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Delta scales back changes to its loyalty program after a revolt by customers

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 19:19:41 GMT

(AP) — Delta Air Lines is backtracking slightly on changes it previously announced in its frequent-flyer program, but it still plans to reshape SkyMiles to favor big spenders over customers who take the most flights.Delta outlined the revisions in an email from CEO Ed Bastian to SkyMiles members on Wednesday.“I have read hundreds of your emails, and what’s been most clear to me is how much you love Delta and the disappointment many of you felt by the significance of the changes,” Bastian wrote.The objections focused on the difficulty of achieving elite status and new restrictions on entering airport lounges.Delta announced the changes in mid-September, saying they were needed to address overcrowding at the lounges and a surge in elite-status customers that was making it harder to score upgrades.The airline proposed to make spending with Delta the only way to reach elite status — no longer counting flights taken or miles flown. In simplifying the path to status, Delta sharply ra...

Why did the City of Austin send you a Land Development Code notice in the mail?

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 19:19:41 GMT

AUSTIN (KXAN) -- If you got a public notice in the mail from the City of Austin warning of proposed Land Development Code changes, you're one of more than 725,000 people and yes, they are new. Austin City Council is working to better notify land owners of zoning changes that may impact them after the City ended up in court over just that. "We’re working to provide the public ample notice about upcoming hearings and Council action, something that was lacking the last time. The process changes are the direct result of public feedback during CodeNext. We’ve heard you," Mayor Kirk Watson said in his newsletter. The notices going out now notify property owners of three proposed changes: Allowing up to three housing units, including tiny homes and RVs, on a single-family zoned propertyRevising regulations that apply to a property with two housing unitsRemoving restrictions on the number of unrelated adults living in a house How we got hereA group of homeowners has sued the city twice over...

Austin couple shares their list of local Halloween haunts

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 19:19:41 GMT

AUSTIN (KXAN) — The Halloween season has many of the usual events: haunted houses, costume parties, ghost tours. But in a large city like Austin, there can be too many to track. Leila Sales and Brian Pennington started tracking Austin-area Halloween events in 2019, a year after the couple moved to the city. The list took a pandemic pause in 2020 and 2021 and returned for 2022 and 2023."I have always loved Halloween; I feel like what we do with the newsletter and what we're interested in is creative, artsy, homegrown, DIY sort of stuff. And I feel like Halloween is the perfect holiday for that," Sales said.The list started as a way for the couple to promote their local events newsletter Lite + Brite Events. "We were trying to find at the time ways to help grow the newsletter," Pennington said. "[The spreadsheet] made sense on Reddit, because there's this great community of Austinites there that we want to reach. I think we grew [subscribers] like 100% the first time we did it."Some o...

Could Austin tap into public-private funding collaboration on I-35 caps?

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 19:19:41 GMT

AUSTIN (KXAN) -- With hundreds of millions of dollars needed to support the City of Austin's Interstate 35 Cap and Stitch program, Council Member Mackenzie Kelly submitted a memo Wednesday urging city leadership to evaluate possible public-private partnerships to support funding the initiative.Kelly shared a copy of her memo in a social media post Wednesday afternoon. The memo, addressed to Interim City Manager Jesús Garza, requested looking into those partnerships "as a potential avenue for funding and managing the Cap and Stitch projects, as well as other future infrastructures projects in the City of Austin."In her memo, Kelly also requested more information on the city's current Certificate of Obligation bond capacity "and the possibility of issuing a public response to these inquiries to inform our residents."Public-private partnerships have historically been used as a means of funding infrastructure projects. Working with private sector partners can lean into their expertise "...

Hottest late-October temperatures ever observed possible on Friday

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 19:19:41 GMT

AUSTIN (KXAN) -- Temperatures remain the big weather story this week with a significant warming trend expected to last through the weekend.Afternoon highs will return to the mid-80s today, courtesy of abundant sunshine, dry air and southerly winds. Today is likely to be the coolest day of the next 7 with daytime highs jumping a few degrees each afternoon. Eventually, temperatures will approach daily records with Austin soaring to 94° Friday and 93º on Saturday. Saturday's previous record high is 92º set in 1979 and 1934.The unseasonably hot weather will make it uncomfortably hot, but not too humid for Formula One races at COTA this weekend,. At least rain won't delay any races, but we sure could use some wet weather. Humidity doesn't jump much until AFTER the weekend.Formula 1 race weekend at COTAExtended forecasts show a change in the weather pattern next week. A trough of low pressure may combine with tropical moisture from the Pacific to bring welcome rain to the area, but exact ...

