Buffalo public schools will eventually close completely Friday due to expected bitter temperatures and sub-zero wind chills, with the district reversing course from its remote learning plan announced Thursday morning in a message Thursday afternoon.

Students, teachers and staff are not required to report to school and all Friday athletic competitions are cancelled. Non-perishable groceries will continue to be shipped home Thursday afternoon, the district confirmed.

The Buffalo National Weather Service forecast a wind chill of -10 degrees with winds of about 20 miles per hour as of 7 a.m. Friday. Temperatures are said to fluctuate between 5 and 10 degrees in the morning. Wind gusts of over 30 km/h are expected by Friday afternoon.

People also read…

For snowy days during the November snowstorm and the day before the Christmas holidays, Buffalo Schools decided against distance learning.

The district also announced cancellations for Saturday Community School, My Brother’s Keeper and other school activities scheduled on Saturday. The Sectional Indoor Track competitions scheduled for Saturday at Houghton University at SUNY Buffalo State University are continuing.

Ben Tsujimoto can be reached at btsujimoto@buffnews.com, at (716) 849-6927, or on Twitter at @Tsuj10.

Would you like to see more of this?

Get our local education coverage straight to your inbox.

It was 2017 when the Fillmore Forward organization, with the help of interior design students from the state of Buffalo, undertook their first storefront makeover project at 1474 Fillmore Avenue, Buffalo State.

Now the organization is trying to do it all again, but this time the group has teamed up with Masters of Urban Planning students at the University at Buffalo to tackle a storefront renovation of Charlie’s Food Market at 927 Broadway. The students worked with the store’s owner, Yasri Alabaddi, to receive a $40,000 revitalization grant from the Eric County Storefront Program. They worked under the direction of Emmanuel Frimpong Boamah, PhD Department of Urban and Regional Planning School of Architecture and Planning, and members of Fillmore Forward.

Ultimately, the project envisages the restoration of the shop front, e.g. B. Brick veneer, paint, new shatterproof windows, lighting and signage. Other neighborhood-friendly amenities include a bike rack and bench. The goal is to create a neighborhood center that demonstrates the power of such revitalization efforts by creating a more walkable neighborhood (with more reasons to walk and bike).

Student volunteers Andrea Harder, Silvi Patel and Shameeq Willis worked directly with Alabaddi to envision what the storefront might one day look like.

It was Alabaddi’s father who, according to Fillmore Forward, started out as a cashier at the market before buying the business and eventually the building. Today the family lives upstairs and works in the market, meaning they have a vested interest in seeing the transformation of the building… and the street.

It is interesting to note that the Broadway-Fillmore neighborhood was once considered Buffalo’s second downtown area. Hopefully projects like this will inspire others to jump on the restoration bandwagon while helping to shape the bigger picture.

The New Jersey Devils players often watch from the bench and marvel at what Jack Hughes can do on the ice.

“Every game, at least a couple of times, I’ll be like, ‘Oh my god, that guy is amazing,'” said forward Michael McLeod. “He just makes it every night.”

The same is true in Buffalo, where Rasmus Dahlin called Sabre’s teammate Tage Thompson’s development a “ticking time bomb.” And in Dallas, where coach Peter DeBoer lay awake dreaming of coaching Jason Robertson with the Stars.

While being an All-Star is old hat for the NHL’s old guard of Sidney Crosby, Alex Ovechkin and even the undisputed best player in the world, Connor McDavid, this weekend’s celebrations in South Florida are a showcase for the next generation of league stars led by Hughes, Thompson and Robertson. Hughes is an All-Star for the second year in a row, Thompson and Robertson each for the first time, and their emergence could upend how the standings — and leaderboards — look for years to come.

“Once you’ve established yourself as an NHL player, the next step is figuring out how you’re trying to win,” said Hall of Famer, two-time MVP and six-time Stanley Cup champion Mark Messier. “It’s been fascinating for me to see these players go through this process of not just becoming NHL players, becoming real superstars, but more importantly, trying to figure out how to win in this league. “

With Thompson, Robertson and Hughes all in the top 10 in goals and points, it’s no coincidence that each player’s respective team is in the playoff race at the break. Ditto for the surprising Seattle Kraken, the only team without an All-Star after rookie Matty Beniers was injured, but they’ll need him even more to make it in their second season.

The Devils are ready to play playoff hockey for the first time since 2018 and only the second time in 11 years, thanks in large part to Hughes, who is trailing only McDavid in the scoring race, Boston’s David Pastrnak, Colorado’s Mikko Rantanen and Thompson lies. Mike Rupp, who won the trophy with New Jersey in 2003, expected Hughes to hit a 100-point pace but didn’t expect his goal to be as significant this season.

