Tag: season

Everything You Need To Know To Claim The Child Tax Credit This Tax Filing Season
MONEY

Everything You Need To Know To Claim The Child Tax Credit This Tax Filing Season

The monthly child tax credit payments may be over, but families now face a new hurdle: Filing for the remaining portion they’re owed. An estimated 40 million households will be applying for the benefit this tax filing season, which, thanks to a bevy of coronavirus-related claims, is already expected to come with significant challenges and delays. The child tax credit, which was expanded to more people and for a larger amount in early 2021, was designed to arrive in two chunks in 2021 to nearly all families with children. The first payments were in six monthly increments. The second would come with families’ tax returns in 2022 — if they know how to get it. “There’s a huge, huge knowledge gap here,” said Jen Burdick, a lawyer at Community Legal Services of Philadelphia who has been helpi...
COVID-19 Case Spikes And Crowd Size – What Baseball Can Learn From The NFL’s 2020 Season
COVID-19

COVID-19 Case Spikes And Crowd Size – What Baseball Can Learn From The NFL’s 2020 Season

Baseball season is here, and thousands of cheering fans are back in the ballparks after a year of empty seats and cardboard cutouts as fan stand-ins. Still cautious of the COVID-19 risk, most teams were keeping season openers to 20-30% capacity. Only the Texas Rangers planned a packed stadium for its home opener on April 5, a move President Joe Biden called irresponsible. It isn’t just baseball – college basketball was allowing up to a quarter of seats filled for Final Four games, soccer season starts April 17, and promoters are planning professional fights in filled-to-capacity arenas. Many of these attendance decisions are being made with minimal data about the heightened risk that players and fans face of getting COVID-19 at stadiums or arenas and spreading it the community. There is...
How The Wildfire Season Got So Extreme – 2020 The Year The West Was Burning
ENVIRONMENT

How The Wildfire Season Got So Extreme – 2020 The Year The West Was Burning

More than 4 million acres of California went up in flames in 2020 – about 4% of the state’s land area and more than double its previous wildfire record. Five of the state’s six largest fires on record were burning this year. In Colorado, the Pine Gulch fire broke the record for that state’s largest wildfire, only to be surpassed by two larger blazes, the Cameron Peak and East Troublesome fires. Oregon saw one of the most destructive fire seasons in its recorded history, with more than 4,000 homes destroyed. What caused the 2020 fire season to become so extreme? Fires thrive on three elements: heat, dryness and wind. The 2020 season was dry, but the Western U.S. has seen worse droughts in the recent decade. It had several record-breaking heat waves, but the fires did not necessarily fol...
Thousands Forced To Evacuate Near Los Angeles: Here’s How The 2020 Western Wildfire Season Got So Extreme
ENVIRONMENT

Thousands Forced To Evacuate Near Los Angeles: Here’s How The 2020 Western Wildfire Season Got So Extreme

Two wildfires erupted on the outskirts of cities near Los Angeles, forcing more than 100,000 people to evacuate their homes Monday as powerful Santa Ana winds swept the flames through dry grasses and brush. With strong winds and extremely low humidity, large parts of California were under red flag warnings. High fire risk days have been common this year as the 2020 wildfire season shatters records across the West. More than 4 million acres have burned in California – 4% of the state’s land area and more than double the previous annual record. Five of the state’s six largest historical fires happened in 2020. In Colorado, the Pine Gulch fire that started in June broke the record for size, only to be topped in October by the Cameron Peak and East Troublesome fires. Oregon saw one of the mo...
Hurricane Season Threatens Billions Of Chickens
BUSINESS, ENVIRONMENT

Hurricane Season Threatens Billions Of Chickens

Hurricanes can have devastating consequences for both residents and businesses in their path. And one sector that’s particularly exposed is the broiler chicken industry. CC BY-SA Virtually all of the breasts or legs you eat at home or in a restaurant come from broilers, the name given to chickens bred and raised for meat production. Sometimes you’ll hear chickens called fryers, roasters and Cornish game hens, but generally these all refer to broilers harvested at specific ages and weights. The U.S. produced 9.18 billion broilers in 2019, more than any country in the world. It’s also the second-biggest exporter of poultry. Yet over half, or 5.1 billion, are at risk for six months of every year – from June 1 to Nov. 30 – of getting wiped out by a hurricane. Six of the top 10 broiler-produ...
The 2020 Atlantic hurricane season is so intense, it just ran out of storm names
ENVIRONMENT

The 2020 Atlantic hurricane season is so intense, it just ran out of storm names

Here’s how active this year’s Atlantic hurricane season has been: When Tropical Storm Wilfred formed on Sept. 18, the National Hurricane Center ran out of names for only the second time since naming began in 1950. Even more surprising is that we reached the 21st tropical storm of the year more than two weeks earlier than the only other time this happened, in 2005. The 2020 Atlantic hurricane season is far from over. When the next tropical storm forms, forecasters will shift from the alphabetical list of people’s names to letters of the Greek alphabet – Alpha, Beta and so on. The 2005 season had six Greek-letter storms, ending with Zeta. So, why is the Atlantic so active this year? Meteorologists like myself have been following a few important differences, including many tropical storms ...
Lethal Weapon Is Reportedly Considering Recasting Riggs for Season 3
CELEBRITIES

Lethal Weapon Is Reportedly Considering Recasting Riggs for Season 3

Lethal Weapon might be Fox’s highest-rated drama but one of its lead actors has reportedly put the show’s future in jeopardy. According to Deadline, Clayne Crawford, who plays the unhinged Navy SEAL-turned-police officer Riggs on the series, has allegedly been emotionally abusive on set -- leaving Lethal Weapon’s sure-fire Season 3 renewal up in the air. The trade alleges that Crawford has a history of bad behavior and has been disciplined on several occasions. However, the punishments haven’t stuck and he’s reportedly created a hostile work environment where crew members and some of the actors are uncomfortable with continuing to work with him. Alongside Crawford, the series currently stars Damon Wayans as Murtaugh, Keesha Sharp as his wife, Trish, and Jordana Brewster as Dr. Cahill, th...