The Android 12 developer preview is out, and the internet is busy poring over it to find any new features or hints at the OS’s future. So far, there have been a few interesting things discovered, such as an Emergency SOS feature, some redesigns, and other useful, if minor, finds:
As pointed out by Android Police, the Emergency SOS feature is also much easier to access now. Before, making an emergency call required you to hold the power button down, tap the emergency button, then tap twice on the Call 911 button. In Android 12, however, it can be activated by rapidly pressing the power button five times, which will trigger a countdown telling you that an emergency call is about to be placed.
Android Police notes that, by default, it calls 911. You can set it to call a different number, but if the number isn’t a government-run emergency line, your phone will have to be unlocked for the call to go through.
The process for accessing the Emergency Call feature in Android 11.Screenshots: Sean Hollister / The Verge
There have been a few minor redesigns of the Settings app search bar and the lock screen and notification media player, but Mishaal Rahman found a feature flag that “dramatically” changes the settings UI to be easier to use one-handed.
BIG change: If you enable the “Silky home” feature flag that I previously mentioned, you’ll get a DRAMATICALLY changed Settings UI that’s MUCH more one-handed friendly. Here are a few screenshots: pic.twitter.com/EcwqnU0LlB
— Mishaal Rahman (@MishaalRahman) February 18, 2021
9to5Google has also found that some screens in the settings app have blue-tinted backgrounds. It speculates that it could be part of a rumored theming system, but at the moment, it seems very unfinished.
Image: 9to5Google
Of course, notifications have also gotten a redesign, with 9to5Google noting that there’s a dedicated snooze button now, and the icon bubbles are now much larger. This looks like it reduces the density of notifications, but it’s still very early days for Android 12, so it’s possible changes could be made or toggles could be added to control whether you want to see the larger app icon.
The app icon bubbles are now larger.Image: 9to5Google
There are also a few features that are hinted at, or even have settings present, but currently don’t seem to work or aren’t enabled, including:
Given the early state of the developer preview, it’s not really meant for day-to-day use on your main phone. And as with all betas, these features and designs are subject to change in new releases. Still, it’s a tantalizing glimpse at the future of Android and the features Google is adding to an already feature-packed mature OS.
Erling Braut Haaland put another feather in his young cap yesterday against Sevilla, after scoring his 18th goal in just 13 Champions League appearances. Despite moving to Borussia Dortmund just twelve months ago, every major European club has him on their radar and will try to win the race for his signature as soon as possible. The 20-year-old has a €75m release clause which becomes active in 2022, but clubs like Chelsea are apparently willing to pay over-the-top to sign him before then.
Of course, BVB are expected to put up a fight for their crown jewel, but according to reports from BBC and German outlet WAZ (via Sport Witness), the Bundesliga side’s financial crisis could compel them to sell.
According to the reports, Dortmund have already lost €26m in matchday revenue and could lose up to another €75m if they miss out on Champions League qualification — they are currently just 6th in the league. In order to make up for these losses, BVB have drawn up a eight-man “emergency sales list” that includes Jadon Sancho, Axel Witsel, Manuel Akanji, Mahmoud Dahoud, Giovanni Reyna, Jude Bellingham, Raphael Guerreiro and Erling Haaland, however, the departures of the last four would be a last resort — though missing out on Europe would not be helpful in any sense.
The often Chelsea-linked Sancho is the most likely to depart, with BVB even reducing his asking price to €100m. However, if the financial situation further deteriorates, there will be further sales, and Haaland would certainly fetch another €100m or so.
Of course, this doesn’t make Chelsea the favorites for his signature by any means, but with the club in a healthy financial situation, it wouldn’t be a surprise to see the Blues make a concerted effort to sign the generational talent.