“He scores in big moments,” said Rupp, an NHL Network analyst who will be seeing Hughes up close at Sunrise this weekend. “That’s how he does it. He carries his team at certain times. He pushes his team, Jack and Tage (too). And I think that’s the incredible thing about them, they’re not just great talent: they’re great talent and they seem to have nerves of steel.”

Thompson’s nerves of steel and skill could show in the playoffs if Buffalo can finish strong and knock out either Crosby’s Pittsburgh Penguins or Ovechkin’s Washington Capitals from a wildcard spot. The Sabers have by far the longest playoff drought in the league at 11 seasons, and if they make it, Thompson will be a big part of it, even before kicking off a seven-year, $51 million deal he was rewarded with last summer .

Messier credited Thompson with getting stronger in the offseason, strengthening the hands that made the now 25-year-old a 38-goal scorer in 2021-22 and putting him on the line for more than 50 goals this season. Norris Trophy-winning defenseman PK Subban, who saw Thompson’s growth firsthand by playing him several times over the past five years before retiring and joining Messier as an ESPN analyst, sees him as a bigger player Version of Hughes with the same skill.

“What sets him apart from a lot of players in the league and will separate him from a lot of players in the league in the future is his ability at his size to do anything at top speed (with) his reach and skill with the puck, his skating ability,” Subban said. “He has all the makings to be a dominant player in this league for a long time.”

So does Robertson, who is coming off a 41-goal breakout season and, like Thompson, signed a lucrative extension ahead of opening night. The 23-year-old Californian, who is Filipino-American and hopes to be a role model for players of Asian descent, has a big personality to match his game and could soon be one of the faces of the league.

Robertson has put on a show this season with 66 points in 51 games.

“You get used to it, and you almost have to sit down and think about how special it is what you’re seeing,” DeBoer said. “It’s incredible. He makes it look easy.”

And along with Hughes and Thompson, he’s making it easier for the NHL not to lean on Crosby and Ovechkin, both of whom collapsed more than 15 years ago.

“Obviously they’re the best of all time, but it was kind of just them,” Rupp said. “It was a couple of guys who really needed to carry the league. (Now) there’s a lot of people wearing it, so I think the league is in a very healthy place with superstars.

___

Follow AP Hockey writer Stephen Whyno on Twitter at https://twitter.com/SWhyno

___

AP NHL: https://apnews.com/hub/nhl and https://twitter.com/AP_Sports

Paterson natives and Buffalo soldiers William Thompkins and George Wanton waded through gun and artillery fire and each received a Congressional Medal of Honor.

The two African-American soldiers were part of the US Army’s 10th Cavalry and were sent to Cuba in 1898 aboard a chartered merchant ship bound for the Spanish-American War.

Press coverage that summer gave little hint of their fight and none of the subsequent heroism that earned them their medals. But in June 1899, newspaper reports about the honor swept the country.

Their mission was so risky that Lt. CP Johnson, her commanding officer, later wrote that he was very reluctant to risk men from his 50-man contingent. However, he admittedly ran out of options.

“Four expeditions, consisting of the Cubans and the immediate friends of the wounded, had failed because of the extreme danger,” Johnson wrote.

Before ending with US officials conquering Puerto Rico, Guam and the Philippines, the Spanish-American War began to liberate Cuba from Spanish rule. The war that began in 1898 featured a refreshed and modernized American Navy full of ships with sturdy steel hulls. However, they found themselves among a number of chartered transport vessels, such as the one Thompkins and Wanton had on board in June.

Black History Month:More historic burial sites for African Americans discovered in New Jersey

The two were with a hand-picked unit that worked directly with Cuban revolutionaries to fight Spanish forces. According to a contemporary account by Theophilus Gould Steward, a U.S. Army chaplain and Buffalo Soldier, their mission was under Lt. Johnson launched a support mission aimed at resupplying Cuban fighters on the country’s south coast with arms, ammunition and other supplies. It didn’t go as planned.

The proposed landing spot “was well guarded by Spaniards who fired on the landing party,” Steward wrote. So Johnson and his command chose a location near the mouth of the Tayabacoa River.

The expedition’s gunboat, the USS Peoria, made the first incursion, leaving behind the steamship Fanita and the US Army Transport Florida, a chartered boat, Steward wrote. On the afternoon of June 30, the gunship attacked a blockhouse on the shore long enough to land a small force of Cuban and American volunteers from whaleboats. However, an estimated 100 Spanish soldiers were lying in wait.

