Government officials say at least 10,000 people were forced to evacuate from the Jasper townsite after a wildfire moved dangerously close to the community late Monday night.
Researchers from the University of Calgary spent the weekend trying to uncover more details about trailblazing Black cowboy John Ware, who carved a path for himself against all odds as a respected Alberta rancher in the 1880s.
British Columbians have flung open their doors to welcome evacuees from wildfires, but government officials are warning space in the province is limited.
NASA is facing a tight budget and wants to wrap up the Chandra X-ray Observatory, but astronomers don't want to see the 25-year-old X-ray space telescope mission go.
A glut of federal dollars for rail projects and a growing realization that road expansions won’t ease chronic congestion on the state’s busiest highways have some Texas officials and policymakers flirting once more with the idea of expanded passenger rail.
SAUSALITO, CA—Stressing that she had done everything in her power to avoid medical intervention, local vet Dr. Anita Kaiser, DMV reportedly told a French bulldog Tuesday that she had bad news about her natural birth. “While I know it can be hard for dogs of your breed to hear, unfortunately, centuries of inbreeding…
WASHINGTON—A new report published Tuesday by the Pew Research Center found that 78% of Americans were too distracted by politics to appreciate the summer Glen Powell is having. “Between the attempted assassination of one party’s presidential candidate and a last-minute replacement of the other, more than three…
BALTIMORE—Aiming to raise awareness of the sexually transmitted disease, a new study published Tuesday by the University of Maryland School of Medicine revealed that nearly 14% of college freshmen will contract human papillomavirus by the end of their campus tour. “New data shows a staggering number of incoming…
WASHINGTON—Doing her best to appear elated while a large, throbbing vein protruded from her forehead, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said she was ‘really, really, really happy’ for Vice President Kamala Harris as she shook the presumptive Democratic nominee’s hand and refused to let go of it. “So, so, so…
OTTAWA – Aides to Prime Minister Trudeau have reportedly spent several hours attempting to explain how Joe Biden, a similarly left-leaning incumbent with low polling numbers, actually willingly chose to end his re-election campaign. “So wait… he was headed for a certain electoral defeat where he was gonna drag his entire party down with him… […]
NPR’S Ari Shapiro talks with Republican strategist and self-described "never-Trumper" Sarah Longwell about how President Biden dropping out of the race will reshape the election.
With the announcement that President Biden would no longer run for the Democratic nomination, and his endorsement of Vice President Harris, the focus is on who Harris might choose as her running mate.
(Image credit: Drew Angerer/Getty Images; Jon Cherry/Getty Images for Concordia; Allison Joyce/Getty Images; Kent Nishimura/Getty Images; Jeff Chiu/AP; Brian Cassella/Chicago Tribune/Tribune News Service via Getty Images; Bill Pugliano/Getty Images)
SAN FRANCISCO—As front-office executives surveyed the damage done to their record-keeping facility, Major League Baseball announced Monday that it had lost millions of stats Monday in a devastating warehouse blaze. “It is with a heavy heart that I share today the news of an accidental fire that has reduced to ash the…
WASHINGTON—Arriving for a campaign strategy session with the vice president and staring in disbelief at her frail, hunched-over form, top Democratic Party officials reportedly began panicking Monday after they discovered Kamala Harris had aged 40 years in a single night. “What the hell happened to her? She was only 59…
The city plans to put more than 400 Houston BCycle bikes up for auction over the next several months, along with docking stations and base plates for those stations, after its bike-sharing network shuttered last month.
In brief: Houston will see high rain chances through the coming weekend, but the threat of heavy rainfall will be particularly acute during the next four days. We have issued a Stage 1 flood alert for now through Thursday, which indicates the potential for street flooding. Basically, you’ll need to pay attention to the weather this week.
A wet pattern
As we discussed on Sunday, the overall setup for this week favors moderate to heavy rainfall, with the potential for some street flooding. The upper Texas coast will lay beneath a trough in the upper atmosphere, and our atmosphere will be laden with moisture. Tuesday and Wednesday look to have the most favorable setups for heavy rainfall, but chances will remain high from now until Thursday.