SPP again asks Oklahomans to conserve energy, declares Energy Emergency Alert Level 2
Updated: 7:54 PM CST Feb 17, 2021
My name is Mike Ross, senior vice president for government affairs and public relations. That Little Rock Bay Southwest power pool, uh, is many of, you know, SPP manages the electric grid and hotel electorate market plans transmission for all or part of the 14 states were one of seven regional transmission organizations designated by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission in the United States. Um, we appreciate your interest and your participation. Aziz, we manage this winter weather event, I would say, an unprecedented winter weather event where we’ve had, uh, temperatures below zero throughout our entire 14 state region. We’re joined today by Barbara Suck, the president and chief executive officer and also Lannie Nickel, who is the executive vice president and chief operating officer and our current status. Um, the good news is we’re in energy emergency alert Level one no coordinated temporary interruption of service Today, however, we are continuing with public appeals to conserve energy. Certainly not out of the woods yet on with that, I’ll turn to Barbara Sugg, the president CEO of Southwest Power Pool, for for some comments. Thanks, Mike. And thanks everybody that joined us today. I know it’s been a trying week for all of us and for all of you and for all of your customers and your neighbors. And, um, you know, we This has been a very unprecedented week, and I know people are tired of the word unprecedented, but it does really apply here. The temperatures, the load, the the entire situation has just been a real challenge for all of us, of course. But, you know, interrupted loads, uh, controlled outages like like we’ve had to call on these last two days, yesterday and the day before. Yeah, I mentioned this yesterday. These air, these air things that we decisions that we don’t take lightly. There’s not a single megawatt that is not important to us. There’s not a single customer or customer of our member companies that is not important to us. And so you know, certainly any type of an outage is a last ditch effort to protect the integrity of the transmission grid on to really prevent what could be a really dire situation, where where we have widespread blackouts that air uncontrolled and damaging to the system, and then it takes a lot of time thio to bring people back on it is always unfortunate, um, toe ever. You know, for any utility company ever toe have to take an outage, an intentional outage with their customers. And we haven’t We haven’t been in this boat before, and and we’re fortunate that we hadn’t been in this boat before where we had to take outages or or, uh, give orders to give to take outages within our region. Eso It’s so it’s been trying for us because we do every single thing we can do to try to prevent getting to the stage where an outage is necessary. But please know that outages that are taken are absolutely necessary to protect the grid. At that point in time when the conditions were such that too much load, it is devastating. Um, so Mike mentioned we’re still in an energy emergency alert. Level one, there are three levels. I think Lanny Lanny will probably go over that a little bit more. Um, but level one really is just, uh it is the lowest level. That’s good. The highest level is a three on that. Ultimately is where we start seeing the need essentially, anyway, that needs thio. Call for interruptions. Yeah, E for continued conservation, um, turning off some lights and maybe running the dishwasher at a different time or doing laundry at a different time. Uh, when the load is really high. I am absolutely positive that those conservation efforts helped to minimize the amount of time that we actually were in these outage situations. Um, so we also coordinate with a lot of people. And so another reason that we’ve been able to minimize these windows of outage periods long a small as we have, is through the coordination with all of our member companies, Uh, and the coordination that they have with all of you, the conservation efforts, the work that we do with the energy suppliers, the relationships that we have with the utility companies and neighboring regions outside of Southwest powerful that may have extra generation at anyone given point in time that they can that they can, you know, fill into our region. And we can import that and help to cover all of those types of coordinated events and work with our neighbors has has played a huge role in us being ableto limit these outages to the times that we have limited them. We’re not out of the woods yet. The deep freeze is still here. Um, it is still in a you know, we’re still in a situation where across our 14 state footprint, we have higher loads than we would ever have it this time of year. And, um, that that presents challenges for us that we’re still working through. I’m very proud of not just our team, but all of you. Uh, and how people have really stepped up to help, uh, in minimizing the potential outcomes. So with that, I’ll pass it back to Mike, and I’ll stick around to help answer any questions that you may have it. The end. Thank you. Thanks, Barbara. And up next is Lannie Nickel or executive Vice president and chief operating officer at at Southwest Power Pool. Lenny. Well, thank you, Mike. And you know, I don’t really want to go all the way back, Thio about a week and a half ago, when when we really began to, um, start paying attention and and preparing for this cold weather event, Um, I will I will go because a lot of you’ve already heard that, but I will go back to really Sunday morning which is when we issued our first announcement of an energy, um er emergency alert, which was a level one at the time. That’s when we begin to ask our member utilities to ask their customers to conserve energy. And those public appeals in my mind were very helpful. I believe we saw, um, almost immediate impact because by the time Monday morning rolled around, which is when we were projecting a peak of over 45,000 megawatts for wintertime conditions, we actually ended up on Lee experience in 43,000, a little over 43,000 megawatts. So almost a 2000 megawatt reduction that I believe largely can be attributed to the fact that consumers began to voluntarily reduce their usage. And, uh and that was certainly helpful to us. Um, as you recall, uh, if if you’ve been paying attention to these press conferences over the last couple of days, we did ultimately on Monday have to begin issuing directions to our utility members