council to discuss and learn about issues such as social identity, bias and stereotype threat as well.

We all have those [implicit biases] we dont always recognize, Mayor Jeanne-Marie Napolitano said when asked the importance of the resolution and the training it instructed the city manager to provide.

African American history in schools

In July, the City Council unanimously passed a resolution that encouraged the General Assembly and Gov. Gina Raimondo to enact legislation that should authorize the Rhode Island Department of Education to include African Heritage history education in all public K-12 schools starting in the 2021-22 Academic Year.

Napolitano was the lead sponsor of the resolution but credited Theresa Guzmn Stokes and Keith Stokes, leaders in the Black Heritage Society, for playing a big part in its development, The Daily News reported previously.

A statewide effort to create a new curriculum was already underway. The 1696 Historical Commission was created by statute on July 1, 2014, and given the task of developing a comprehensive African American history curriculum for Rhode Island public schools from kindergarten through Grade 12, The Daily News reported previously.

The Daily News, in December, inquired of Superintendent Colleen Burns Jermain the current African American history curriculum in Newport schools. Jermain forwarded emails from school officials over the summer that summarized the curriculum.

Currently Black History is being taught during the month of February K-12, Assistant Superintendent Kimberly Behan said in a July 15 email. However an entire unit on Black History is taught in Grade 7 Social Studies in Jan & Feb, along with Women's History in March.

Black history and its relationship to the slave trade is taught through RI History at the [high school], Behan added. And theres Black historical literature incorporated into English courses at the middle and high school levels, Behan said in that July email.

We are moving toward adopting an ELA curriculum K-12 that is culturally relevant, Behan added. History is a narrative, Black History should not be just a month, it is American History and should not be relegated to one month…In addition to teaching diverse histories one of the purposes of education is to humanize and this can be done through all subjects, not just one month of Black History and not just through Social Studies and ELA.

In a July email, Rogers teacher Coleen Turner, chairwoman of the schools social studies department, touched on the African American history and diversity topics covered in 9th, 10th and 11th grade history courses.

Behan, in a December email, said Thompson Middle School and Rogers High School currently provide racial training and [are] involved in book clubs. [Rogers Principal Jared Vance] is running a student led diversity group.

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Progress made following racial justice initiatives over the summer in Newport - newportri.com

NEW DELHI (Reuters) - Talks between India and China have yet to make headway to end a standoff on a disputed section of their Himalayan border, Indias defence minister said on Wednesday, as thousands of troops from both sides faced a freezing winter in the mountains.

FILE PHOTO: India's Defence Minister Rajnath Singh attends during a ceremony for the delivery of the first Rafale fighter to the Indian Air Force at the factory of French aircraft manufacturer Dassault Aviation in Merignac near Bordeaux, France, October 8, 2019. REUTERS/Regis Duvignau/File Photo

Defence Minister Rajnath Singh said there had been no meaningful result from several rounds of diplomatic and military talks aimed at de-escalating the worst border confrontation between the nuclear armed neighbours in decades.

If the status quo continues, it is obvious that the deployment wont come down, Singh said during an interview with Reuters partner ANI.

But, he said, both sides were still exchanging messages over the border situation and another round of military talks was in the offing.

Tensions soared in June, after troops clashed in hand-to-hand combat in the Galwan valley in Ladakh, abutting the Chinese-held Tibetan plateau.

Twenty Indian soldiers were killed, with China suffering an undisclosed number of casualties, and both sides ramped up their military presence, moving men, weapons and supplies to the high-altitude desert region.

Officials in New Delhi said last month that Indian and Chinese officials had held several parleys to discuss ways to implement a staggered withdrawal.

Our expectation is that some positive result can be achieved through talks, Singh said.

India has positioned around 50,000 troops in the contested area, some at altitudes of over 15,000 feet (4572 m), where scarce oxygen and freezing winter temperatures can be life-threatening.

