Hello, welcome to Town Meeting Television. This is ongoing coverage in advance of Town Meeting Day, which is March 7th, 2023. Tonight we have here the candidates for the two-year seat in Winooski for the Winooski School Board and the unopposed three-year candidate for the Winooski School Board. Town Meeting is gonna host forums with all candidates and we're gonna cover all the ballot and budget items that you'll see on your ballot coming up this March. If you have, if you would like to call and ask questions, you can call us at<PHONE_NUMBER>. And you are either watching this on Comcast, channel 1087, on Burlington Telecom channel 17 and 217, or you're watching this live on our YouTube channel, which is youtube.com, backslash, Town Meeting TV. Welcome folks tonight, thanks for joining us. I think we'll start, Allison, with you with an opening statement and just tell us again the seat that you're running for and how, why you're running and what folks can expect if you get elected. Sure, so I'm Allison Berlach. I've been a resident of Winooski for about six years. I am running for the three-year seat and I am currently the chair of the school board. So I'm looking to continue that high level of service to the community of Winooski and involvement in Winooski. And I'm looking to continue the board on a, and the school district on a path of becoming data driven and really using data to make decisions. That's my passion. Great, and how long have you been on school board? I've been on a school board since July of 2021. So a little more than a year and a half. And then we'll move on to you, Robert, and you're running for the contested seat. So you and Jordan are running, I guess, up in opposition to one another. Give us an introduction. Who are you? Why are you running? And what's gonna be different for Winooski if you're elected? Sure, well, we're actually, the only ones with a contested race in Winooski. That's right. I'll be honest, I actually wasn't really intending to run from the get-go, but I was seeing not a lot going on on the ballot and finally decided to jump in. Tried to encourage a few other people to run, but it's harder than ever to get people to get involved, they're concerned by the national tone a lot of the time. But thankfully we don't have a lot of that in Winooski. But when I saw Alex wasn't running, I felt like we really needed a good candidate to replace him. He's been there for six years and brought a lot to that discussion. And I'm somebody, I've lived in Winooski almost 15 years now and I've served in, actually a bizarre number of different roles. I previously was on the school board way back in 2010 when I was just a little person. Of course, only my 20s then. But at any rate, I've served in a lot of roles, I've got a lot of municipal experiences of various kinds that I think could help me in this role. Great, thanks so much. And yeah, this is the seat that Alexander Yin held and is stepping down from. And so Jordan, Matt, why are you running and what's gonna be different for Winooski if you're elected? Sure, so I'm a lifelong Winooski resident. I work in the city, so I spend a lot of time in Winooski. My main reasons for running are, we're gonna see a new wave of funding, how the school weight, the student weighting is gonna be changing to benefit Winooski school district. So this is kind of the time to help us to that end in a sustainable way. And Thaleson's point is to make those decisions based off of data. And so if we can see where the focus needs to be beforehand, we'll know what we need to do with initiatives, with students to make us fulfill the end statement that Winooski has put forth. And so that's really why I'm running. Great, thanks so much. Thank you all, and a reminder if you're watching at home, you can call us at<PHONE_NUMBER> with your questions for these candidates. So the Winooski school budget is gonna be 25.4 million, that's a proposal. It's up 20% from last year at an estimated tax increase of 9.66. Can you explain your understanding of the budget and the impact on school, on the school and voters? And so Robert, we're gonna start with you on that. Sure, so it's a big increase, but a big chunk of that comes from the first debt payments for the capital project, which is a big project over the last few years, just getting to the point of wrapping up to expand the overall footprint of the building. Unlike a lot of, I think any other district in Vermont, we're just one building for pre-K through 12, about 800 students. So that's a big part of the increase. There's also some funds for dealing with plowing, which the city's traditionally done for the school, but the city's at this point because of staffing issues is actually not able to do all its own plowing at this point, so that's something that we saw in there. But anyway, there's also a couple of instructional assistance and just general increases that we're all seeing. But one of the great things I think the board did is they really worked to decrease, even with a large increase in the overall budget, they were able to decrease the impact on taxpayers by using some of the fund balance that they had accrued over the years. Pretty significant chunk of that, which I'm sure Allison could better explain than I could, but. And you'll be supporting it? I do support it, it is a larger budget, and we've passed some larger budgets in the last few years, but the tradition before that for a long time was pretty moderate steer budgets for a lot of years. So in a lot of ways, the more recent years has been kind of correcting that. When I was on the school board way back in 2010, we were down near the bottom of per pupil spending, even though we have a very complex student body with a lot of different needs. So, sort of correcting that was unnecessary. Great, thanks so much. Jordan, we're gonna move on to you on this question. Do you support this year's school budget? And can you explain your understanding of the budget and the impact on school, on school and voters? I do support the budget. I know board and everybody worked hard as they do every year to mitigate the tax impact, and this year they spent some money on the general fund to kind of dumb that down so that the tax impact wasn't as significant as it could have been. On top of the capital improvements that gave us a bigger building, that factors into the budget. Now you have to maintain cool, heat, clean that much bigger area. Rob is out of the plowing, that's another expense. So I think they did a good job in doing it, and we should see, when the weighting comes through per pupil, we should see, it scaled back a little bit, so I don't think it was too absurd of a budget. Thanks so much, and you will be supporting it. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, I'll be supporting it. Great. Allison, you helped work on this budget. You can tell us a little bit about it. Yeah, so the 20% increase is about 4.16 million, which is really driven by the debt service payments we will start making, which I think both of the guys here mentioned, doubling the building size, which means additional facilities staff and utilities, et cetera, and then also increases in basic salaries and benefits due to inflation, which we've seen all around. At the same time, our Equalized Pupils dropped a little bit, I think about 1%, which kind of counterbalances, and then we did apply 1.4 million in fund balance to the spending so that it wouldn't have as great of an impact on taxpayers. Can you just explain, I mean, Equalized Pupil, when most people are home going, what does that mean? So Equalized Pupil is a way to adjust the number of students in the school for the intensity of resources they need in order to educate them. That's... And so, Winooski has about, how many students? About 800, around 800? Yeah, and the Equalized Pupil brings you up to like 900? Yeah, okay. Yeah, so that indicates that we have some students with characteristics that mean they're more resource, they need more resources in order to be educated at a certain level. Great, all right, thanks for explaining that. We're gonna move on to the question of language access. Winooski is a community with a diverse number of languages spoken. What important initiatives are underway and what more needs to be done to meet the needs of students and families who are proficient in languages other than English? And we're gonna start with you, Jordan, could be what, if you have any experience with this also, I would love to hear about that. Sure, so there's a lot of initiatives, of course, with the school system being as diverse as it is. The school was able to use ESSER funding to bring in more cultural liaisons, to work with personalized work with students, which benefits obviously them and their families. They're critical in basically supporting those folks. I believe there is discussion about updating the curriculum to be more culturally inclusive. They also worked with a consultant to figure out how to diversify staff. The Heart of Winooski is a program that is working to help diversify the workforce to better reflect the student body. I know there's the anti-racism steering committee as some committees under them that are also working to diversify the workforce. There's also reading math literacy resources on the WSD site, Richmond Mentors for New Americans. So there's, I mean, there's a lengthy list of things that are happening, and I think they just need to be either expanded or leaned on a little more than year over year. Great, can you just clarify what is ESSER funding? It's like it's school emergency resources, I think. So it's like ARPA, so it's like the American Rescue Plan for businesses during COVID. Great, thanks so much. Allison, the question on language access, what important initiatives are underway and what more needs to be done to meet the needs of students and families who are proficient in languages other than English? So Jordan mentioned