to, uh, start performing their emergency plans for rotating interruptions of service. Uh, that on Monday, uh, that call for for interruptions of service across the region. The 14 state region Onley amounted to about 1.5% of our regional consumption at that time. Uh, and it lasted for 50 minutes. Uh, Tuesday we began with with a little more, uh, of extreme event, because load consumption was expected to be higher that day. As you know, temperatures across the footprint continued to drop and and we were projecting even higher load for for Tuesday. And as a result of that, as well as other events occurring across the system generation not being as available as it had been on Monday, um And then, uh, imports that we have been blessed to rely upon Monday weren’t quite as great as, uh on Tuesday. And so we ended up having Thio issue directives to interrupt about 6.5% of our load on Tuesday, and that lasted about three hours and 21 minutes. Uh, these air actions we don’t want to take we’ve we’ve said that we’ll continue to remind you the these air last resort actions we’ve taken all other steps weaken. Do we? We direct all available generation that can come online to come online way, direct them to do that and purchase fuel no matter what that cost is, um, way direct and ask for assistance from our neighbors and, uh, and and we do all of that. At the same time, we’re trying to make sure that supply and demand are balanced and at the same time, while trying to make sure that transmission system infrastructure is being properly managed within safe operating limits, Um, and but at the point when demand exceeds supply, we have to correct that. We have to do it nearly immediately because if we don’t, the system will begin to automatically correct that for us. And when that happens, cascading outages occurred when a generator trips offline because it has to do that to prevent further damage that will have an impact to other generators on the system. Those generators begin to trip, and as Mawr and Mawr generators begin to trip in, an uncontrolled fashion load can no longer be served. And we had nothing we can do at that point. When that begins, toe happen. It happens in milliseconds and manual operators can. I mean, we just can’t intervene manually. Operators can’t stop that when we get to that point. So everything we’ve done has been done to protect against farm or extreme events from occurring that impact many more consumers and impact them in a much deeper MAWR impactful longer lasting way. Um, 30 minutes of our 50 minutes of outage on Monday, three hours and 21 minutes of outage on Tuesday that affected up to 6.5% of our load. Um, you know, that was that was doing everything we could do to try to continue to keep the lights on for as many people as we could in a very responsible way, as Mike mentioned today, Um, today has been much better, and we hope that that continues. Um, and and we hope that that continues through tomorrow. It it appears based on our best projections, that we could very well be in an emergency alert level to tonight again, on a level two does not mean we’re gonna shed load. It’s just simply, uh, emphasizing the need for consumers to voluntarily reduce consumption. But we could very well be there later tonight. And, uh, and throughout the night, um and then maybe early into the morning tomorrow, we do hope by the end of the day tomorrow that, uh, you know, given weather conditions and and load continuing to drop that we could very, very well be out of this situation entirely on and hope to see that by Friday We’re going to continue to do the best we can. And we’re working a zwelling we can with our members. I know they have been talking to us, Uh, just every hour, every practically every minute. We talked to them, and, uh, and our neighbors as well. And, uh, you know, without that interconnected system and network of neighbors helping each other out, this situation could have been a lot worse. And I know that’s that’s hard to hear if you’ve been affected by it. And I don’t we don’t want anybody to be affected by it. But if you have been, I know that’s hard to hear. This could have been worse, but it But it could be. I mean, that’s just the truth of the situation that could have been worse. And we’re continuing to work on. It will continue to try to make this a Z painless as possible, and and we hope to be out of it very soon.
SPP again asks Oklahomans to conserve energy, declares Energy Emergency Alert Level 2
Updated: 7:54 PM CST Feb 17, 2021
The Southwest Power Pool again has asked Oklahomans to conserve electricity after declaring an Energy Emergency Alert Level 2.The increase to Level 2 went to effect at 6:20 p.m. Wednesday, hours after the Southwest Power Pool decreased it to Level 1.“We continue to urge all homes and businesses throughout our 14-state region to conserve electricity, but are not directing any interruptions of service at this time,” Southwest Power Pool officials said in a news release. “The public should follow their service providers’ directions regarding local outages, tips for conservation and safety.”As of 3:30 p.m. Wednesday, OG&E officials said there are no power outages on their system. They also said OG&E has restoration personnel ready to restore power as quickly and safely as possible to address any issues.OG&E officials also said that, per the Southwest Power Pool, temporary service interruptions remain on hold for now.”This could change at any time as extreme cold weather in the region, combined with the high demand for natural gas, continues,” OG&E officials said in a news release. “We will make every effort to communicate with customers about service interruption and estimated restoration should mandated interruptions resume.”OG&E officials said customers can help by taking conservation steps such as:Set thermostats lower than usual, if health permits.Postpone using major electric appliances such as stoves, dishwashers and clothes dryers until midday or after 9 p.m. when the demand for electricity decreases.Turn off electric lights and appliances that you do not need or are not using.Businesses should minimize the use of electric lighting and electricity-consuming equipment as much as possible.Large consumers of electricity should consider shutting down or reducing nonessential production processes.
OKLAHOMA CITY —
The Southwest Power Pool again has asked Oklahomans to conserve electricity after declaring an Energy Emergency Alert Level 2.
The increase to Level 2 went to effect at 6:20 p.m. Wednesday, hours after the Southwest Power Pool decreased it to Level 1.