In terms of overall accumulations, I think the Houston area will pick up between 2 and 6 inches of rainfall this week. My biggest concern lies near the coast, with access to the most moisture from the Gulf of Mexico. This is where we could see some bullseyes above 6 inches of rainfall this week. To account for the threat we’ve issued a Stage 1 flood alert for the entire region, which produces street flooding. We’re closely monitoring the situation to determine whether we need to elevate this to a Stage 2 flood alert for coastal counties.
In Houston, roads are designed to flood during heavy rainfall. This is annoying, but in a generally flat region prone to heavy tropical rainfall, roads become arteries by which water is carried into streams and bayous, and thus eventually out into the Gulf of Mexico. So during intense rainfall, roads will briefly back up. This is why we repeatedly stress to not drive into high water. The bottom line is that, this week, we will need to be weather aware. Check the radar before you leave. At this point we don’t anticipate significant home and business flooding, but the heavy rains will likely cause some inconveniences. We’ll be here to try and pinpoint the times of greatest threats. If warranted, we will post multiple updates a day.
Monday
Of the next four days, Monday likely presents the least threat of widespread, heavy rainfall. The chances today actually look best along the coast, from Matagorda to Galveston Bay; and inland, from Montgomery County northward. The most likely scenario is that each of these boundaries remain far enough apart that the central Houston region, including downtown, remains relatively quiet today in terms of rainfall.
However, there is a slight chance the boundaries meet over downtown, near Interstate 10, in which case things would become more active over the central Houston area. Like I said above, keep a good radar app like RadarScope handy. Generally I think things will quiet down this evening and overnight. Highs today will reach about 90 degrees, or so, given the extent of rain-cooled air at your location.
Precipitable water levels should peak on Wednesday. Anything above 2 inches of water in the atmosphere is considered highly favorable for rainfall. (Weather Bell)
Tuesday and Wednesday
Both of these days should bring waves of moderate to heavy showers through the Houston area. The first of these could arrive some time on Tuesday morning, pushing from south to north, and afterward we should see additional impulses with consistently high atmospheric moisture levels. With mostly cloudy skies, these days should see high temperatures only in the 80s—a remarkable contrast to last year when we were consistently hitting 100 degrees in late July. Overnight lows will be in the mid-70s.
We’ve had some questions about severe weather, and while we can’t rule out some high winds in stronger thunderstorms, generally the wind, hail, and tornado threats will be quite low this week. Our major concern will be heavy rainfall, and rates above 2 inches per hour that can quickly back up streets.
Thursday
We’ll remain in a very wet pattern on Thursday, but forecast models indicate that the impetus for the highest rainfall rates will back off a bit. Regardless, expect widespread showers, with highs in the 80s. At this point we’re planning to expire our Stage 1 flood alert on Thursday night, but we’ll of course be monitoring this closely.
NOAA rain accumulation forecast for now through Thursday night show3s the highest risk of heavy rainfall near the coast. (Weather Bell)
Friday, Saturday, and Sunday
Elevated rain chances will remain through the weekend, but the threat of heavy rainfall should continue to diminish. If you have outdoor plans, I would have a backup plan. Daily rain chances are on the order of 60 or 70 percent, with mostly cloudy skies. Expect highs in the upper 80s to about 90 degrees.
Next week
Rain chances diminish further next week and we’re likely to see a sunnier pattern. As this happens, expect our highs to return to the mid-90s. I don’t mean to terrify or threaten anyone by saying this, but the month that comes after July in Houston is August. And well, August is the worst month of the year as we can expect heat in abundance, and the tropics to become active again after this mid-July lull.
This post was written by Alison Green and published on Ask a Manager.
A reader writes:
My company just introduced a new company-wide policy that you cannot wear an underwire bra due to setting off an alarm on a metal detector in the entrance of the building. Is this illegal in California?
It’s legal.
It’s actually been litigated in multiple states (and, as far as I know, upheld each time). It’s a particularly common policy in prisons, where it’s considered a security measure but has ended up in court because of the difficulties it has caused female lawyers in visiting incarcerated clients. There was also a case where a UPS employee was told to stop wearing bras that set off their metal detectors because it kept causing delays in moving people through security. UPS told the employee to wear a different bra or find another job.