a lot of them. I guess my comment would be that we have an amazing group of the cultural liaisons who do an amazing amount of work for those families that they serve. They don't just work school hours, they work nearly around the clock for these families and students, and we really need to support the work that that group does and bolster it where we can. In addition, I would like to see resources available or accessible in other languages. So I'm thinking particularly about, like with the public health emergency with COVID, the need to translate documents. I'm thinking particularly about how we can bring in resources from the state, from other places around to kind of give those liaisons some rest, and get some help from other organizations translating and providing information to, yeah. Robert. Your take on this question. Yeah, well I think they covered a lot of what's currently active. One other thing that had occurred to me is the city and the school have started working together more, trying to share resources like the cultural liaisons, recognizing that there's much more to people's lives once they're outside of the school building and to better meet folks where they are and have them be more actively engaged in the general community. I don't know if I have anything else to add on that. I mean, to you, one of the things that this doesn't talk about is the richness that a community like Winooski has when you have a multitude of languages spoken. And I wonder if you wanna just talk a little bit about that. Yeah, Winooski is unlike just about anywhere else in Northern New England, we have 11 languages spoken and a variety of different cultures. That's why the term cultural liaison I really like as opposed to just simply like translator or something like that because they really help the communication go both ways in more than just language-wise. It can be complicated at times but it makes for a much better community overall. Great, thanks. Capital improvements and bonding. Everyone's straight from the head into the body. Capital improvements, what role does school infrastructure play in a healthy community and what is next for the city of Winooski in school expenditures and improvements? We all saw the high school. Well, it's not just the high school, it's the whole school. So what's next, Winooski? Allison. So I think that what's next for Winooski is the city is going to develop into a place that even more people want to live and work in because the school is going to be the center of that vibrant community. This, the building was so thoughtfully designed. I was so impressed when I went on a tour. The architect was talking about, this window is placed here because the sun comes in this side of the building from these hours, which illuminates this room, which is used at this time, it was all very thoughtful. And so I think that we have an amazing building that's going to be able to be used by the community now and enjoyed by the community. And so what's next is really maintaining that building so that the investment that the community has made can persist for many years. That's what I see as next, is really maintaining the building well. Little improvements and bonding. So what role does school infrastructure play in a healthy community and what is next for the city of Winooski and school expenditures and improvements? And I don't think you mentioned it, but one of the things that I thought was interesting is that the school has a health center in it, right? So Robert, to you. Sure, I would agree with what Allison started to say, but the next steps are really going to be about maintaining what has been built. And there's money in this year's budget sort of anticipating the increased operating costs, but it's really gonna be a learning curve in the coming years of, do we need more staff? Do we need janitorial staff? Do we need furniture, supplies, all those things to really make sure that the entire space is being well utilized and properly maintained. And longer term, making sure that we maintain a healthy fund balance so when the inevitable happens and future fixes are needed, we can better handle that. And just generally making sure that it's, well, I said well maintained already, but well maintained because it was old, but it's also, some of it was deferred maintenance. I can go back to my time on the board we were talking about some things and we dealt with some issues, but you only have so much money available and particularly in recent decades, I guess at this point, the state hasn't really had a freeze on infrastructure improvements for school districts, so it just falls on the local districts. That's why you're seeing some large bonds for Burlington, South Burlington, other places that's entirely on the local district when they need to maintain these things. And so you don't wanna let this beautiful, it is a beautiful new building, I mean compared to where it was. Though it can be a little drying to walk in and you expect a library and now it's a hallway, but it's a huge improvement. Great, thanks. And is there pre-K at this school? Yes. There is a pre-K offer, great. Jordan to you, what role does school infrastructure play in healthy community and what's next? So like you said, it obviously needed a rebuild, a freshen up and I think that's needed for students to have a welcome healthy place. They have mentioned the dental, the healthcare center, the kind of takes their minds off of maybe those pressures at home that they may not be getting and so I think it's much better for them and for the community. I mean, the new performing arts center is obviously gonna be used by students a lot, but there's also a budget presentation, March 6th for the community in there so people will get to kind of see it up close and personal. I believe there's more space for pre-K, I'm not sure, to expand that, to take the pressures of finding childcare for families off family shoulders. Other than that, I'm not sure, the school's rebuild, I don't think it needs really any more physical rebuild other than preventative maintenance and just kind of keeping up with it. Great, thanks. Teacher wellbeing and retention. So we have a beautiful school, do we have the staff and do we have good morale for our Winooski teachers who are gonna be in that building? What is Winooski doing to retain good teaching and support staff? I'm gonna start with Robert. Sure, I think, like a lot of folks teachers have had a really rough time in the past few years that really have been on the front lines of the pandemic and it's been hugely stressful. I can certainly speak to my own mothers and IA in Richmond and instructional assistants, sorry. And instructional assistants have just fled. If they can retire, they're retiring and it's left her where she is and Richmond just handling an absurd amount of extra work and there's some of that happening certainly in Winooski and throughout the state and the country. So a lot of it is just making sure teachers have the resources, whether that's also, it's the support of other teachers or assistants, things of that nature. And that can be really difficult for Winooski. We've kind of historically been, haven't been able to maintain the same sort of salary. Salary levels is a lot of places around here. So finding other ways to ensure support for teachers so they don't burn out and leave or seek other opportunities is always an ongoing and complicated and difficult thing. We're moving on to Allison on this. Teacher well-being and retention. What do you understand as the current level of morale among Winooski teachers and are we doing enough to retain good teaching and support staff? Sure. So I know that teachers are struggling with the after effects of the public health emergency COVID and then potentially related or related mental health concerns among both students, children and adults. So I know that every person that works in that building is tired. Plus we did a capital project at the same time. So every person in that building is tired and digging deep to keep going. And I need to recognize that and thank them for that. Are we doing enough to retain good teaching and support staff? I don't think that that's something we can say, okay, we've reached a point, we can stop. So I think we need to continually look for ways to retain good teaching and support staff. So I don't think. And what are some of the things that happen in your mind that the board does or that happens in the community around that? So I think the board works to balance the needs of the staff and the faculty in terms of salaries and benefits with what's possible given the tax base in Winooski, right? What's affordable for the town of Winooski and also recognizing the hard work that they do. So I think there's a very delicate balance to be found there. But that's not the only thing that can be done. And I can't speak specifically to other initiatives that are happening, but I can imagine that the administration is working to be creative with staffing and with breaks during the day and just alleviating pressures where they can. Great, thanks. Jordan, this question to you about teacher wellbeing and retention. So I don't have any personal knowledge of the teacher's morale at Winooski. I would hope that after the capital project is through, the pressures are off from that, COVID is winding down. Getting close back to normal with a new building, as Alison was saying, the lighting and how they designed it and like a very clean space. They're getting more space, opening bigger classrooms instead of having to work in a corner in a closet because I've heard those horror stories. I would hope that would boost staff and teacher morale. Obviously nationwide and in Vermont, teachers are underpaid. So I would imagine that's an ongoing thing for the board to look at. And there's a new superintendent coming on. So it's an opportunity for the teachers to build a new relationship with a new