While some Cuban and American soldiers were able to safely retreat to their boats, others. Between 13 and 16 men, according to the few detailed reports, remained stranded. A Cuban soldier was killed. Seven others in the attacking force were wounded and forced into hiding, Steward wrote.

Black History Month:How a NY high school student set the record straight for a Black Civil War veterinarian

Although Thompkins and Wanton were born in Paterson, there is no indication that they knew each other prior to enlisting in the US Army.

Thompkins, four years younger than Wanton, grew up in Newark. Wanton, meanwhile, remained in Paterson before enlisting in the US Navy in 1884 at the age of 16. While serving in the Navy only until 1888, Wanton left his job as a coachman and his home on 16th Avenue the following year for enlistment in the US Army’s 10th Cavalry.

Thompkins also enlisted in the army in 1889. However, he did so from the recruiting station in Cleveland, Ohio, US Army records show.

When the Spanish-American War began, both were Buffalo soldiers of the 10th Cavalry. Wanton was with Troop M. Thompkins was with Troop G. They nevertheless found themselves together on June 30, 1898, aboard a transport ship near Tunas de Zaza, Cuba.

Four attempts to rescue the stranded soldiers that day were repelled as the Peoria’s firepower could not match. But as dusk fell, five men aboard the Florida volunteered for a fifth attempt under cover of darkness. They were George Ahern from New York, Dennis Bell from Washington, DC, Fitz Lee from Virginia, Thompkins and Wanton. The latter four, all African American, would receive a Congressional Medal of Honor for voluntarily “walking ashore in the face of the enemy and assisting in the rescue of their comrades.” Ahern, her superior, who was born in Manhattan to Irish immigrants, was eventually cited for bravery in action.

It wasn’t until two days later, on July 2, that Johnson’s force was able to land and deliver the goods to General Máximo Gómez, Seward wrote.

After the end of the war, Wanton returned to Paterson. He briefly lived with his mother before re-enlisting in 1902, The News (Paterson, NJ) reported. Another stint as a civilian was followed by a decade in the 10th Cavalry, which he spent anywhere from Vermont to Mexico. According to a report by the National Parks Service, he attended the ceremonies for the Unknown Soldier in 1921 before permanently retiring from the military four years later.

Wanton was discharged as master sergeant in 1925 and returned to Paterson in 1926 to live at 112 16th Avenue, The News reported. Thompkins had by then been buried in San Francisco National Cemetery, having died on September 24, 1916. Wanton died at Walter Reed Hospital on November 24, 1940 and was subsequently buried with full military honors at Arlington National Cemetery. Two years later, his Medal of Honor was awarded by the Passaic County Historical Society. It was temporarily on public display at Lambert Castle.

WARNING: The video in this story is disturbing.

BUFFALO, NY (WIVB) – Many in marginalized communities are exhausted after Memphis police beat Tire Nichols. With officers facing murder charges and body cam video released, some are struggling to process it all.

“These officers dishonored their badge, they disgraced the African American community,” attorney John Elmore told News 4. “Five police officers with rubber truncheons, with tasers, beat him up when he wasn’t fighting and kicked him in the face.” It’s nowhere near the justifiable use of physical force.”

The video series once again brings to the fore police interactions with minority communities. The sight of this brutality is again traumatizing for many.

Sara Taylor is a mental health advocate. She tells us that these acts of violence cannot be normalized.

As a beautiful soul with a creative eye, Tire Nichols remembered: ‘Everyone loved him’

“When we see that level of violence coming from those who are being hired and we trust to protect ourselves, it adds another level of fear, insecurity and distrust,” said Sara Taylor, director of BIPOC Parent Mental Health Project.

Taylor said those who have issues after watching the Memphis videos need a safe space for honest discussion.

“A lot of us in the black community participate in healing circles and have healing circles in our community for black people and brown people in the neighborhood to process things like this,” Taylor added.

Elmore believes this proves that better officer training needs to happen across the board.

“There’s probably a ‘blue wall of silence’ culture where officers weren’t afraid that nobody would give themselves away,” Elmore said.

And Taylor said police policy needs serious input from those who are at higher risk of police brutality.

“I think so often we bring models into our community, we fund models, and we implement models without anyone with real-life experience being involved in the programming and the model,” Taylor said.

* * *

If you or someone you know is in crisis, help is available. The Erie County Crisis Hotline is available 24 hours a day: 716-834-3131. The National Suicide Prevention Lifeline is also available 24 hours a day: 1-800-273-8255. For more information visit CrisisServices.org.