“We continue to urge all homes and businesses throughout our 14-state region to conserve electricity, but are not directing any interruptions of service at this time,” Southwest Power Pool officials said in a news release. “The public should follow their service providers’ directions regarding local outages, tips for conservation and safety.”
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At 6:20 p.m. CT on Feb. 17, SPP declared an Energy Emergency Alert Level 2, which requires SPP to direct its member companies to issue public conservation appeals. The alert will remain in effect until further notice. pic.twitter.com/3pvtbVNvoh
— Southwest Power Pool (@SPPorg) February 18, 2021
As of 3:30 p.m. Wednesday, OG&E officials said there are no power outages on their system. They also said OG&E has restoration personnel ready to restore power as quickly and safely as possible to address any issues.
OG&E officials also said that, per the Southwest Power Pool, temporary service interruptions remain on hold for now.
“This could change at any time as extreme cold weather in the region, combined with the high demand for natural gas, continues,” OG&E officials said in a news release. “We will make every effort to communicate with customers about service interruption and estimated restoration should mandated interruptions resume.”
OG&E officials said customers can help by taking conservation steps such as:
Set thermostats lower than usual, if health permits.
Postpone using major electric appliances such as stoves, dishwashers and clothes dryers until midday or after 9 p.m. when the demand for electricity decreases.
Turn off electric lights and appliances that you do not need or are not using.
Businesses should minimize the use of electric lighting and electricity-consuming equipment as much as possible.
Large consumers of electricity should consider shutting down or reducing nonessential production processes.
Biden told “CBS Evening News with Norah O’Donnell” that he believed it was “time for schools to reopen safely,” ahead of the expected release this week of the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s guide to reopening schools.
“I think they’re going through a lot, these kids,” Biden said.
The President’s comments come amid a national debate about when and how to get students back in classrooms safely, as the pandemic continues to devastate the nation and has forced many classes completely online. They also come as women, particularly Black and Latina women, suffer steep job losses as they disproportionately work in some of the hardest-hit sectors in the pandemic, including education.
Biden, who has said he wants most K-12 schools to reopen before his first 100 days in office, emphasized in the interview the need for schools to implement stringent safety requirements to keep those in the classroom safe.
“About 20 million American children have not been in the classroom for nearly a year. There’s a mental health crisis happening,” O’Donnell said.
“There really is,” Biden said, nodding.
“Women are dropping out of the workforce,” O’Donnell continued. “Is this a national emergency?”
“It is a national emergency,” Biden responded. “It genuinely is a national emergency.”
“I think it’s time for schools to reopen safely. Safely,” the President said. He pointed to lowering the number of people allowed in each classroom and proper ventilation systems as examples of necessary protocols.
Biden said US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Director Dr. Rochelle Walensky would be coming out with the guidance, which he described as “science-based judgment,” as early as Wednesday.
“I think about the price, so many of my grandkids and your kids are going to pay for not having had the chance to finish whatever it was. That graduation where you didn’t get to walk across the stage,” Biden said.
Walensky said Monday that the best way to get schools to reopen safely “is to decrease the community spread,” and to keep up mitigation measures such as masking and social distancing.
“The data from schools suggest that there is very little transmission that is happening within the schools, especially when there’s masking and distancing occurring. And that when there are transmissions in the schools, it is because they’ve been brought in from the community and because there are breaches in masking and distancing,” Walensky said during a White House briefing.
Last week, Walensky suggested that schools could reopen without teachers getting Covid-19 vaccines. White House press secretary Jen Psaki initially said Walensky was speaking “in her personal capacity” and said that though Walensky was the head of the CDC, her comments were not the same as official CDC guidance. But Psaki later appeared to agree with Walensky, saying vaccinations were only part of several mitigating factors that will help schools reopen safely, including wearing masks and social distancing.
Part of the $1.9 trillion Covid-19 relief package Biden has proposed to Congress includes additional funding for schools to operate safely in person. Biden has also signed several executive actions to help support reopening schools and establish a national strategy to get the pandemic under control.
Dr. Anthony Fauci, the nation’s top infectious disease expert, recently cautioned that reopening most schools within 100 days “may not happen,” as the US continues to grapple with high Covid-19 transmission. The coronavirus pandemic has killed more than 463,500 Americans as of Monday morning.
Enlarge / A stack of 60 Starlink satellites launched in 2019.
A new SpaceX filing outlines plans for Starlink to offer phone service, emergency backup for voice calls, and cheaper plans for people with low incomes through the government’s Lifeline program.
The details are in Starlink’s petition to the Federal Communications Commission for designation as an Eligible Telecommunications Carrier (ETC) under the Communications Act. SpaceX said it needs that legal designation in some of the states where it won government funding to deploy broadband in unserved areas. The ETC designation is also needed to get reimbursement from the FCC’s Lifeline program for offering discounts on telecom service to people with low incomes.