superintendent because at the end of the day, that's kind of who deals with faculty and the board is kind of the overarching policy makers. Great, thanks so much. I mean, I imagine the board must hear from teachers periodically too on issues. Periodically. Correct, yeah. Maybe just, what are some of the things that you hear from teachers when they come? What is the board heard? In the last year, I don't know that we've heard a ton or that I've heard a ton directly. Yeah, okay. Yeah. All right, great, thanks so much. Yeah, go ahead. Sorry, I had sort of a tangential thing that occurred to me in talking about this was some of the creativity around the need for bus and busing, not that kind of busing. And how the school worked with some folks in the community to get their CDL and sometimes that even involved interpreting so that they could actually get that and that filled a gap. And one thing that occurred to me in thinking about this question was a lot of it is just taking some of that pressure off, making sure teachers have all the support. So looking at IA is looking at how do we get people in the community who can come in and get certified for that kind of work just like we did with the buss driving situation. Yeah, Winozgino has a bus system and I think there was some news about training new folks. Yeah, cause like a lot of things there's their licenses. A shortage of bus drivers across the state, so. Great, thanks everybody. Racial justice. So Jordan, we're gonna start with you on this question. What is your current understanding of the work around this issue in our schools and how would you support leadership efforts and initiatives to meet the challenges of creating an equitable and thriving environment for all students? So I do believe, you know, Lewinowski School District's on a good path. I had mentioned the Heart of Lewinowski Foundation earlier in the anti-racism steering committee, those both working on diversifying the workforce. The steering committee is overseas, basically eight or nine student demands that have started to come to fruition in the form of truth and reconciliation committees, anti-racism committees, strategy and action plan for hiring teachers of color. I mean, and they have quite a few initiatives already in the works. One of the most important things I think we can do is focus on results for students to kind of see what's working, what's working for them. We know that there's test scores for Lewinowski, there's racial disparities. And also that the administration and curriculum director are working on improving learning and closing the gaps in those test scores. The board should be focused on ensuring we're tracking metrics and raising scores and closing those gaps so that we're helping those folks out. But of course, I would support any new initiative if that was brought to the school board and kind of investigate that and see if that's something of value that would add to what's already happening. Thanks so much, Allison. What's your experience been with this issue and what do you think needs to be supported? So my experience is that there's a lot of people in the community doing a lot of good work on these initiatives. And the board so far has been involved in funding that work but it has been outside of the normal budget. So it's not sustainable, so to speak. It's not baked into the budget. So my intention is to support the administration to make this work part of their regular work. So not something above and beyond the normal activities of the school day or of the school year, but to be baked into that so that it's a normal thing that happens all the time. And then do that from a budgetary perspective as well so that it's sustainable for the future. So we can keep doing work on equity and justice and keep making progress. Thanks. Robert. Just back up what Allison said about bringing it into the regular budget, into the regular day to day and taking off, you know, a lot of this work started with students who really had to push themselves hard to come and tell the parents, the adults that they were being harmed and they wanted help and it's still sort of on their backs. So the more we can take it off of them and maintain the work, the better. We haven't talked about it yet at all today, but we had an equity audit, a combined equity audit of the school and the city which had a number of recommendations which could also come into play in coming years for the school and the city and again an opportunity for the two entities to work together since one of the things that came out of the equity audit was from some polling work and talking to people, people don't really see the huge distinction between the two entities that, you know, those of us who get on boards and things, think about them as so separate, but the general populists don't necessarily see that they're separate and they want them to work together. And what don't they see as separate? The school and the city. Okay. As much as those of us in government think about them as very separate. There are certain requirements that have to keep separate, but as far as people are concerned, it's government. So the more we can work together, the better. That's all that I wanted to add. Great. Is the school, as far as you all know, involved in the language access plan that the city is going to be adopting? Is that something that's come before the board or something that you all have? I am not familiar off the top of my head. We just had the Winner's City Council forum before this. It was brought up during that and maybe something that's happening just on that level or not to put everybody on the spot to change the subject. I think the intention is to get there. Move this. There's often a tendency to start separate. So Allison, we're going to start with you on this question, schools and school funding. What is your take on efforts in mob tillier to address school funding? Yeah. And again, back to this complicated issue, if you make this much and if your house is this much and if you, you know, how we pay for school is complicated. Yes. So my understanding of what's been done in mob tillier recently, like in the last year, is changing how equalized pupils are calculated. And so UVM and some consultants did a big study called the Pupil Waiting Study, which made a recommendation for how the legislature should move forward with a funding model, specifically for those equalized pupils calculations. And so I am very pleased that it looks like the legislature move forward with something that mirrors what the study recommended. So I think that that's a step in the right direction for Winooski and it is going to, as long as it remains unchanged in this session of the legislature, it will bring benefit to Winooski and the school district in terms of additional resources. So I'm pleased overall. Great, thanks. Can you just tell me a little bit, why should we support people waiting? So I mean, it gets back to the idea of adjusting the number of students we have by the intensity of the resources they need, right? So if we have a number of students who need additional resources to be educated to a, let's just call it to 100%, like it's a video game, right? Then we need additional resources to get them there. We should be able to get those additional resources, right? So from my perspective, it's kind of, it's science and math, you know, like the math of how this, of how the people waiting study worked out, yeah. Science and math and heart, right? So great, thanks so much. Who's next on this? Robert, schools and school funding, what's happening in Montpelier? Yeah, so the waiting really can't be emphasized enough, particularly for Winooski. If you look at the, even this year, if it had gone in, the new weights have gone in into effect this year, are the weighted numbers we were talking about before from 800 to 900 would instead be almost 1200, or over 1200, which would have meant even with this 20% increase, a slight decrease in taxes for most folks in the tax rate. It's always a little complicated with education funding because it's a mix, up to 90,000 gross income is by your income, and then in between 90,000 and 134,000 is a mix of your property value and your income, and of course there's a lot of other things at play. But even setting that aside, it will make a huge difference for Winooski. Another thing that's been talked about in Montpelier for a long time, off and on, is moving completely away from a property, property tax based system to an income based system, which is something that I would support, which would be a much more progressive approach to that. But yeah, I think that's great. Thanks so much. And Jordan, your thoughts on what's happening in Montpelier or what might happen in Montpelier to address school funding? I mean, it's a big win for Winooski. Like everybody else has said, the waiting for them is gonna change in our favor to help us be more sustainable. We do have a small tax base. It's not a very, not an industry in Winooski, so you're relying on a lot of resident taxes to pay for it. And so it puts us on a sustainable path to kind of continue to invest in the school, to invest in future generations. And hopefully it does, you know, it's already gone through, but hopefully it comes through this year to us. You know, Robert brought up the income tax instead of property, which I would support too. You see folks, older folks that are on fixed incomes, while their property rises, doesn't necessarily mean that they can afford taxes to go up because they're, you know, getting their social security check, getting retirement funds. And so I think it's a fairer way to tax and raise funds for schools and cities and those types of needs. And does anybody have an answer about why? And I think it's x60 doesn't address that because there's an income weighting in terms of your property tax minus, you know, like your income. But why isn't that enough to meet the needs? Why move to an income-based system? A fully income-based system? I think it'd just be the more equitable and less complicated. Right now we have just a ridiculously complicated system. I mean, you're the math person, so it might make a lot more sense to you. But I remember when I was on the school board just trying to, just spending long amounts of time to try to explain how, you know, the common level of appraisal shifts it around, what, you know, your property, all these different things. And so part of it would be just the more we can streamline the more direct system. Now we're looking at housing assessments coming up to the city here at some point, so what the impact on that, you know. When was the last housing assessment in Wynoski? 