St. Paul City Council votes 4-3 to overhaul zoning code, allow duplexes, density

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 19:19:41 GMT

A divided St. Paul City Council voted 4-3 on Wednesday to approve a sweeping overhaul of the city’s zoning code, lifting restrictions that since the 1970s have prevented duplexes and denser development in many corners of the city.The zoning overhaul, initially dubbed the 1-to-4 unit housing study, is intended to boost housing affordability and housing choices by adding more housing units on city blocks previously zoned exclusively for single-family homes.Council President Amy Brendmoen joined Mitra Jalali, Nelsie Yang and Rebecca Noecker in approving the changes, while Council Members Jane Prince, Chris Tolbert and Russel Balenger cast the dissenting votes after expressing concerns over housing teardowns.“What we’re trying to do is change the rules so we can have more use on the same amount of land, in the same amount of space … to create more housing and places to live,” said Jalali, who envisioned local community developers getting a leg up.“Thi...

Letters: It’s a free country. Let’s keep it that way

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 19:19:41 GMT

Free country, let’s keep it that way“I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it” is a quote commonly attributed to Voltaire. Similarly, as I grew up in the shelter of the freedoms guaranteed by the Bill of Rights that “Congress shall make no law … abridging the freedom of speech” I’d hear and say “Hey, it’s a free country. You can say what ever you want, I just don’t have to agree with it.”Oh how I wish that that was universally accepted, but it is evidenced that it is not.As exampled by the apparent “doxxing” action at Harvard. The publishing of the names, faces and often addresses of those who express an unpopular point of view as a punishment for their having the temerity to state it. It’s as if to goad some un-American loony into an act of violence against these individuals. Hey Harvard, it’s a free country, say what you want, without fear, and in turn, I’m free to tell you, if I think it’s stupid, short-sighted or just plain wr...

Bret Stephens: President Biden’s finest hour

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 19:19:41 GMT

This column doesn’t always abound with praise for President Joe Biden and his administration. This week’s is an exception.On Oct. 8, the day after the greatest atrocity in Jewish history since Auschwitz and Bergen-Belsen, Jews in Israel and the diaspora woke up without a leader. The prime minister of Israel has never been, in a formal sense, the leader of the Jews — even when the office was held by people far worthier than Benjamin Netanyahu.But the prime minister does have the most important job in the Jewish world, which is to ensure that Israel be a safe haven for Jewish life. The Jewish people have long memories; whatever happens next, Netanyahu will be remembered, irrevocably, as the man who failed — not tragically, much less heroically, but selfishly, arrogantly, despicably. He maintains political authority but is devoid of moral authority. I cannot imagine a future for him or his Cabinet of blowhards and toadies except in exile, walled compounds or prison cells.Biden stepped ...

Other voices: The killing of Wadea Al-Fayoume shows anguish in Mideast threatens tolerance at home

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 19:19:41 GMT

It hardly should be necessary to condemn the killing of a 6-year-old boy, but the death of Wadea Al-Fayoume, a student at Central Elementary School in Plainfield, Illinois, is too disturbing to ignore.Wadea was stabbed 26 times on Saturday and later pronounced dead after an attack that also seriously wounded his mother. The child was targeted by his landlord, local officials believe, because his family is Palestinian American. The FBI has opened an investigation into what appears to be a hate crime; the level of hate needed to stab a small child is beyond our understanding.In expressing our outrage at the Hamas attacks of Oct. 7 on ordinary Israeli citizens, we made the point that not condemning such barbarism without equivocation would only make it harder to decry the inhumane events that we feared would follow, although we were thinking of the Middle East rather than suburban Chicago. This is one of those occasions.Palestinians, and Palestinian Americans, are not synonymous with H...

‘Reframing Our Stories’: A box of old photos led to the History Center’s new Native American exhibit

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 19:19:41 GMT

A box of old photos has led to a new exhibit opening Saturday at the Minnesota History Center.Here are a few things to know about “Reframing Our Stories.”A box of photosPhotos of Native American dancers are displayed in an exhibition at the Minnesota History Center in St. Paul on Tuesday, Oct. 17, 2023. (John Autey / Pioneer Press)The Minnesota Historical Society’s collections include many donated photos taken by local journalists from mainstream media through the years.“We received a box of photos,” says Jacob Bernier, program and outreach specialist with the Native American Initiatives Department at the Minnesota Historical Society and a Red River Metis and French descendant.“Within that box are a few folders just labeled, ‘Indians.'”The contact sheets and prints within those folders included photos taken by local journalists from the 1950s through the 1990s, part of a larger donation from the Star Tribune (the Pioneer Press also don...