Starlink is in beta and costs $99 per month, plus a one-time fee of $499 for the user terminal, mounting tripod, and router. As we noted yesterday, the SpaceX filing also says Starlink now has over 10,000 users in the US and abroad. SpaceX should have capacity for several million customers in the US—the company has permission to deploy up to 1 million user terminals (i.e. satellite dishes) and is seeking FCC permission to raise the maximum-deployment level to 5 million user terminals.
VoIP plans
While the Starlink beta only includes broadband, SpaceX said it will eventually sell VoIP service that includes “(a) voice-grade access to the public switched telephone network (‘PSTN’) or its functional equivalent; (b) minutes of use for local service provided at no additional charge to end users; (c) access to emergency services; and (d) toll limitation services to qualifying low-income consumers.”
Voice service will be sold “on a standalone basis at rates that are reasonably comparable to urban rates,” SpaceX said. The plan isn’t finalized, but SpaceX said it is exploring the use of “a white-label managed service provider (MSP) voice platform.”
“In this baseline plan, Starlink Services would provide telephone services connecting consumers to its MSP’s platform using its network capacity, which is available to consumers through their customer premises equipment,” the filing said. “Consumers will have the option of using a third-party, conventional phone connected to a Session Initiation Protocol standards-compliant analog terminal adaptor or a native-IP phone selected from a list of certified models.”
SpaceX said it is also exploring other phone-service options:
Starlink Services continues to assess integrating alternative standalone voice applications into the Starlink network, including other third-party providers, or possibly developing its own proprietary solution. The company may adopt such approaches in the event that further testing demonstrates alternative solutions would provide a superior experience to the end customer or, if Starlink Services determines the end user would benefit from the existence of multiple voice solutions to introduce competition and redundancy into the supply chain.
Emergency backup
Like other VoIP providers, Starlink would sell a 24-hour battery backup to customers who want it. “At the user level, Starlink Services will offer a 24-hour battery back-up option for user equipment that will provide the ability to make phone calls in the event of a power outage,” SpaceX said.
The 24-hour backup offer would satisfy an FCC rule passed in 2015 under then-Chairman Tom Wheeler. Though the backup option described in SpaceX’s filing applies to phone service, we’ve seen from the Starlink beta that the user terminal can deliver broadband with a portable power supply.
SpaceX’s filing also detailed backup and redundancy plans at the network level:
Starlink Services will have sufficient back-up power to remain functional without an external power source in emergency situations, will be able to reroute traffic around damaged facilities, and will be able to manage traffic spikes resulting from emergency situations… At the system level, Starlink Services is building redundancy into the network. For example, every user will have multiple satellites in view with which it can communicate. Additionally, every satellite will have multiple gateway sites in view with which it can communicate. The Starlink traffic routing system ensures that every user is served with bandwidth before users demanding more bandwidth get additional throughput assigned, which gives the Starlink network robustness in the event of emergencies requiring high throughput.
Lifeline
SpaceX didn’t provide much detail on its Lifeline plans beyond the fact that it intends to offer them.
“Starlink Services currently has no Lifeline customers because only carriers designated as an ETC can participate in the Lifeline program,” the company said. But once it gets the ETC designation, SpaceX said it “will provide Lifeline to qualifying low-income consumers and publicize the availability of Lifeline service in a manner reasonably designed to reach those likely to qualify for the service.”
Lifeline currently provides a $9.25 monthly subsidy for low-income households to get broadband or a $5.25 monthly per-household subsidy for phone service. Based on Starlink’s beta price of $99 per month, the subsidies would not be enough to make that plan affordable for low-income consumers, so we’d expect SpaceX to offer other, cheaper plans to customers who meet the low-income requirements. With Lifeline, each provider seeks reimbursement from the fund after providing service to eligible consumers.
Starlink to be common-carrier service
SpaceX’s filing also said that Starlink broadband and phone will be offered as common-carrier services. “For purposes of this [ETC] designation, Starlink Services will provide broadband Internet access service and standalone voice service to the public throughout the Service Areas on a common carrier basis,” the filing said.
Whether broadband should be regulated as a common-carrier service has been a partisan battle. The Obama-era FCC classified ISPs as common carriers under Title II of the Communications Act in order to enforce net neutrality rules, and the Trump-era FCC reversed that classification. Broadband lobby groups bitterly opposed the Title II classification.
“The FCC allows carriers to offer broadband on a common-carrier basis if they so desire,” Harold Feld, a longtime telecom lawyer and senior VP of consumer-advocacy group Public Knowledge, told Ars.
SpaceX taking on the common-carrier classification as part of its plan to be an ETC and accept government funding doesn’t necessarily have any major significance. However, Feld said, “It suggests that [SpaceX is] unlikely to fight against Title II classification. Ideally, they might even support Title II. But at a minimum, this demonstrates that they don’t think Title II common carriage is some kind of horrible burden that will prevent them from offering service.”