2007. Yeah, 2015 years ago. So, I know my home is well under the, like the median assessment value, so I don't know what that'll mean for me, but it's been a while since it's been done. So that could be one of the challenges. There's two last questions here, and I'm gonna combine them into one for the sake of time.  So maybe you can kind of think about those reforms and challenges that are coming up, and we are gonna start with Robert on this question. Great. You know, I never liked the word challenges. Probably the next big opportunity is hiring the new superintendent. I think Sean has done some great work over the last nine years, and nine years is actually a long time for the superintendent. I think he's the third longest serving in Vermont as of right now, in one place continues. And I think he'll be missed a lot, but it's also, you know, we've got a new building and a lot is happening, so having new leadership is an opportunity in a lot of ways. Obviously, some of the anti-racism and equity work we were talking about before, both challenge and opportunity. You know, for me personally also is coming into this, I feel like I'm coming in less with specific issues in mind with specific things I'm trying to run on and more with just a desire to listen and communicate and, you know, use that to decide where we are and where we're going. Great, thanks so much. Jordan, educations on what reforms are important to you or what do you see as challenges or as Robert puts it, opportunities in the next five to 10 years? What's your vision? Yeah, so there's a lot of evidence that we can do better teaching, reading, not just in Winooski, but statewide. The school district made a good investment in hiring a curriculum director that'll help our students, you know, understand, you know, what they're learning and really hopefully that brings up, you know, their scores, see where they're at, you know, and the biggest issue for me is the funding goes through and that gets implemented first. I think it will, I don't think there's a big risk of that changing. The superintendent search, of course, to, it's an opportunity, like Robert said, for people to make new relationships, you kind of start fresh. Sean did a great job over those years and now we're on to a new superintendent. Hopefully it's a pretty tight window to get somebody in. I don't. Yeah, what is the toss the window? What's the superintendent trying to hire before the new, like May or something? So they will start July 1st, the new contract. I believe the, we're aiming to select a new person by May 1st. Wow. It's a pretty tight window. Yeah.  No, that's okay, it's a good question. And so I think the other biggest thing is that the end statement that Winooski has that the students will graduate college and career ready, the support from the community. And there was a way to measure students' progress and stuff before the pandemic and that kind of fell off. So it'd be good to get back to that system or system like it so you can get feedback from what's working, what's not, make data-driven decisions that'll benefit everybody. And I think that's one of the challenges. Great. Back to the data-driven and Allison will end with you on this question about educational initiatives and challenges, opportunities you see for Winooski. So I'm really excited also about the curriculum director and the opportunities to improve math and literacy curriculum and instruction and assessment and how that can relate to characterizing the success of Winooski's students and back to what Jordan said about getting back to measuring the end statement. So it kind of ties together like one of my, one of an initiative that's important to me is the math and literacy curriculum, instruction and assessment and how that, then that ties back to a challenge we have which is telling the story of how we're meeting or not meeting the end statement, but yeah. And what do you feel excited about digging into? I'm a statistician, so I'm really excited about digging into the data, looking at what does the data show us from a numbers perspective and how can we translate that into students? What does that tell us about students? So, for example, I could tell you that it's a 50% increase, but what does that mean in terms of students? That means five more students are graduating every year with this particular characteristic, so humanizing it. Great, awesome. Thanks so much. Thank you all for joining us and I hope you have fun out there campaigning. I'm assuming knocking on doors or talking to people. Thank you all for joining us tonight for ongoing coverage of Town Meeting Day. Here at Town Meeting Television, so thoughtful. Don't forget to vote on or before March 7th when you will not be mailing ballots. So if you want to vote before March 7th, you've got to go to the City Clerk or call and request an absentee ballot, although it may be a little late for that at this point. Thank you for watching and we'll be bringing you a result show on March 7th starting at 7 p.m. Good, thank you and good night.


We talk about a happy place a lot of jobs you're able to find that happy place And you can just you can just zone out and you know the outside world doesn't really matter. What's going on doesn't matter Be any needy tech. You don't have that option. So we apply pressure. We apply time. We we yell we scream We get in your face. We make you uncomfortable. We do that because that's how we see where your character is True grit and character isn't what it's like when you know the Sun is shining and everything's going perfectly true grit and character is when You know everything is wrong and you still have to be able to do your job and you still have to be able to think right then and there It's a mental thing it's not always a physical thing everybody here is in shape I'll tell you that right now Everybody here should and can do the PST But where are they mentally it's the mental toughness that we're looking for that's why we scream that's why we yell that's why You know we put on that that mean instructor face And try and get under people's skin We're building a legacy We're we're building a community and we want that community to get strong and it starts at the beginning and that's why we're here As an eod tech the ability to be able to dive gives you the ability to integrate That's why Navy eod was the first eod and the premier eod to integrate with special forces for the last 15 years We've we fought a land war. I promise you The water is not going anywhere When you know myself and those other instructors go into that office or go into the classroom or go out on the Job site, you know, it's not just to teach them how to dive. It's to teach them the brotherhood It's to teach them to be part of the community. It's to show them that there's something bigger than themselves It's not just any one person. It's not me. It's not any other chief in that office. It's not any instructor in that office It's the community. It's the eod brotherhood And to teach these students these future eod techs what that's all about is an honor we're really trying to foster a mentality of pride and a sense of urgency to teach these guys that It's not always going to be fun and games It's not always going to be easy that they need to be able to dig down figure out where the grid is and go


This is Dave Britt. I'm the executive director for the Rosewood Merchants Association and welcome to Destination hometown May 12th We have the 13th annual Rosewood crawfish festival. We're bringing in 10,000 pounds of fresh Louisiana crawfish. It's grown in Louisiana One of the top chefs there brings it all the way from Louisiana alive and cooks them in his giant boiler and Yeah, something to see it's cool. It started several years ago at a restaurant called Rockways Which is still here on Rosewood. It was a small parking lot party and they brought crawfish there because no one really knew what it was and then in 13 years ago the city of Columbia started funding the crawfish festival through H-Tax and so the event was able to be Elevated through marketing more planning just it got much bigger. We had a national headliner come in It's important because there's nowhere to get the quality of crawfish that you get from this you know if you get it in it's either frozen or It's not necessarily prepared properly. They have to be purged and cleaned and so it takes some of the Familiar knowledge of how to cook them to really make them the best So this high quality crawfish comes to Columbia once a year and it's the only time you can get that quality here A lady of the bank told me today. She never had never come because she didn't eat shellfish I said well, we have 30 other additional food vendors from pizza tacos Everything you can imagine 30 food trucks We have five stages of live music Susto is our headliner this year from Charleston who's growing up. They're getting really huge right now We're excited to have them as part of the festival kids 12 and under are free We have a whole area dedicated to kids rides and kid vendors We have over 25 art vendors all with unique pieces of art So yeah, it's a great time for families to come and enjoy themselves They can stay all day and it's really laid back in a good time Advanced tickets are $10 instead of 15 at the gate So you can get those at Rosewood merchant locations like danos rockaways or Rosewood market So get them in advance to save yourself a little money and you'll be able to come right in through the gate Go to rosewood crawfish fest calm You can find out where it's at at time And again, you know crawfish aren't your thing. We've got tons of options lots of food out there There's a 5k dash that you can do in the morning. It takes place at 10 a.m Starts a city roots farm here off of Rosewood