So far, these policies seem to be legal.
They’re also really, really problematic for many women. For people with larger chests, bras without underwire often don’t provide sufficient support. And having to replace a bunch of bras overnight could be incredibly pricey; bras are expensive, especially in larger sizes.
Hopefully your coworkers can band together as a group and push back. Point out that people can be wanded if they set off an alarm, and that loads of other places with metal detectors handle this just fine without dictating people’s bra choice.
This post was written by Alison Green and published on Ask a Manager.
Last week, we talked about napping at work and here are 10 of my favorite stories you shared.
1. The hideout
I worked at a big box home improvement store for a few years, and we hired a couple young guys to work the lot. Bring back carts, help customers load heavier items or large orders, flag for the forklifts, etc. Well, these two, no one could ever get them on the radios for help. They would just disappear, then show up much later claiming they had been busy helping a customer. This went on for weeks.
Our assistant manager went looking for them one day when we were slammed and had a bunch of customers needing loading assistance. She’s walking the aisles trying to find them, and calling them on the radio over and over. As she’s walking through the insulation aisle, she hears herself calling them on the radio. About two shelves above her head. Turns out, these two had built themselves a hideout in the upper shelves of the insulation aisle, where they would climb up to nap and hide from work whenever they felt like it (which was apparently 95% of their shift).
2. The medical concern
I did a brief stint in data entry, and it was so mind-numbing and physically uncomfortable (noisy, smelly, bad chair) that I’d get sleepy. The complex was massive, and one day I found a little nook with an exit door, a sort of unused hallway off another unused hallway at the end of an unused wing. I spent my lunchtime and breaks in that nook, lying on the floor on my side. Until the day two security guys rushed down the hall, one carrying a first aid kit, and woke me up, then grilled me about what I’d eaten that morning and if I needed to go to the hospital. I’d been spotted on a security camera, and looked “sprawled out, like you died.”
3. The drywall
One day I heard a huge thud from Frank’s office. I went to see if he was all right. He said he was. But Frank was known to fall asleep at his desk. I noticed a fresh hole in the drywall by his office chair. Later when he was out I went into his office, placed his chair on its side, and gently slid it up against the wall. Bingo! The caster lined up perfectly with the new hole in wall, which was even the same distinctive shape. The thud I heard had been Frank falling asleep and flopping out of his chair, running it into the wall.
4. The phone call
I used to have a coworker who would go into a small closet, sit on the floor with his knees up and phone positioned just so on his ear and then fall asleep. So that if someone opened the door, they would just think he was doing the very normal action of taking a phone call in a small dark closet…
5. The family nap
I was training a group of new hires in a Teams meeting. One guy had his camera on and was working from his bedroom. At one point during my presentation, his wife/girlfriend came into the bedroom and flopped on the bed for a nap. Then their dog followed her and curled up on the bed. A couple minutes later, he got up from his chair, crawled into bed, and started napping with them. I don’t think he realized his camera was on.
I turned his camera off and continued with my presentation. He had to redo the training with a one-on-one trainer who made him leave the camera on the whole time to make sure he wasn’t slipping away for a snooze again.
6. The cover
At my first job, which was an apprenticeship program at a media company, we had a monthly rotation. So, every three months, I would be on a team that refused to give apprentices any work. Since this was a media company, we had private suites for phone/Zoom interviews. They weren’t soundproof but the doors were fully opaque, and you would usually determine if someone was in a “phone room” by listening at the door.
So! I would go in, pull up a recording of an old interview on my phone, play an “office keyboard typing ASMR” video on YouTube, and take a nap. Anyone who came to listen at the door would hear me asking questions and typing, with the interviewee on speaker. Worked like a charm.
7. The box
We found a temp sleeping in a large box on our manufacturing floor. He was angry that we had woken him up!
8. The microscope
I worked in a clinical lab one summer. The lab technologists had stereoscopic microscopes at their cubicle desks. One of the technologists apparently was on a PIP because she was caught napping at her desk. She didn’t just lean back in her chair or lay her head on her desk, though. She would sit at the microscope and would nap with her head (maybe closed eyes even?) resting on the eyepieces of her microscope in an effort to look like she was working when she actually was sleeping.