The move comes as questions persist over the country’s readiness to host the Olympics, which are scheduled to be held in Tokyo this summer from July 23 to August 8.
Eleven of Japan’s 47 prefectures are currently under a state of emergency that orders companies to facilitate work from home where possible, and requires restaurants to close by 8 p.m. Sports and entertainment events in Japan are also required to limit the number of attendees.
Suga told Japan’s Parliament Tuesday that he plans to extend the state of emergency — which is set to expire Sunday — until March 7 for 10 of the prefectures. The state of emergency is set to be lifted for one prefecture, he said.
That decision still needs to be finalized by the government’s coronavirus task force, and Suga is expected to hold a press conference Tuesday night over the state of emergency rules.
Japan’s Health Ministry on Monday reported 1,792 new coronavirus cases and 72 additional deaths, bringing the country’s total cases to more than 392,000 and more than 5,800 dead. Almost 50,000 Covid-19 patients are in need of hospital-level medical care as of Monday.
Around one third of confirmed cases are in the capital Tokyo, which on Monday reported fewer than 500 new case for the first time since December 28.
As the country struggles with its current spike, partly brought on by freezing winter temperatures, it is also grappling with mixed messages and coronavirus fatigue, having been among the earliest hit by the pandemic.
Unlike a number of other countries which have introduced lockdowns and social distancing measures, Japan lacks much in the way of legal powers to force compliance with the government’s orders.
Suga has been criticized for what has been perceived as his reluctance to take action to combat the spread of the virus. Kenji Shibuya, director of the Institute for Population Health at King’s College London said in January that Japan’s response is “too slow and confusing.”
“On one hand they encouraged domestic travel and eating out, on the other they just asked people to take caution,” Shibuya said. “The government is basically asking people voluntarily to behave properly, but does not do more than that.”
HARRISBURG, Pennsylvania (WPVI) — Pennsylvania Governor Tom Wolf has issued a disaster emergency as a major winter storm continues to dump snow across the region Monday night. More than 20 inches of snow has fallen in some areas of the commonwealth since the storm started Sunday night.
“We are in the middle of one of the most impactful statewide storms we’ve had in a long time,” said Deputy Secretary for Highway Administration Melissa Batula. “This is truly an all-hands-on-deck situation, and our crews are working hard to keep roads safe and passable.”
IMPRESSIVE TOTALS 1 to 2 feet of snow has fallen in our far northwest suburbs. Snowfall rates of 2″ to 3″ per hour this afternoon helped to produce these. A few more inches is expected before the storm comes to an end tomorrow evening. pic.twitter.com/9arDr84iHv
— Adam Joseph (@6abcadamjoseph) February 2, 2021
Get the latest AccuWeather forecast at 6abc.com/Weather
It has been nothing but whiteout conditions all evening in the Lehigh Valley.
Plow trucks were everywhere. They’re doing the best job they can to clear the main roads around Allentown and Bethlehem. But with snow coming down like it has been Monday, it’s a tough task.
Pat Deginto, 71, of Allentown, was shoveling her sidewalk for the third time and it was only 5 p.m.
“I’m thinking next year I’m moving to Florida,” she said.
Dennis Hafemann was also trying to stay on top of the accumulation.
“I’m always ready for it. I’ve already shoveled once and I’ll shovel again,” said Hafemann.
Authorities said a 67-year-old woman with Alzheimer’s disease who reportedly wandered away from her home was found dead of hypothermia on an Allentown street Monday morning. About 60 miles north in Plains Township, a shooting after an argument over snow removal killed a married couple, and the suspect was later found dead at his nearby home of a wound believed to have been self-inflicted, officials in Luzerne County said.
A preliminary investigation indicates the people involved had a long-running conflict, but “this morning, the dispute was exacerbated by a disagreement over snow disposal,” District Attorney Stefanie Salavantis said.
In Montgomery County, crews were managing a mixture of snow and sleet, making the roads icy.
At points Monday, plow trucks switched over to spreading salt and brine to keep roads from icing over.
SEE ALSO: Montgomery County in snow emergency, drivers urged to stay home
In Springfield, Delaware County, families have been flocking to a hill outside of the local police department all day. From little ones to parents who call themselves big kids, they couldn’t get enough.
The storm has prompted officials to impose speed restrictions on the many highways in the commonwealth.
Motorists are urged to avoid travel during the storm if possible. But if travel is necessary, use caution, reduce speeds and be aware of changing weather conditions.