From DailyDoseOfWeirdNews.com, I'm Darren Marlar and this is your Daily Dose of Weird News. Snortable chocolate powder? It's now available in the US. Why? Well, your guess is as good as mine. Phil Collins says he's drinking again, despite previously saying that alcohol was killing him. Collins, who is currently on his not-dead-yet tour, insists he can now control his boozing and is capable of enjoying a couple of glasses of wine.  An MIT researcher was arrested on federal charges of insider trading. Prosecutors say the man googled how SEC detects unusual trade before he bought numerous stocks and options that netted him around $120,000 in illicit profits. The man also searched for phrases such as insider trading in an international account. Okay, if you're going to do something illegal, you might want to erase your browser history. A British study conducted by researchers at Warwick University shows that receiving a promotion might pad your wallet, but it also could be bad for your mental health, leading to more stress, anxiety and depression that you're too busy to properly treat. Well, yeah, maybe, but you know what, I'm willing to risk it. A giant iceberg about the size of Delaware that had been under scientists' watch has broken off from an ice shelf on the Antarctic Peninsula and is now adrift in the Wettel Sea. So everybody, time to panic! It'll float here in about 80 years, at which point it will have already melted and no longer be newsworthy. Everybody run! Researchers in Scotland say that when dogs listen to music, they seem happiest when listening to reggae or soft rock. That's strange. I would have guessed that they would like who let the dogs out. Australia's Dean Stinson apparently has the bar set pretty low, calling it the greatest moment of my life. Stinson thought it would be fun to check has his only baggage on a Qantas airline flight from Melbourne to Perth, a single can of emu-export beer. Yep, he was thrilled to see it arrive safely, saying, there she was, alone on the carousel, proudly making her way around. It was perfection. Well, according to the BBC, Stinson has become a hero to beer drinkers with this stunt. He says that he and a buddy who work at the airport were trying to figure out the oddest thing that they could successfully check in as luggage. And while it did work this time, Qantas doesn't want to suddenly see a frat party worth of beer in its luggage compartments. A spokesperson said, this guy's done it, he's won the internet for the day, so we're happy to move on.  And thus ends the career of Shia LaBeouf. Some places, maybe your state, have taxed sugary drinks like soda and sports drinks. In France, it's now illegal to sell unlimited soft drinks at a fixed price, or offer them unlimited for free. Alright, fine, then sell the soft drink, and then all refills are only a penny each. There you go, problem solved. Macy's is going to try Black Friday's in July to boost sales, which I know sounds crazy, until you realize that's about the time Walmart starts putting out the Christmas decorations. If you've been feeling a little under the weather lately, but you can't figure out what's wrong, maybe you just need an old woman to lick your eyeball. Yep, over in Bosnia, 80-year-old Hava Celebic, or Nana Hava, as she is known to locals in her village, has supposedly cured 5,000 people using the unusual technique and claims to be the only person in the world who possesses this ability to heal with her tongue. She charges ten euros for the procedure, in which she uses her tongue to remove pieces of lead, iron, coal, sawdust, and glass from eyeballs after sterilizing her mouth with alcohol. You know, it sounds to me like maybe she likes to sterilize her mouth with alcohol even when by herself. A lot. A new study finds that the Americans are far behind the rest of the world in getting enough steps each day. As a result, health advocates are advising designers of shopping malls to place their stores farther apart. MSNBC host Joe Scarborough has announced he's leaving the Republican Party, to which the entire world responded, wait, MSNBC hired a Republican? You love doing things on Facebook? Well, guess what? In reality, it's making you blue. A Harvard University study found that the internet, networking site, and other social media are major contributors to career anxiety. In fact, the researchers declare it's actually making us miserable. Ironically, Mark Zuckerberg created Facebook while attending Harvard, but the Boston University researchers say the website creates an online culture of competition and comparison. It steals away our time and prevents us from forming close relationships. And a comparable study at Stanford University reveals that many users have more negative experiences on social sites and overestimate exactly how much fun other people who use them are actually having. Facebook is making us unhappy by making everybody else look really, really happy, says Harvard study spearhead Daniel Gulatti. So how can you avoid these Facebook traps? Well, experts advise setting a designated time to go online, instead of checking in on your personal page throughout the day, and build closer and more rewarding relationships. Meet with your real-world friends for a meal or drinks, instead of just posting messages online. If you want to read this story for yourself, or share it with a friend, I have posted it to my Facebook page. Well, that makes five times now that Nancy Pelosi has called President Trump President Bush. Is there not a time during Alzheimer's where you just need to get out of the public eye? A Washington state man is being charged with sending a bomb along with one of his fingers to the IRS. Yeah, this guy definitely needs to be locked up, but you gotta admit, we've all wanted to give the IRS one of our fingers. A report says that the super-rich are buying nuclear-safe bunkers in Kansas to survive an apocalyptic event. Now, unless you're planning on moving to Kansas, how does this help you? If you're one of the ultra-rich in Los Angeles and nuclear war breaks out, you're not gonna be able to make your way to the bread basket of the country, right? You'll likely be charred remains while complete strangers are already living in Kansas, and they'll take comfort in knowing that you unknowingly built them a nuclear-safe bunker. An Australian man had his big toe transplanted in place of a lost thumb, and it works fine, but his hands keep getting athlete's foot. An arbitrator has ruled that American runner Gil Roberts, who won a gold medal at the 2016 Summer Olympics in Rio, met his burden of proof to show kissing his girlfriend caused him to fail a drug test. On Friday, Scooby Axon of Sports Illustrated noted Roberts said he was frequently and passionately kissed by his girlfriend in the days before the test, and she'd been taking a sinus infection medicine, which he said caused the failed test. Forget the drug test thing, who names their kid Scooby Axon? Tall conservative columnist Ann Coulter got annoyed Saturday after Delta Airlines bounced her from the reserved Comfort Plus seat, which comes with three additional inches of legroom, and gave it to another passenger. Coulter went on a two-hour tweeting tirade that had another Twitter user, who was clearly not a fan of the columnist, writing, Ann Coulter is having a bad day, which makes my day better. Thanks, Delta! It could have been worse, though, Ann.  Your research seems to indicate Ravens can plan ahead. Baltimore Ravens, for example, are already planning not to make the playoffs. Wildlife experts in Alaska say that humpback whales have learned that they can get a great meal if they hang around a salmon hatchery the day hatchlings are released. It's kind of like me out in the mornings waiting for the donut shop to open. The source of the honey coming from a ceiling of a New York woman's apartment was 35,000 bees inside the wall. The story is all the buzz over the internet. Some people are expressing fears that Amazon is getting too big. Those same people are getting messages from their computer that their thinking is wrong. Cooking schools may soon be a thing of the past. Enrollment in culinary institutes across the country is in serious decline, and some cooking schools have announced their closing. So what's to blame? Well, high tuition, slow student aid, more restaurant positions that provide on-the-job training, and a demanding millennial workforce. Although I'm sure watching Gordon Ramsay scream at all the chefs he comes across probably isn't a big selling point either. Police in Germany are searching for thieves who now possess enough cleaning products to have sparkling clean urinals for life. A truck driver parked his vehicle in a lot and went to catch some sleep. When he checked his truck early the next morning, he found that the back door to the cargo area was open. Someone stole six pallets of urinal cakes. 