Bellevue Chronicle

The Conversation

Bendable concrete and other CO2-infused cement mixes could dramatically cut global emissions

Bendable concrete created at the University of Michigan allows for thinner structures with less need for steel reinforcement. Joseph Xu/University of Michigan College of EngineeringOne of the big contributors to climate change is right beneath your feet, and transforming it could be a powerful solution for keeping greenhouse gases out of the atmosphere. The production of cement, the binding element in concrete, accounted for 7% of total global carbon dioxide emissions in 2018. Concrete is one of the most-used resources on Earth, with an estimated 26 billion tons produced annually worldwide. That production isn’t expected

As snow and ice continued to wreak havoc across the U.S. Saturday afternoon, more than 700,000 people were without power, and authorities in states including Texas and Virginia were warning residents to stay off the roads as much as possible.

More than 100 million people were under a winter weather advisory Saturday coast-to-coast, the National Weather Service Weather Prediction Center said. That could continue through Tuesday.

“A very active weekend is ahead for winter weather as large parts of the U.S. experience concerns for extreme cold temperatures, heavy snow and ice,” the weather organization said on Twitter. “Coast to coast from the Pacific Northwest to the Mid-Atlantic, there is

Bloomberg

Arctic Blast Grips U.S., Shaking Markets and Setting Records

(Bloomberg) — The Arctic blast sweeping the U.S. has unleashed winter weather from coast to coast, spawned deadly ice storms as far south as Houston and sent natural gas and power prices soaring. Conditions are set to get even worse.Storm warnings and advisories stretch from Washington state in the west, south to Texas and up the East Coast to New Jersey. Across the central U.S., wind chill warnings and advisories cover most of the Great Plains and upper Midwest. Temperatures in Chicago could drop to -2 degrees Fahrenheit (-19 Celsius) Saturday and Sunday but the wind will make it

For months, Nicholas Atencio and girlfriend Heather Surovik spent nearly every minute of their lives together in a 2000 Cadillac Escalade.

After Atencio, 33, lost his job as a plumber in May, he and Surovik, 36, delivered for Grubhub by day and at night curled up with their puppy on an air bed in the back of their car parked in a lot in Longmont, Colorado, dreaming of being reunited under one roof with Surovik’s teenage son who was living with his grandmother.

“I’m a mom, so I want to fix everything and make it better,” Surovik said. “It’s hard when you don’t have the means to do that,

NEW YORK – Billy Swenson is waiting for the callback.

It’s been about 11 months since he was furloughed from his serving job at a Midtown Manhattan restaurant.

At first, the time away from work was a welcome break. Some days before the COVID-19 pandemic, he was on his feet for 12 hours, also working in catering when jobs arose.

Now, things are dragging on. “Unemployment does not scratch the surface of the money we used to make,” he said. “Sitting here making a quarter of what we used to make … that has been very stressful and there’s been not much relief.”

Swenson is one of the thousands

At least six people were killed and 65 others hospitalized – including frontline health care workers just getting off their shifts – in a massive chain-reaction crash that involved more than 100 vehicles on an icy Texas interstate Thursday.

Mike Drivdahl, a public information officer for the Fort Worth Fire Department, told USA TODAY that first responders had to rescue multiple people from their vehicles on I-35 using hydraulic tools. In addition to the fatalities, injuries ranged from minor to critical, and some people were transported to area hospitals.

Matt Zavadsky, a spokesman for MedStar, which provides ambulance service for the area, said at an afternoon press conference that

Alabama

Montgomery: The state is preparing to execute an inmate by lethal injection in what would be Alabama’s first death sentence carried out during the COVID-19 pandemic. Willie B. Smith III, 51, is scheduled to be put to death Thursday at a south Alabama prison for the 1991 shotgun slaying of Sharma Ruth Johnson. U.S. District Judge Austin Huffaker Jr. on Tuesday denied Smith’s lawyers’ request for a stay. The Alabama Supreme Court ruled the execution could go forward with precautions. Smith’s attorneys have sought a stay arguing that the pandemic and the prohibition on in-person prison visits had made it difficult for them to adequately represent him. They