“Throughout the storm, PEMA is working with our state and county partners to make sure we have a clear understanding of the storm and how it is affecting different parts of the state,” said PEMA Director Randy Padfield. “We are particularly concerned with shipment and delivery of COVID-19 vaccines, so we appreciate citizens who are taking this storm seriously and staying off the roads because fewer vehicles means fewer incidents that could delay those operations.”
PennDOT implemented Tier 1 of the commonwealth’s weather event vehicle restriction plan on all interstates in the Philadelphia. This includes the following roadways: I-76, I-95, I-295, I-476 and I-676.
Under Tier 1 restrictions, the following vehicles are not permitted on affected roadways:
-Tractors without trailers -Tractors towing unloaded or lightly loaded enclosed trailers, open trailers or tank trailers -Tractors towing unloaded or lightly loaded tandem trailers -Enclosed cargo delivery trucks that meet the definition of a CMV -Passenger vehicles (cars, SUV’s, pickup trucks, etc.) towing trailers -Recreational vehicles/motorhomes
-School buses, commercial buses and motor coaches not carrying chains or Alternate Traction Devices (ATD’s) -Motorcycles
A 45-mph speed restriction remains in effect on the interstates mentioned above as well as the following major roads:
– U.S. Routes 1, 30, 202, 422 – State Routes 63, 100 Spur and 309
The Tier 1 and speed restrictions will remain in place until conditions warrant their removal.
Why the I-95 Corridor can be the dividing line between snow & rain
NEW YORK CITY (WABC) — New York City Mayor de Blasio has declared a state of emergency, including restricting all non-essential travel, as of 6 a.m. Monday.
The following categories are exempt from these restrictions: Public transit workers First responders Healthcare and homecare workers Police officers Peace officers Any other workers engaged in vital City services Delivery of food, medical supplies, or fuel News media Hotel workers Homeless shelter and outreach workers Utility workers performing emergency repairs Persons employed by pharmacies, grocery stores (including all food and beverage stores), convenience stores, bodegas, gas stations, laundromats, hotels, restaurants/bars, and hardware stores Individuals seeking medical treatment or medical supplies For-hire vehicles, used to transport persons employed to perform any of these services to and from their places of employment
The mayor warned New Yorkers to refrain from travel as the storm’s intensity worsens.
715 salt spreaders, 2000 plows are at the ready to clear roadways with an additional 120 plows to join the fleet from other city agencies.
Starting on Saturday, over 500 miles of roadway were brined & pretreated by city sanitation.
All New York City students will move to remote learning on Monday because of the winter storm. As for Tuesday, de Blasio says no decision has been made yet.
Food distribution will be canceled at schools as well as the learning bridges childcare program for Monday.
All Catholic Elementary Schools in the Archdiocese of New York, will be closed Monday, February 1, due to the expected major snow storm. Monday will be a “traditional snow day” with no remote instruction. All Catholic schools have snow days built into their calendars with contingencies for making up instruction time.
Archdiocese High Schools operate independently, so high school families need to follow instructions from their individual schools.
Monday’s COVID vaccine appointments will be rescheduled because of the impending snow storm.
“Last thing we want to do is to urge our seniors to come out in the middle of a storm like this,” de Blasio said at a Sunday morning press conference. “It doesn’t make sense.”
Alternate side parking for Monday and Tuesday have been canceled. The mayor says the open restaurants/open streets program on Monday night is also canceled.
A hazardous travel advisory will go into effect for Monday and Tuesday.
DSNY has been split into 2- 12-hour shifts to work around the clock. The city has over 270,000 tons of salt and 320,000 gallons of calcium chloride on hand.
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“At the time there were fewer than 100 cases of the disease we now call Covid-19 and no deaths outside China,” WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said Friday. “This week we reached one hundred million reported cases. More cases have been reported in the past two weeks than during the first six months of the pandemic. A year ago, I said the world had a window of opportunity to prevent widespread transmission of this new virus. Some countries heeded that call, some did not.”
The rare emergency declaration, also known as a PHEIC, is the highest level of alarm under international law. Only six have ever been declared in history.
It’s supposed to notify the world that urgent action is needed, but experts say the reason “some countries heeded that call, some did not” is because the declaration has no teeth.
The declaration gives the WHO “few surge powers and no funding,” according to Lawrence Gostin, a professor of public health law at Georgetown Universityand the director of the World Health Organization Collaborating Center on Public Health Law & Human Rights.
“The only power a declared emergency provides is to make ‘recommendations’ to governments. But most governments, especially in the US and Europe, almost universally failed to adhere to (WHO) recommendations,” Gostin said.
The WHO has been evaluating how it can improve the system, and changes could happen during the World Health Assembly in May.
In this second year of the declaration, Gostin and other legal scholars argue that there needs to be urgent reform to give the WHO much stronger authority and more ample funding, if such a declaration is ever to work more effectively in a global health crisis.