* * *

Patrick Ryan is an award-winning reporter who has been part of the News 4 team since 2020. See more of his work here and follow him on Twitter.

All good things come to an end, and the Buffalo Sabers’ points streak is no different. Now they have nine days to think it over.

The Buffalo Sabers looked like a bad hockey team tonight. And I’m usually the type of fan who freaks out when he loses, as happened after the debacle against the Philadelphia Flyers earlier last month.

But against the Carolina Hurricanes I’ll let them loosen up a bit. They have an older, experienced hockey team that will likely battle the league’s youngest team in Buffalo for a Stanley Cup this season.

Games with such a discrepancy in experience happen. Also, you can’t get too down on the Sabers: This is a playoff competitive team during the All-Star break.

Yes, they are 26-20-4 (56 points) and they need to gain ground. But at least we’re not thinking about the NHL draft, are we? We’re thinking about the playoffs for the first time in ages and it feels good.

Buffalo Sabers are down, but they’re not out

Yes they are below and they will be below. Tonight’s loss will come to mind, that’s for sure. But it’s something to grow on and I’ll be honest: The Sabers will learn and grow from it.

Just as they grew and learned after their eight-game losing streak in November. And when they slipped in January, they started a seven-game points streak in the second half of the month.

After the All-Star break, you will experience this again. So yes, they lost to an elite hockey team. Big thing. Really, we’ve seen them beat some of the best teams out there and they had a little slip tonight.

You’ll see what worked, what didn’t work, and then get back to work and fix the problem. Until then, they got a nine-day break and we got an All-Star game to watch. So enjoy the break, watch the Amerks if you need your hockey fix as the 11th rolls, enjoy the way Buffalo rebounds.

The 22-page report was compiled by a third-party fact finder.

BUFFALO, NY — Buffalo Public Schools and the Buffalo Teachers Federation remain at odds over contract talks after a report intended to strike a middle ground between the two drew widely differing reactions.

The 22-page report was compiled by an independent fact finder hired by the New York State Public Employment Relations Board following a request from the district negotiation team last summer.

Fact finder, Robert J. Reden, made recommendations on how to resolve a number of issues that the district and Teachers Federation have been unable to agree on for the past three years.

After weighing the facts and figures presented by both sides during a series of hearings, the report released Monday sided strongly on most of the sticking points, including wages, benefits, working conditions, health insurance, the bell scheme and the appointment of athletic trainers BPS .

BTF President Phil Rumore was quick to respond Tuesday night when the report was released. He and his negotiating team promptly rejected the report, calling it unacceptable, false and misleading.

“You go into fact finding, you know, and you feel like there has to be something mutually agreeable and each side will agree or disagree. But this thing was completely one-sided,” Rumore told 2’s page on Tuesday.

On Wednesday, the Buffalo Public Schools negotiating team welcomed the report, calling it a “blueprint for an agreement” that will anchor their positions going forward.

“We hope to negotiate some of the other issues that have not been addressed in the report. They know that every day that goes by is money out of our teachers’ pockets. Every day, every delay, every day you wait is money you should be getting,” said BPS General Counsel Nate Kuzma.

When asked if the district believes the report will help or hurt their case, Kuzma said it is to be expected.

Rumor has it that he and the union are less confident and will put the report’s findings to the vote of all union members with a negative recommendation.

“Usually when it’s impartial, there’s give and take on both sides, they didn’t give the Buffalo teachers anything,” Rumore said.

Kuzma added: “If you take an unreasonable position and you’re so far out there, I understand, even if it’s a principled approach, but if you’re so far out of reality and then you keep doubling down. Isn’t it being rewarded by someone who’s neutral and looking at it from the outside.”

Kuzma called the fact finder report “the end of the road” in terms of negotiation options, aside from appointing a PERB (Public Employment Relations Board) Super Arbitrator to help with the arbitration. He added that the mediation team will present the report and seek the opinion of the Buffalo Board of Education.

But ultimately, only the BTF and BPS negotiating teams can decide which deal to agree to.

Buffalo Public Schools Superintendent Dr. Tonja Williams added: “We want a contract for our teachers. We have settled 10 out of 11 with various unions and various bargaining units within the district and we will not rest until we get 11 out of 11. “

Both the district and the union hoped to resume negotiations in the coming weeks.

In a unique enforcement, the Federal Trade Commission has fined GoodRx Holdings Inc., a telemedicine and prescription drug provider, $1.5 million for sharing users’ personal health information without their consent with Facebook, passed on to Google and other third parties.