500 cases and all were thousands of dollars. My true hope is that the crooks are just so dumb they think the urinal cakes are actual cakes and try to consume them. The Samsung Galaxy Note 8 will be unveiled next month. However, they are avoiding using the phrase hot off the presses. Authorities say more than 400 pounds of marijuana has been found in 15 new cars made in Mexico and shipped to Ohio and Pennsylvania to sell. Gee, I wonder what the Mexico to America currency exchange rate is for that. If you want to boost your creativity, paint the walls of your office blue. If you want to enhance your memory, immerse yourself in red. The study from the University of British Columbia concludes that the best color to boost our ability to think creatively is blue. In addition, it found that red is the most effective at enhancing our attention to detail, findings that could have major implications for advertising and interior design. The study results found that red boosted performance on detail-oriented tasks such as memory retrieval and proofreading by as much as 31% compared to the color blue. For creative tasks, such as brainstorming, blue environmental cues prompted participants to produce twice as many creative outputs as when under the red color condition. So what color do you paint the walls to keep you from falling asleep at the office? Whatever color that is, that's what I need. A new poll finds President Trump has the lowest approval rating in history for a president after six months in office. But enough about what the media thinks of him. New York City is launching a $32 million plan with the hopes of reducing the city's rat population. First up, removing Bill de Blasio. A mall in China has introduced husband storage facilities for wives to leave their spouses while they shop. The mall has erected a number of glass pods for wives to leave any disgruntled husbands that don't want to be dragged around. Inside each individual pod is a chair, monitor, computer and game pad, and men can sit and play retro 1990s games. Suddenly now, going shopping with my wife doesn't sound like it'd be all that torturous. Who uses Facebook the most? The most active Facebook users are people who post almost nothing. Call them the lurkers. Although they rarely update their own status, the quiet ones stay logged on to Facebook longer than anyone else, reading their friends' posts and looking at their friends' photos. Facebook calls them lurkers. The rest of society calls them stalkers. Surgeons found no less than 27 contact lenses stuck in a woman's eye while preparing her for cataract surgery. The lenses, which resembled a bluish mass in the 67-year-old patient's eye, were causing the woman discomfort that she simply attributed to dry eye and old age.  It was such a large mass. All the contact lenses were stuck together. We were really surprised that the patient didn't notice it because it would cause quite a lot of irritation while it was sitting there. The patient said she'd been wearing monthly disposable contact lenses for 35 years but did not attend regular appointments. So, just a heads up, if you wear monthly disposable contact lenses, you're supposed to remove them and dispose of them before putting new contacts in. Hence the term disposable." A study has found that the fat in food doesn't have to be swallowed to have a negative effect on the body. So if you hear a woman say, if I just look at that piece of cheesecake, it goes right to my hips, she ain't lying. 9 out of 10 people who apply to be contestants on game shows are rejected. Man, that is a frightening thought. We're seeing the cream of the crop. When a Texas couple got engaged at a Garth Brooks concert in Oklahoma City recently, Garth gave them a wedding present. He's going to pay for their honeymoon. Although I would be wary of taking this gift. What kind of honeymoon are you going to get when the guy has friends in low places? NBC's long-running reality show, The Biggest Loser, has been cancelled. The news comes as a shock to most of America who thought the show went away years ago. Disney's new Star Wars-themed land will be called Star Wars Galaxy's Edge and will open in Disneyland and Disney World in two years. It'll be tough to get reservations, though, as you'll need to make them a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away. Amazon is said to be close to rolling out its own messaging app because, of course, they are. They're Amazon. Next, it'll be an Amazon pacemaker followed by Amazon tongue studs. The world's largest ferris wheel is being built in Dubai at more than 600 feet tall. Look, Mom, I can see the sewage treatment plant from here. A woman taking a selfie at an L.A. art gallery fell and knocked over some exhibits, causing $200,000 in damage. But she did look fabulous on Facebook, so it all evens out. National bridal dress chain Andre Angelo has suddenly closed after 80 years, leaving some brides without dresses that they had already paid for. Have these people never heard about a woman scorned? Caitlyn Jenner is said to be weighing a run for the U.S. Senate. Okay, I'm confused here. Caitlyn Jenner might run for Senate. Kid Rock, he's debating doing the same thing. There's talk of Dwayne The Rock Johnson running for president. We got a game show host that is the president. Did I somehow slip into an alternate dimension a few months ago? Samsung has unveiled a 34-foot LED TV screen, because apparently you needed one. Six cars were stolen from People's Driveways on the same night in the Connecticut town of Greenwich. All six cars were unlocked with the keys inside where they were taken from home Saturday night. Left unlocked with the keys inside. Okay, I'm not going to say you were asking for it, but you were asking for it. It sucks when the Internet goes down. It can be life-altering when it goes down for three weeks. After more than three weeks, Somalia's Internet has finally returned. It's estimated it cost the country about $10 million per day. Officials and Internet providers attributed this problem to a commercial ship that they said cut an undersea cable. Three weeks without the Internet, I would be rolled up in a ball in a dark corner of the basement drooling over myself, repeatedly mumbling, The world is gone. The world is gone. The world is gone. Beloved children's character Winnie the Pooh has reportedly been blacklisted in China following comparisons between the pot-bellied bear and China's president. Yep, these are the totally rational folks we want brokering a deal between us and the North Koreans. Pocket-sized flamethrowers are being marketed to women in China as an anti-pervert weapon. The handheld devices, which are capable of hurling a stream of fire about two feet long, sell for up to $40. The many flamethrowers have sparked controversy in China. One newspaper wrote, Of course, perverts are scary, but what's even more scary are these anti-pervert devices. Even if you know the woman, I would not want to sneak up on her and startle her. In fact, I would rule out surprise parties, too. Scientists say that 70 years after the U.S. tested nuclear bomb after nuclear bomb on land in the Pacific known as Bikini Atoll, the wildlife there is actually remarkably well. It's doing well, it's flourishing. The only difference they have noticed, though, is that the animals are a bit larger and often desire to attack Tokyo. A Virginia Beach, Virginia woman is accused of arson after investigators say she purposely set a potted plant on fire. The charge is a Class III felony, which means the 29-year-old could go to jail for anywhere from 5 to 20 years if convicted. Man, somebody needs to tell this lady that setting a potted plant on fire is not the same as smoking pot. Okay, this is just hilarious. Or sad, it depends on what side of the political aisle you're on. A new Bloomberg poll shows Hillary Clinton is viewed less favorably than President Trump, despite Trump's historically low approval ratings. So maybe you don't get those pants suits dry-cleaned for the 2020 campaign just yet, Hill. A study says many U.S. children suffer lower back pain. I used to tell my mom that, that's why I couldn't clean my room, but she never bought it. In Northern California, Judge Michael S. Williams has lost his job, because apparently he could not resist the urge to swipe two Art Deco-style business cardholders from a judge's dinner in San Francisco. The commission on judicial performances censured Williams and he agreed to resign effective December. Williams was attending a dinner hosted by a Matrimonial Lawyers Association in March 2016 when he took two cardholders in the Art Deco décor of the City Club of San Francisco. They were each worth about $30 to $50. The commission says Williams returned the cardholders after being informed that he was caught on video. So the judge expressed remorse, said he had an unexplainable impulse to take the cardholders. So a judge's career destroyed. Or the theft of something less than $100. If you can't be trusted with the small things, how can you be trusted with the big things? Speaking about calls from all sides to cut down or out his use of social media, President Trump argues they want to take my voice away. Trump claims it's my voice, they want to take away my voice, they're not going to take away my social media. San Francisco school officials have banned chocolate milk because they say it contains too much sugar.  Researchers have found that an all-corn diet can quite literally turn a female hamster into a deranged cannibal. A new study found that the European hamster, which once used to feed on a varied diet of grains, roots and insects is not doing so well on a diet limited to industrial-grown corn. The study notes that the hamster species is on the verge of extinction in Western Europe. The All-Mays Regimen has turned the burrowing critters into deranged cannibals that eat their own offspring. Do you see what you're risking here by going vegetarian or vegan? You might be the beginning of the zombie cannibalistic apocalypse. New research seems to indicate that Tyrannosaurus rex couldn't run, and they were extremely poor dancers. Sometimes a price increase is so steep it must be criminal. A woman in Australia called police to report that her drug dealer was asking way too much for marijuana. The woman told police she was completely offended at the outrageous price hike.  