How a public health situation becomes an emergency declaration
Countries are supposed to notify the WHO within a short time frame if they have an event in their country that could trigger an emergency declaration. As spelled out in the International Health Regulations, certain diseases or public health events must pose enough of a significant risk that it requires a coordinated international response.
Once a country notifies the WHO about its health threat, the WHO will then call an expert committee together that meets behind closed doors to review the data and listen to testimony from the country that has reported the threat. The committee then makes a recommendation to the WHO director-general who makes the ultimate decision.
If an emergency is declared, then the WHO creates a list of recommendations for governments to undertake to stop the spread of the disease. The WHO also makes recommendations about how to share information.
If it’s in their own backyard, governments don’t like the declaration
As the policy is written now, there are many downsides and disincentives for governments to provide public health information to the WHO and no real guaranteed upside, according to global health law expert Mara Pillinger.
“Governments tend to prefer that the WHO not call them out and issue this highest alarm, because it may not help them manage the outbreak, but could in fact make it harder for humanitarian supplies and assistance to get into the country,” said Pillinger, an associate in the Global Health Policy & Politics Initiative at the O’Neill Institute of National and Global Health Law at Georgetown. “And it can impose an economic cost.”
In theory, the emergency declaration should raise the alarm and motivate other countries to act, not just to protect themselves, but also to help the country with the outbreak get that problem under control so it doesn’t spread further.
Instead, an emergency declaration often triggers other countries to issue travel and trade restrictions against the country with the outbreak. That country suffers financially, and the travel restrictions are often ineffective since they are applied too late or in a piecemeal fashion, Pillinger said.
The declaration needs more authority
With an emergency declaration nothing mandates other countries to send technical or financial assistance to help that country fight or control the disease. Assistance is instead a “question of political will and political coordination.” China didn’t need the money with the Covid-19 outbreak, but Congo did when an emergency declaration was declared with an outbreak of Ebola in 2018.
While the WHO can make recommendations about how countries should respond to a public health threat, it’s incumbent upon each individual country to decided how to respond; how to work with the WHO; how it will aid the country at the heart of the outbreak; and whether it will even take the WHO’s warning seriously.
“It’s a little bit like declaring a five alarm fire, but imagine that you had a center that is responsible for ringing the alarm bell and then it were up to individual fire houses to decide whether or not they send trucks to the fire,” Pillinger said.
The declaration also gives the WHO no real authority to investigate the outbreak if the country does not want the WHO there.
“Even now, WHO has just sent a team to China, a year late,” Gostin said. “WHO has no authority to independently verify country reports, which is why China was allowed to mislead the world concerning the community spread of (the novel coronavirus). The WHO team also has no legal authority to demand access to full information from the Chinese government and scientists.”
The future of the emergency declaration
One step may be the help the US has promised to give the WHO. The Biden administration reversed the Trump administration’s decision to withdraw from the organization. On January 21, Director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases Dr. Anthony Fauci told the WHO that the US would “work constructively” to strengthen and importantly reform the WHO.
Gostin believes as the world heads into the second year of the emergency declaration the International Health Regulations need to be improved now to better manage the current Covid-19 crisis and to help manage future pandemics.
“WHO should be able to rally the world in response to a pandemic,” Gostin said, noting it hasn’t really even been able to do that. “We have seen little global solidarity and in fact ‘go-it-alone’ nationalism, especially ‘American first and only.’
“The mission of WHO is to lead a globally coordinated response to a pandemic,” Gostin said. “That never happened with Covid-19. And that is why it is urgent to reform the International Health Regulations and to give WHO strong powers and ample funding.”
It seems we inch closer to some sort of apocalypse every day, but even if you’re not fighting off hordes of zombies or killer robots, you might still need to know the weather in the middle of a hurricane. That’s where an emergency radio comes in. The Dodocool Emergency Radio has all the bases covered, including AM/FM and NOAA weather broadcasts, a flashlight and 2,000-mAh USB charging for your mobile devices. Right now you can get this Emergency Radio for $23 when you click the coupon on the product page and apply promo code TECHB0025 at checkout. That’ll save you 34% off the usual price of $35.
The best part of this radio — and the feature that caught my attention — is the hand crank, which lets you power it entirely with human muscles. Whether you crank it yourself or opt to keep your kids busy during a power failure by cranking the radio is up to you. During routine, non-emergency situations, you can use the radio without working up a sweat, because it runs on your choice of AC, a trio of AAA batteries, USB or solar power as well.
The radio is pretty compact; it measures about 7x5x3 inches, but is packed with routine and survival features. There’s a flashlight and reading light, SOS alarm and radio, as well as a 2,000-mAh power bank. That versatility can earn it a place on camping trips as well as your robot-invasion-bug-out kit.
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