9. Chad
I work for a public accounting firm. During tax season, everyone works extra hours, but we have a lot of flexibility – we have core hours we are supposed to be there, and then you can come in early or leave late, whatever you need to do to get your work done.
Several years ago, a manager popped her head in my office door one evening about 7:00. She asked if “Chad,” who had the office next to mine, was still there, or if he had left for the day. I said I hadn’t seen him since around 6, and she said, “His light’s off, he probably went home. If you see him before I do in the morning, tell him I need to ask him something about a client and to come see me.” She went back to her office and her work. About 10, she went home. She walked through the office, noting all lights were out. She set the alarm, locked the door and left.
A few hours later, one of the partners got woken up by a call from the alarm company. There was movement in the building. The partner met the cops there, and they found Chad … who had turned off his light and laid down on the floor behind his desk about 6:00, thinking he’d take a quick nap. He woke up eventually, and decided he’d make some coffee and then work an hour or so before going home to change for the next day. He never thought about the alarm being set. Until the cops came in. Poor Chad – it took years for him to live that one down.
10. The cat protector
Previous warehouse job, was really chill, kinda miss it, but they had a shop cat, and that fluffy orange menace would hop onto my shoulder and start purring while I was eating lunch. One day I woke up four hours after lunch with the fuzzy feline purring on me non stop. It was later reported to me that each time someone came in to wake me up, they got hisses to ears and paws bapping at their face to get them to leave me be. Everyone took the hint from the orange menace.
Naturally wasn’t paid for my nap, but I really couldn’t care less if I was or not, that was the best nap I had in my life. Only time I fell asleep at work as well. And I swear that nap fixed me for at least a few weeks after.
JACKSONVILLE, FL—Shedding new light on the role of self-perception in human psychology, a new study published Monday by the Mayo Clinic found that smacking one’s own head while yelling “Stupid, stupid, stupid” could be an early sign of low self-esteem. “While previous generations saw the act of batting at your own…
NEW YORK—Calling out the unsustainable pace at which historic events seemed to be occurring, local man Brad Gifford told reporters Monday that important news stories were now happening faster than he could generate uninformed opinions about them. “Look, I’m trying my hardest to scrape together confused takes…
This post was written by Alison Green and published on Ask a Manager.
It’s five answers to five questions. Here we go…
1. My daughter has lost two jobs in one year
My 44-year-old daughter has been fired from two different employment agencies in the last 12 months. The first time, the company did not give a reason. The second time, the company said budget cuts were the reason.
I understand that it is entirely possible that the firings might have nothing to do with my daughter’s work performance or attitude. But how many times should this happen before it is reasonable to suspect that it is because of her work performance or attitude?
The reason I ask this is because she has appeared extremely stressed and tightly wound for at least three years. It is to the point where I spoke with her last year about seeing a therapist. I gave her examples of ways I see her stress affecting her husband and children. I wonder if her attitude at work is similar.
She has not gone to a therapist. I am concerned that if I speak to her about therapy again, she may react negatively or think I am blaming her for the these two job losses. Her husband has already spoken to her. Should I stay out of this?
Stay out of it. It’s possible that her behavior at work has contributed to the two job losses. But it’s also possible that it hasn’t, and there’s no way to know. (Twice in 12 months could simply be bad luck.) If you knew for sure — like if she told you she was fired because she had a screaming meltdown — well, even then you’d need to tread carefully unless you have a very close relationship. But in this case it would be pure speculation, and you’d be intruding into an area of her life (her career) that she hasn’t invited you into.
It’s natural to care because you’re her mom, but trying to guess at what happened at work when she hasn’t asked you for help carries a high risk of feeling invasive and boundary-crossing to her.
2. Are laundry products included in office fragrance bans?
Thankfully, this isn’t an issue at my workplace because most of us use laundry products that have little or no scent, but are the heavily fragranced detergents and fabric softeners that have become so popular included in office fragrance bans? The kind that are touted as leaving a “fresh” (read: huge amounts of chemicals) scent on your clothes for weeks? I’m asking because I went to a museum last week and ended up with a horrible headache and sore throat from being bombarded with laundry fragrances I could smell from 30 feet away. Even if I didn’t have a chronic respiratory disease, the odor would have been A Lot. At work, it would make it hard for several of us to function due to asthma and other issues. I’d love to know your thoughts on this.