Calling the cops for pricey pot? No, that is a call for the Better Business Bureau. A melting glacier in the Swiss Alps has given up the bodies of a couple that went missing 70 years ago. The ice preserved them as they were when they disappeared all those years ago. Scientists are baffled, though, as to why one of them looks like Brendan Fraser. A new study says that people in Seattle spend 58 hours a year parking their cars. I'm guessing that number doubles during Christmas shopping season. America's bacon reserves are currently at a 50-year low. On the plus side, our cholesterol levels are looking a heck of a lot better. Heidi Montag says she has gained 25 pounds during the first six months of her pregnancy.  Some of that extra weight is you. Lifetime is going to debut a new show next week where they show blind dates live. Obviously, not a true reality show, because nobody in their right mind is going to want cameras watching their first date with somebody when everything you do is already being judged by the person you're hoping will be the one. A team of engineering students from UC San Diego is on a quest to discover whether the moon provides the necessary conditions to brew beer. Wait, is there something wrong with brewing beer on earth here? Are we going to have beer shortages unless we're able to start brewing in space? Why didn't somebody warn us about this? Alright, excuse me, I have got to go stock up on some Guinness. A New Mexico man is facing charges after police say he threatened to pull a gun on a taco shop employee for giving him the wrong order. Bullets, Taco Bell, neither one is good for your health. Our phones and various other devices are causing poor posture as users are spending one to three hours each day hunched over their phones and that's leading to back and spine problems. We're actually turning into a society of mindless walkers. How long before we start craving brains? Dobby Wahlberg painted forward recently to a waitress at a North Carolina Waffle House. The new kids on the block star left a $2,000 tip on an $82 bill at the Waffle House in Charlotte.  I'm sure he meant that better than it came out though. John Mellonkamp's son, Speck, was arrested for public intoxication and fighting in Indiana on Saturday night. He fights authority, but authority always wins. The marital bed, once a symbol of holy matrimony, may someday be a relic of the past. Nearly 25% of married couples in the United States now sleep in separate beds according to the National Sleep Foundation. Separate sleeping arrangements, they're so popular that the National Association of Home Builders says it expects 60% of custom homes to have dual master bedrooms by this year. Barbara Tober, the former chairwoman of the Museum of Arts and Design, told The New York Times recently that not that we don't love each other, but at a certain point you just want to have your own room. Well, yeah, with the snoring, the hogging of the covers, the cold feet, the passing of gas, of course you'd want to get away from that. And that's just talking about the family dog.  Well, of course he's a former boxing champion. Now he can't even beat up a girl without biting her. Two adult men drowned in the Ongoazi River in Africa while they were being baptized. Victory Christian Center pastor Samuel Cummingua later said following the incident, we've agreed on some measures that will ensure the safety of our followers during baptism in the rivers. Cummingua added that churches were considering increasing the number of ministers of baptisms. They'd also only baptize one person at a time while others are kept at a safe distance and will choose a time when the water is calm enough for the ritual. Last year, six children died during an early morning baptism in a stream. And in January 2015, two elderly Pentecostal church pastors drowned in a river in South Africa where they had gone to baptize four junior church members.  A woman trying to smuggle electronics into China was caught. She had 102 smartphones and 15 luxury watches strapped to her body. Airport security first became suspicious when she said, I'll be back in an Austrian accent. As their wives and girlfriends know all too well, guys like to make a big fuss when they're feeling under the weather. And don't we all? Well, now scientists are saying that man flu may not be a myth, and that guys really do get illnesses worse than gals. It's all because women have a more powerful immune system than men thanks to their hormones. I don't know if this is actually true, but I am certainly going to claim it the next time I get the sniffles. Finland has set the world record for the largest group of skittie dippers. 789 people went swimming naked for five minutes. If you're thinking about breaking the record, there you go. 789 people swimming naked for five minutes. Although there is speculation that half of those swimmers were just director Michael Moore taking a beach vacation. An Israeli student whose grandparents survived the Holocaust has admitted to stealing items from the Auschwitz death camp for an art project. Rotem Bides visited the former Nazi Germany camp in Poland several times and removed items, including a sign forbidding people from taking anything. But perhaps most ironic of all, she says she did it to fight Holocaust deniers. The Auschwitz-Birkenau Museum called the acts outrageous and demanded the object's return. More than a million people, mostly Jews, were killed at Auschwitz during World War II. The objects from Auschwitz, which also include shards of glass, small bowls, a metal screw and soil, formed part of the 27-year-old's final project. Perhaps even more outrageous, Bides' supervisor at Biteboro College, the Israeli artist Michael Neman, said that she did not see anything wrong with what Bides had done, adding, The way I see it, she succeeds in creating a unique encounter between art and an event that has passed and has been wrapped in a lot of words, symbols and representations. So, apparently, Israeli colleges don't have ethics classes. Rosie O'Donnell has created an uproar by promoting an online game where players can push Donald Trump off a cliff. Somewhere, Kathy Griffin is saying, Thank you, Rosie. Police in suburban Cleveland say a fast-food restaurant customer angry about the way his sandwich tasted and looked threatened to shoot somebody over it. Police say the 20-year-old man complained that the egg on his sandwich at a steak and shake was runny and slimy and looked like spit. You know the best way to ensure that you will get spit on your sandwich? Threaten the staff with a gun, saying it looks like spit is in your sandwich. Trust me, you are not going to want what comes back to you in that sandwich. Grapes and the wine made from them can help protect your skin from sun damage. According to researchers at the University of Barcelona, the flavonoids and grapes can stop the chemical reaction that causes skin to die. Says biochemist Maria Cascante who directed the study, this supports the idea of using these products to protect the skin from cell damage and death caused by solar radiation. This works because if you drink enough wine, you just have zero desire to leave the house. A flood has destroyed all the cash in a safe at Fox River State Bank in Wisconsin. So you name the bank after a river, your bank is located right on the bank of said river and you are surprised you get flood damage? A woman in Taiwan divorced her husband after he kept ignoring her text messages. I am having a hard time seeing who the winner is in this story, the woman who got away from her apathetic husband or the husband who got away from the woman who wouldn't stop texting him a hundred times a day. The study suggests that sleepwalking is apparently a surprisingly common phenomenon in American households. Scientists from Stanford University School of Medicine found that about 3.6% of U.S. adults are prone to sleepwalking, which is a higher proportion than previously thought. Nocturnal wandering is also tied to certain psychiatric conditions such as depression, anxiety and obsessive-compulsive disorder. And getting gooned out on Ambien. Good news, people with broken hearts, stalking of your ex on Facebook is totally normal. A study reveals that 88% of spurned lovers track their exes on Facebook and 31% of respondents have changed their profile picture in an attempt to make their exes jealous. And it is good to know social media has brought out the responsible adult in all of us, isn't it? Please support my channel by sharing the daily dose of weird news on Facebook, Twitter, Reddit and other social networks. If you liked this video, please give it a thumbs up and be sure to subscribe if you want to see more. And click that little bell icon next to the subscribe button to be notified when I post new videos. You can find even more weird news that I didn't have time for at DailyDoseOfWeirdNews.com. I'm Darren Marlar and I'll see you next time, weirdos!


I just get so worked up about the littlest things. But I'm trying my best not to be so nervous anymore. Speaking of spooky, my Greenwich Village people have you guys heard about these. Disappearances happening lately. Safe out there, my dudes. The news, rumors, anything. It's gotten to the point where I can't walk down the street anymore without feeling unsafe. I can't help but look over my shoulder. Is he looking at me? Is he following me? I'm trying to get out of wherever I am. I'm trying to calm down a little bit. And then sometimes I'll just end up forgetting where I was in the first place or who I thought was following me. Is someone gonna kill me? Am I next? What is he doing? Does he have a knife? What do I do? Where do I go? I...I... I'd feel a lot safer if I had a friend. It's so hard to make friends. I find that it's nice to go home and drink some tea. That has always helped me. Sometimes I get so worked up I don't know what's actually happening. Sometimes I don't even know what's real anymore.


