Baton Rouge daycare shut down temporarily due to early morning fire
According to the St. George Fire Department, crews responded around 12:15 a.m. to Smartee Pants Preschool Academy and Daycare, where they found a fire burning outside the structure. Firefighters quickly extinguished the flames, and no injuries were reported.
Utilities to the building were shut off, and the daycare will remain closed until those services are restored and the extent of the damage is fully assessed.
The cause of the fire is still under investigation.
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Yahoo
5 days ago
- Yahoo
Chickasaw Nation Hosts Workshop for First American Princesses
The Chickasaw Nation Genealogy Program hosted a princess workshop for the five tribes' royalty in May at the Chickasaw Cultural Center, Sulphur, Oklahoma. Princesses from the Chickasaw, Cherokee, Choctaw, Muscogee and Seminole Nations were in attendance. Never miss Indian Country's biggest stories and breaking news. Click here to sign up to get our reporting sent straight to your inbox every weekday morning. Chickasaw Nation Genealogy Manager Wilson Seawright served as master of ceremonies for the event, leading the introduction and panel questions. 'Princesses are held in high regard, not only in the Chickasaw Nation, but all five tribes,' Seawright said. 'We consider them ambassadors to the public.' Brandon White Eagle, the Chickasaw Nation Language Education Coordinator, led the invocation in Chickasaw, followed by a Lord's Prayer performance by each tribe's princesses. Each princess was asked to introduce herself, allowing the young women to learn more about one another and create networking opportunities across princess programs. Princesses were able to listen and engage in a group panel discussion with leading cultural ambassadors for each tribe. The purpose of the panel was to educate the princesses on historical information and traditions about each tribe present. 'These princesses are ambassadors for the state of Oklahoma,' Seawright said. 'It behooves them to know information about all the tribes.' Panelists included: LaDonna Brown, Chickasaw Nation Director of Anthropology; Ian Thompson, Choctaw Nation Tribal Historic Preservation Officer; Jake Tiger, Seminole Nation Cultural Technician; and RaeLynn Butler, Muscogee Nation Secretary of Culture and Humanities. Panel questions discussed traditional regalia, food delicacies, games, Removal and creation stories among the five tribes. Each panelist also discussed the homeland of the tribe they represented. Brown spoke of the historic Homeland of the Chickasaw people, which includes parts of present-day north Mississippi, northwest Alabama, west Tennessee and southwest Kentucky. 'Abaꞌ Bínniꞌliꞌ (He Who Sits Above) led us to this Homeland,' Brown said. 'When we followed this sacred pole, the Itti' Fabassa' Holitto'pa', to our Homeland, he (Creator) brought us to that area. It's not just a place that our ancestors carved out a niche for ourselves. We believe God gave us that land to live in and to live in forever.' The princesses fellowshipped together during lunch at the Aaimpa' Café. Of the menu items, pashofa was a fan favorite. Pashofa is a traditional food among the Chickasaw people and has been declared the national dish of the Chickasaw Nation, made with cracked-pearl hominy and pork. For the final portion of the workshop, the princesses strolled down to the Chikasha Inchokka' Traditional Village. They gathered in the Council House, where a traditional hair demonstration took place. T'ata Begay, a tribal researcher for the Choctaw Nation, led a presentation and demonstration on traditional hairstyles worn by both men and women of the Choctaw Nation. 'The Choctaw people were identified as the Pashi Falaya, which is the 'Long Haired People,'' Begay said. 'Something that also helped to identify the Choctaw men was a long lock of hair that was placed on the right side in front of the ear.' Begay said Choctaw women were often seen wearing their long locks in top knots and other buns, fastened in place with ribbons. Many women also used animal fats, such as bear fat, as a substance to hold their hair in place. Following the Choctaw presentation was the Seminole Nation with a traditional hairstyles presentation by Jake Tiger. He emphasized the importance and significance of bear grease among the five tribes for their hairstyles. As he discussed, Begay provided a sample that was passed around for the princesses to see, smell and touch. LaDonna Brown led the presentation for the Chickasaw Nation while a live demonstration was completed with a Chickasaw barber and two Chickasaw models. The barber cut the two models' hair in a pre-Removal warrior style cut. The barber then used bear grease in the final part of the Chickasaw presentation to finish the style. Learn more about the Chickasaw Princess Program and upcoming events. The Chickasaw Princess Program is a long-standing, annual tradition first established in 1963. The program selects exemplary young Chickasaw women to serve as Chickasaw Nation tribal royalty each year. The young leaders are tasked with demonstrating servant leadership throughout their reign while carrying out the mission of the Chickasaw Nation: to enhance the overall quality of life of the Chickasaw people. Chickasaw princesses must be Chickasaw citizens residing within the Chickasaw Nation. Additional eligibility requirements apply. Young women interested in becoming 2025-2026 Chickasaw Royalty are welcome to attend the 'Princess in Training' event July 26, in Ada, Oklahoma. Instructors will go over necessary eligibility and documents, teach about traditional dress, discuss pageant tips and tricks, provide language lessons, and practice interview skills. The event will take place 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. To RSVP for the 'Princess in Training' event, email Solve the daily Crossword
Vox
5 days ago
- Vox
Your favorite national park is struggling to survive