California-based GoodRx also accepted that going forward it would be prohibited from sharing user health data with third parties for advertising purposes, the FTC said. The approval of the federal court is still pending.

Consumer advocates hailed Wednesday’s announcement as a potential game changer that could seriously curb a little-known phenomenon: the trading of sensitive healthcare data by companies that aren’t strictly classified as healthcare providers.

“Digital health companies and mobile apps should not monetize consumers’ highly sensitive and personally identifiable health information,” said Samuel Levine, head of the FTC’s Consumer Protection Bureau, in a statement. “The FTC announces that it will use all of its legal authority to protect American consumers’ sensitive information from misuse and illegal exploitation.”

GoodRx did not immediately respond to an email seeking comment on the business impact of the enforcement action.

It’s the first such enforcement under a 2009 law, the Health Breach Notification Rule, which applies to personal health record providers and related providers that aren’t covered by HIPAA, the federal privacy regulations that govern the healthcare industry.

The enforcement comes three years after Consumer Reports found that GoodRx shared people’s personal health information with more than 20 companies. “People told us they never expected their sensitive information to be shared with companies like Google and Facebook,” said Marta Tellado, President and CEO of Consumer Reports, in a statement Wednesday. “This is a win for consumers and could have a profound impact on how our health information is kept private in the future.”

Justin Brookman, director of technology policy at the Public Interest Group, said: “Healthcare apps and websites have been leaking our personal information for years without consequence. This case should be a game changer – companies must now understand that sharing customer data without clear permission will lead to investigations and fines.”

On its website, GoodRx says it has helped consumers save more than $45 billion since 2011.

According to the FTC, more than 55 million consumers have visited the GoodRx website or mobile apps since January 2017. The Company collects personal and health information from its users and from pharmacies that certify when one of its coupons has been used in a purchase.

The FTC said in a press release that GoodRx “deceptively promised its users that it would never share personal health information with advertisers or other third parties,” while sharing information about their prescriptions and health conditions with third-party advertising companies and platforms such as Facebook, Google and Criteo. That process helped GoodRx target personalized ads on Facebook and Instagram and other platforms, the FTC said.

Other provisions of the proposed federal court order require GoodRx to direct third parties with whom it has shared consumer health information to delete it and notify consumers.

from: ASHRAF KHALIL, Associated Press

Posted Feb 1, 2023 / 1:29pm EST

Updated: February 1, 2023 / 1:40 p.m. EST

WASHINGTON (AP) — A gunman shot three people and killed one in a shooting spree Wednesday morning in the nation’s capital that began on a city bus and ended in a subway tunnel after passengers attacked and disarmed him.

Authorities were still pieced together the chaotic series of events that resulted in the shooting of two people with gunshot wounds to the leg and a Metro worker. The shooter is in police custody and has not been publicly identified.

Ashan Benedict, deputy chief of the Metropolitan Police Department, hailed the “heroic actions of our citizens, our community, to disarm this gunman.”

But he added: “The fact that our citizens had to intervene with armed gunmen is disturbing to me.”

The violence began just after 9 a.m. when the man began brandishing a gun and confronting passengers on a city bus in the south-east of the city. The man chased one of the passengers off the bus and shot him in the leg, Benedict said.

The man then walked down the escalator at the nearby Potomac Avenue subway station, confronted someone who was buying a subway pass, and shot that person in the leg as well. Both victims recovered at local hospitals.

The gunman then went down to the platform and began confronting a woman there. A Metro employee tried to intervene and was shot and killed. The identity of the transit worker who was killed was not released, but Benedict said her “heroism must be recognised”.

The man then tried to board a subway train and was apparently confronted and disarmed by the passengers. He exited the train car and was taken into custody by police officers who found his gun on the tracks, Benedict said.

BUFFALO, NY – Bryan Adams is bringing his 2023 “Happy It Hurts Tour” to the KeyBank Center on June 13.

Buffalo is one of 26 stops on the tour.

Adams’ album So Happy It Hurts, released last year, was nominated for a 2023 Grammy for Best Rock Performance.

His songwriting has earned him three Academy Award nominations, five Golden Globe nominations, a Grammy Award and 20 Juno Awards.

He will be joined by legendary rock band Joan Jett and the Blackhearts. Joan Jett formed the band The Blackhearts in 1979. They were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2015.

Tickets for the concert go on sale Friday, February 3 at 12pm EST. You can buy tickets on ticketmaster.com