Elon Musk is not a very happy person right now, and that's because he is hemorrhaging money as we speak with major companies like IBM, Lionsgate, Apple, Disney, Warner Brothers Discovery, Paramount Global, NBCUniversal, Comcast, Sony, and Ubisoft all announcing that they are pulling ads from Twitter. Now this advertiser boycott comes in response to Elon Musk endorsing a viciously anti-Semitic and xenophobic conspiracy theory from this person who wrote, "...Jewish communities have been pushing the exact kind of dialectical hatred against whites that they claim to want people to stop using against them.  You want the truth said to your face? There it is." Elon Musk replied, saying you have said the actual truth. Now I'm sure that most of you are already familiar with this deeply anti-Semitic conspiracy theory, but if you're not, let me tell you who else promoted this.   Those were the last words posted online by Robert Bowers before he massacred worshippers at Pittsburgh's Tree of Life synagogue in 2018. It was the single deadliest anti-Semitic attack in American history. In previous postings, Bowers explained the grievances that led him to commit mass murder. He shared meme after meme asserting that Jews were conspiring to flood the country with brown people in order to oppose and displace the white race. Quote, "...open your eyes."  And as it turns out, the world's richest man basically believes this too. Now to suggest that this was Elon Musk's mask-off moment would be wrong, because it's not the first time that he's endorsed conspiratorial white supremacist rhetoric. For example, in response to someone whining about the burning of Robert E. Lee's Confederate Monument writing, "...literally my ancestor, we carry the Lee names as a first middle in my family. While I didn't need a direct insulting gesture to tell me that my kind is hated and many seek our extinction, the implicit cues were strong enough. I appreciate this image making it absolutely clear. Musk responded to that, saying, "...they absolutely want your extinction." Now as of today, after commenting that media matters is pure evil, I'll tell you why he thinks this in a moment, Matt Bender points out that he's now possibly dabbling in a pizza-gade conspiracy theories as well, but to be clear, the strud that broke the camel's back for advertisers was the anti-Semitic tweet that he responded to, endorsing that vicious conspiracy theory. Now he responded to accusations that he's anti-Semitic, by saying, "...this past week there were hundreds of bogus media stories claiming that I am anti-Semitic. Nothing could be further from the truth. I wish only the best for humanity and a prosperous and exciting future for all." Wow, that's very convincing.  Now he's going a little bit further, to be fair. In order to prove that he's committed to combating anti-Semitism on the platform, he is cracking down on Palestinian political speech, not anti-Semitism. He writes, "...as I said earlier this week, decolonization from the river to the sea and similar euphemisms necessarily imply genocide. Clear calls for extreme violence are against our terms of service and will result in suspension." Now after he made this announcement, from the river to the sea started trending almost immediately, much like Cis did after he called that a slur and subsequently tried to ban that word too. Now I've talked about this before, but from the river to the sea isn't inherently anti-Semitic. When Palestinians use it, however, they're effectively calling for freedom from oppression and a peaceful coexistence between Arabs and Israelis. So the context does matter, even if this is a little bit more complicated, but let's just be really charitable to Elon Musk for a moment, even though we don't have to be. And let's assume that he just wants to be overly sensitive to any phrases that can be perceived as anti-Semitic after his little oopsie.  Isn't that the most effective way to eliminate anti-Semitism from Twitter? Well, maybe, but these are the same people who also pay him $8 a month to get an algorithmic boost, which is why we're all seeing more Nazism and white supremacy and transphobia. So if he were to ban these folks who are paying them money, he's taking money out of his own pocket. But because he won't take action against actual anti-Semitism and because he engages in anti-Semitic conspiracy theories himself, that's why advertisers are pulling out. Because he's very clearly not committed to combating anti-Semitism. But the story somehow gets even stupider because Jonathan Greenblatt, the CEO of the Anti-Defamation League actually applauded Elon Musk for this move, saying, this is an important and welcome move by Elon Musk. I appreciate his leadership in fighting hate. Now I just want to pause for a moment and appreciate the absurdity of this situation. The head of the ADL is praising Elon Musk of all people for his leadership in fighting hate on Twitter of all places in 2023, in November of 2023. It feels like we're living in the upside down.  Now it's not like Jonathan Greenblatt is unaware of Elon Musk's previous endorsement of a vicious anti-Semitic conspiracy theory because a day earlier he literally condemned it. Writing on Twitter, at a time when anti-Semitism is exploding in America and surging around the world, it is indisputably dangerous to use one's influence to validate and promote anti-Semitic theories. So according to the ADL, you can validate an anti-Semitic conspiracy theory one day, but the very next day, literally, you can be hailed for your leadership in fighting hate. Make it make sense. It's impossible. Now, this isn't necessarily too surprising considering the ADL's sudden desire to, I guess, destroy their credibility, or what's left of it, all in an effort to protect Israel no matter what. So the organization has been focused on defaming students' supporters of Palestinian human rights and painting them as terrorist sympathizers while urging colleges to investigate them. But meanwhile, they're giving actual stochastic terrorists like Chai Rychik a pass by temporarily removing her from their glossary of extremism and hate after she threatened to sue them. Now, at the time that I record this video, they still haven't reinstated her. And this is also bizarre to me because it seems as if the ADL is currently spending more time going after student protesters than actual Nazis and actual hate mongers. And they're even willing to give Elon Musk a pass after he literally, just last week, spread a vicious anti-Semitic conspiracy theory that was used by the shooter that murdered people at the Tree of Life synagogue. But so long as Elon Musk is signaling support for Israel by censoring pro-Palestinian speech, I guess that he's acceptable by the standards of the ADL now. Just such a deeply unserious organization, which is sad because they do do some good work. But I mean, this recent turn is just embarrassing because if you are applauding Elon Musk of all people after he said that, then you have no credibility because that is dangerous as they recognized. Now, in addition to doubling down on censorship on Twitter, Elon Musk is trying to silence media matters too by threatening them with a thermonuclear lawsuit because he believes they're threatening free speech on Twitter by manipulating advertisers into fleeing by documenting the rise of hate speech on the platform.  Now, it's true that media matters does frequently write about the proliferation of hate speech on Twitter. But let's not forget that this latest round of advertiser boycotts is specifically because of Elon Musk's own words, not the hate that he's allowing on the platform. And furthermore, he's trying to silence media matters with legal intimidation. He is the one threatening free speech, not media matters. They're just saying what's happening. Now, he said he was going to file a lawsuit on Monday. It's now Monday, and at the time that I record this video, still no lawsuit, but we'll have to wait and see. However, some of his right wing buddies are trying to come to the rescue and bail him out amid this latest round of advertiser boycotts. For example, the Babylon B CEO Seth Dillon pledged $250,000 in advertising on Twitter, and Tim Poole pledged another $250,000 after Seth Dillon did. But that's not all because Matt Bender of Mashable reports soon more right wing media figures and companies followed with pledges of their own, albeit much less than the amounts that Dillon and Poole were promising. Political commentator Benny Johnson, for example, pledged $50,000 in ad spending. Other right wing creators like The Quartering, Donut Operator Gavin McInnis and Elijah Schaefer pledged smaller amounts ranging from 2,500 to 40,000. The controversial Andrew Tate, a manosphere influencer who has previously been charged with rape and human trafficking, pledges the largest amount, saying he'd give Musk $1,000,000 per month without even running ads for his own endeavors. As of publishing, a total of eight right wing media figures and groups have pledged $1,627,500 in ad buys on X. That includes Tate's possibly unserious offer. In addition, the majority of those pledges are over the course of multiple months, so that amount is not per month. But get this, to compare to the amount X has lost from fleeing advertisers, Apple alone reportedly spends more than $100 million per year on X ads. Looking at it more broadly, advertising made up 90% of the $5.1 billion that then Twitter made in the year before Musk took over. Now, the reason why Binder thinks that Andrew Tate's pledges unserious is because Romanian authorities said that he only had about $10 million in assets. And I say only, but that's still a lot. Meaning that if he actually held true to this, he would give away the entirety of his wealth within a year. So obviously, I don't think that he's really committing to this. He's just virtue signaling for clout.  They are all willing to donate money to a platform owned by the richest man on the planet all in the name of supporting free speech after he's demonstrated time and again that he's not actually committed to free speech.  But listen, if you actually do care about free speech and you should, there are much better places that you can put your money into.  He isn't actually committed to protecting free speech. I think time and again, he has proven that. His actions indicate that that is the extent of his commitment to free speech, letting Nazis say what they want on the platform and get boosted by the algorithm.  So I guess that works for them. Either way, I hope that the advertisers continue to flee, but understand that this is not the first time that advertisers have fled Twitter and Mass. And I'm assuming that they will quietly resume advertising in a month or so once this all blows over until Elon Musk has another oopsie and they all collectively announce another pause from advertising. Listen, the true victory will be these advertisers leaving Twitter permanently. And I think that a sustained level of public shaming is necessary in order to make that a reality. But until then, we can at least enjoy the shot and Freud of the world's richest man losing more money because of his own hate and stupidity. Everywhere there's globes, you see them all the time. I mean, it's constant. My children are going to be like mama, globes, globes, globes, globes. I turned on TV, there's globes in the background. Every TV show lose media, why? Why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why.