Yes, typically offices with fragrance policies include heavily scented products of all kind, including laundry detergent.
Whenever this comes up, people ask how an employer can regulate what products you use in the privacy of your own home. You can use whatever products you want at home, but your employer does have the right to say you can’t come to work smelling heavily of fragrance.
People also tend to want to know what happens if you’re, say, using the one and only affordable laundry detergent that doesn’t make you break out in hives and it happens to be scented. If you have a coworker who can’t breathe because of the fragrance, then it’s handled like any other situation with dueling accommodations: your employer needs to look for solutions to accommodate both of you (which could be things like seating you far away from each other, having you meet with each other by phone rather than in-person, etc.).
3. I need to cunningly find out 40 names
I am terrible with names. I’ve always worked in small teams where it didn’t matter that I didn’t know the name of the person in some other wing of the building. Now I’m at a smaller company with 50-odd people — been here four whole years. To be honest, I’m supposed to know more names. Most people know mine! In fact, I have long kitchen convos with people whose names I still don’t know. But it’s been so long, I simply can’t ask them! And asking someone else to reintroduce me to 40 people who think I already know them doesn’t seem like an option either.
This is my own doing. Everyone has a fatal flaw that would kill them in a Greek tragedy, and this is mine. But I am now determined to stop the wheel of fate, and figure out who is who and remember who does what. Do you have any suggestions? Alas, we don’t have a website with handy mugshots.
You need a confidant! Pick someone who you like and trust, explain the situation, and ask them to discreetly help you learn people’s names. You could even take a walk around the building together with them muttering names in your ear as you pass people. (Although it will be way too overwhelming to remember 40 names all at once, so this will need to happen slowly over a period of weeks.) I would be delighted to do this for someone, and I bet you have some coworkers who would be too.
4. Requesting vacation time with a friend/coworker
A few months ago I started a job that I was referred for by my best friend. We now work together in the same department, but we haven’t let on how close we are because I’m a woman and he’s a man and we want to avoid gossip (I’m also gay but that probably wouldn’t stop their fun if word got out).
We were hoping to take a trip together at the end of the summer but our managers are likely to try to get whoever doesn’t ask for the time first to cover for the other if we don’t admit that we’re taking the time off to spend together. Is it better for us to go in to talk to our supervisor together or should my friend be the one to speak to him since he has seniority? I feel awkward talking about our personal relationship at this point and I’m not sure what the most professional way to go about this is.
The big question is whether you can take vacation at the same time. If you’re each other’s cover, vacationing together right now might be unrealistic. But if that’s not the case — if it’s more like you’d be the default coverage but something else could be arranged if your boss knew the situation — then one of you should just tell your boss point-blank what you want to do and ask if there’s a way to make it work. That should probably be your friend since he’s been there longer and has the more established relationship with your boss.
That said, once you do that, the cat is out of the bag — people are going to know you’re closer friends than they had realized since it’s not reasonable to ask the boss to hide that for you.
(Also, in some cases it might be odd if it comes out that your friend recommended you without disclosing that you’re a close friend. If it was more a referral than a recommendation, or if he stressed that he couldn’t vouch for your work, I’d worry less; it’s hard to say without knowing more details, but consider whether that’s something to factor in too.)
5. Can I apply with a new version of my resume soon after using the old version?
I have a question about sending different resume versions to the same company. A couple months ago, I applied for a job at a large company and sent my resume. A week later, they emailed me that they decided to cancel the job posting, but to please apply to any new ones that may come up. Since then, I have revamped my resume. Everything on there is accurate of course, but it looks very different and has some different details. So, my question: If I find another job that I want to apply to at this company, would it be weird to send the new version so soon? I imagine they have my old one on file.
Totally fine to send the new version. It’s unlikely that they’ll bother to compare it to the old one, but it’s not a problem if they do (assuming the job history and other key facts match); people change up their resumes periodically.
Scientists have confirmed the discovery of a cave on the moon not far from where Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin landed 55 years ago, with potentially hundreds more that could house future astronauts. What do you think?