is a freelance journalist who covers science, the environment, wildlife, and the outdoors. She is based in Laramie, Wyoming. Researchers study black swifts in Glacier National Park, Montana, in 2018. Cuts to the Park Service means the parks are missing out on species monitoring data. National Park Service This story was originally published by High Country News and is reproduced here as part of the Climate Desk Collaboration. Stories of struggle flow unceasingly from our public lands — here, a senior botanist pulled from invasive species removal to check campgrounds for unattended fires; there, a trail crew fired, leaving backcountry areas inaccessible after timber blowdowns. Elsewhere, fire crews are bracing for destructive wildland blazes without the necessary backup from extra personnel certified to help. The Trump administration has already cut thousands of employees from the US Forest Service, Park Service, and Bureau of Land Management, and thousands more workers now fear for their jobs after the Supreme Court gave the administration the green light. And yet, on the surface, many national parks and even Forest Service campgrounds appear to be managing business as usual. 'Some districts still have recreation crews in place, though others hardly have any, and fire folks are running around trying to clean toilets,' said Mary Erickson, the recently retired Custer Gallatin National Forest supervisor. Senior staff have retired or taken the DOGE 'fork in the road' email, leading to, among other things, drastic shortfalls in trail maintenance. 'On top of that, there's a hiring freeze. But I know the mantra at the local level is, they're trying to do the best they can do with what they have.' The national parks are no different, said Jeff Mow, former Glacier National Park superintendent. The toilets might still be cleaned and pumped, but behind the scenes our national treasures are being 'hollowed out.' 'They're not understanding the impacts the cuts have, not just on staffing but also resources and local economies,' Mow said. Mow spent 32 years with the Park Service, many of them as superintendent of various parks, including Montana's Glacier National Park and Florissant Fossil Beds National Monument in central Colorado. He retired in 2022 and now serves on the executive council of the Coalition to Protect America's National Parks and is a board member of National Park Friends Alliance. Mow sat down with High Country News to explain what we're seeing this summer and what the recent cuts mean for our public lands' future. How have the Park Service cuts hit park units differently? Many people, when they think of the National Park System, think of large parks like Yellowstone, Yosemite, Glacier, or Grand Teton. These are all parks that have pretty significant staffs. It's often like running a small city with multiple sewer systems, water systems, and all the law enforcement. What most people don't realize is that the majority of National Park Service units are small and medium-sized parks, like Gettysburg or Florissant Fossil Beds. A lot of those small units are minimally staffed, and when these guys lose three or four positions, in some cases, they've lost half their staffing. Jeff Mow, then Glacier National Park superintendent, at the park in 2016. Tami A. Heilemann/DOI We keep hearing from visitors to some of the major national parks that not much has changed — that toilets are clean and front desks are operating. Why would that be? They are putting the focus on visitor services so that the visitors coming aren't going to see a whole lot of changes from what they might have seen the year before. But there are two halves to the National Park Service mission. One half is preserving the resources for future generations, and they are taking away the emphasis on preserving the resources. When I was superintendent, I relied on my local inventory and monitoring network to tell me: Is the park in good shape? Are these invasives coming from this farmer's field, or this rancher's field? Do I need to be concerned about this housing development and what it may do, or oil and gas development on my boundary? I didn't have the expertise in a small park to deal with that. I relied on that expertise from a regional office, or from a program office like our Natural Resource Program Center. We're losing that. We're losing a lot of expertise. What does that mean over the long term? You can look at this as a homeowner. If you don't get the house painted this year, you will probably be fine. But if you don't get the house painted or fix the broken piece on the house, over five years you may have real problems. We are losing monitoring, like what are black swifts doing in Glacier? This is the largest population of black swifts in Montana. Or the monitoring of our endangered species, whether grizzly bears or wolverines or bull trout. All those things are getting cut short. And in the long term, we won't have a lot of that information about our understanding of what is going on under climate change. So we won't know how species are doing until it's potentially too late? Correct. And when we lose the resource, it's gone. We may be losing the very purpose for which each unit was established. As a federal agency, each park has a mission, but then each unit is established for a particular reason. Fossil Buttes has very specific enabling legislation for why it was established, and it's for understanding and connecting us to the ancient world, which is very different than what the Martin Luther King home does. Unlike Disneyland, where everything's replicated, these are almost always (unique): the original fabric in the bedroom where Abraham Lincoln died and its significance in our nation's history.
Yahoo
5 days ago
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Milo's Tea Company announces production pause to provide clean drinking water to Texas disaster relief
BESSEMER, Ala. (WHNT) — A company headquartered in Central Alabama paused production at one of its plants last week to transition to disaster relief aid. Last week, the CEO of Milo's Tea Company took to LinkedIn to announce the decision. Tricia Wallwork, Milo's CEO and granddaughter of the company's founders, said the reason for this pause was because 'our neighbors in Texas need clean drinking water more than anything else right now, and disaster relief is something we feel strongly about.' The halt in production is at the Tulsa, Oklahoma, plant, Wallwork said. In the post, Wallwork said, 'five truckloads – 124 pallets and more than 119,000 bottles – of Milo's bottled water [would be arriving] at the San Antonio Food Bank to support flood relief efforts in a community that's experienced unimaginable loss. As a mother, wife and human, my prayers go out to all those impacted by the horrific flooding in Texas.' Wallwork also said she was proud of the TEAms' response, as it was quick and came together in just 24 hours. The tea company also partnered with Feeding America and H-E-B, as well as R.E. Garrison Trucking, Inc., which provided the transportation of the pallets. Milo's is headquartered right here in Alabama, founded in 1964 in Bessemer. From the July 4 Texas flooding, several Alabamians were killed, including 8-year-old Sarah Marsh, of Mountain Brook, and Ileana Santana and Mila, a Mobile grandmother and granddaughter. After just over two weeks since the flooding, three people are still reported missing, according to the city of Kerrville. In a July 16 update, Kerr County officials said at least 107 people, including 37 children, were killed in Kerr County. By Saturday, July 19, Kerville officials announced the number of missing people in Kerr County dropped from more than 160 to three, the release said. At least 135 people were killed in the catastrophic flash flooding across Texas, with the majority of the deaths confirmed in Kerr County. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. Solve the daily Crossword