India and China share an undemarcated 3,800-km long border, where their troops previously adhered to long-standing protocols to avoid the use of any firearms on the frontier.

But tensions have flared since the Galwan incident and both militaries, who fought a border war in 1962, accused each other of firing in the air in September.

Writing by Devjyot Ghoshal; Editing by Simon Cameron-Moore

Read more:

India says talks with China yet to make progress to end border standoff - Reuters

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With the year almost over, were taking a look at all 30 stocks in the Dow Jones Industrial Average, starting with the worst performers Boeing and Walgreens Boots Alliance and working our way up to the highest-flying stock in the benchmark Apple. The ranking may shift before the close of 2020 trading, but the stories behind the stocks shouldnt.

Verizon Communications (ticker: VZ) stock did a whole lot of nothing in 2020. Its ending the most eventful year in memory for the stock market just where it started, at around $60 a share. Including dividends, Verizon has earned its shareholders about 1% this year, versus a return of more than 8% for the Dow.

That performance surely has some investors wishing for more. For others, Verizon stock did exactly what it was supposed to in 2020. The U.S. wireless industry is a stable, mature, and defensive business. When markets were tumbling, a pandemic was raging, and the economy dropped into recession, investors looked to stocks like Verizon to provide some stability and certainty of profits.

Simply put, Verizon isnt likely to grow much faster than the broader economy. It isnt likely to shrink either. Even during the Covid-19 recession, phone-obsessed Americans have been loath to cancel their talk and data plans. The stock sports a dividend yield of 4.3% annually thats easily covered by the companys cash flows.

Management at Verizon and its wireless competitors AT&T (T) and T-Mobile US (TMUS) are bullish on the shift to next-generation 5G networks, believing it could ignite wireless industry growth in 2021 and beyond. But investors clearly need some convincing.

Verizon expects 5Gwhich promises faster data speeds, lower latency, and greater capacity in dense areasto begin to materially impact its revenues this coming year. The service is only available on Verizons top-tier plans that include unlimited data and other perks, so customers who want 5G will need to trade up to those more-expensive subscriptions. That means more revenue without having to win new customers.

Verizon also offers a 5G Home wireless internet service in about 10 markets that it will continue adding to in 2021. Thats an entirely new line of business for the company, and another opportunity to leverage excess capacity on its new 5G network. Further out, Verizon expects additional sales of mobile-edge computing services, which are essentially miniature data centers distributed around the network.

Wall Street analysts see Verizons revenues hitting $132.9 billion next year. Thats about $2 billion more than in 2018, three years earlier.

In the second half of 2020, Verizon should complete its acquisition of TracFone, a large prepaid mobile virtual network operator. Thats expected to immediately contribute to earnings, with additional benefits to Verizon over time as it presumably becomes TracFones exclusive network in the future.

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The first catalyst for Verizon stock in 2021 may be the conclusion of the C-Band wireless spectrum auction, which was on track to attract record bidding before it paused for the holidays. Verizon needs additional mid-band spectrum to keep up with competitors in the 5G race, and investors shouldnt be surprised by a price tag of tens of billions of dollars. That will add to Verizons debt load, but it has the balance sheet capacity and ultralow interest rates mean the cost wont detract much from earnings.

Extra borrowings could keep at bay any plans to resume share buybacks until 2022 or 2023, however. Accordingly, analysts dont see much earnings per share growth for Verizon in the coming years. The consensus forecast is for $4.94 in 2021 and $5.02 in 2022. Those compare with $4.81 in 2019 and an estimated $4.76 this year.

Overall, Wall Street analysts are lukewarm on Verizon. None rate the stock Sell, but only 37% of analysts recommended buying Verizon. The remaining nearly two-thirds of analysts have a Hold or equivalent rating. Their average target price is $62.42, about 6% above the stocks recent $59.

Write to Nicholas Jasinski at nicholas.jasinski@barrons.com

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Verizon Stock Did Nothing in 2020. It Needs to Show 5G Progress Next Year. - Barron's