ATLANTA — On Jan. 18 and 19 the AT&T Playoff Playlist Live! will be held at State Farm Arena in advance of the College Football Playoff national championship on Jan. 20. The star-studded lineup was announced Thursday at a news conference at Mercedes-Benz Stadium. Performances will include Lil Wayne and GloRilla on Saturday; and Camila Cabello, Myles Smith and Knox on Sunday. On game day, the Allstate Championship Tailgate, taking place just outside Mercedes-Benz Stadium in the Home Depot Backyard, will feature country acts on the Capital One Music Stage, including global superstar Kane Brown and iHeartCountry “On The Verge” artist Ashley Cooke. The concerts are just two of the festivities visiting fans can enjoy in the days leading up to the big game. The fan experience for both ticket holders and the general public has been a focus for event planners. All weekend long, an estimated 100,000 people from across the country are expected to attend fan events preceding kickoff. “It will be an opportunity for fans of all ages to come together to sample what college football is all about, and you don’t have to have a ticket to the game to be a part of it,” said Bill Hancock, executive director of the CFP in a press release. “We’ve worked closely with the Atlanta Football Host Committee to develop fan-friendly events that thousands will enjoy come January.” On Saturday, Jan. 18, Playoff Fan Central will open at the Georgia World Congress Center in downtown Atlanta. The free, family-friendly experience will include games, clinics, pep rallies, special guest appearances, autograph signings and exhibits celebrating college football and its history. That day, fans can also attend Media Day, presented by Great Clips, which will feature one-hour sessions with student-athletes and coaches from each of the College Football Playoff national championship participating teams. ESPN and social media giants X, Facebook, Instagram and TikTok will be taping live broadcasts from the event. On Sunday, Jan. 19, the Trophy Trot, both a 5K and 10K race, will wind its way through the streets of downtown Atlanta. Each Trophy Trot participant will receive a T-shirt and finisher’s medal. Participants can register at atlantatrackclub.org . On Sunday evening, the Georgia Aquarium will host the Taste of the Championship dining event, which offers attendees the opportunity to indulge in food and drink prepared by local Atlanta chefs. This premium experience serves as an elevated exploration of local cuisine on the eve of the national championship. Tickets to the Taste of the Championship event are available on etix.com . Atlanta is the first city ever to repeat as host for the CFP national championship. The playoff was previously held in Atlanta in 2018. “We are honored to be the first city to repeat as host for the CFP national championship and look forward to welcoming college football fans from around the country in January,” said Dan Corso, president of the Atlanta Sports Council and Atlanta Football Host Committee. “This event gives us another opportunity to showcase our incredible city.” The College Football Playoff is the event that crowns the national champion in college football. The quarterfinals and semifinals rotate annually among six bowl games — the Goodyear Cotton Bowl Classic, Vrbo Fiesta Bowl, Capital One Orange Bowl, Chick-fil-A Peach Bowl, Rose Bowl Game presented by Prudential and the Allstate Sugar Bowl. This year’s quarterfinals will take place on Dec. 31, 2024 and Jan. 1, 2025, while the semifinals will be Jan. 9-10, 2025. The CFP national championship will be Monday, Jan. 20, 2025, at Mercedes-Benz Stadium. For additional information on the College Football Playoff, visit CollegeFootballPlayoff.com . Get local news delivered to your inbox!
(TNS) — Gearing up for a test drive, a group of East Central High School students swarmed around four electric vehicles. Low to the ground, with two wheels in the front and one in the back, the vehicles look somewhat like pinewood derby cars or go-karts. Their energy comes from batteries, but under the right conditions, they can reach 40 miles per hour. Fifteen engineering students built the vehicles themselves as part of East Central High's after-school Electrathon club. The local club is part of Electrathon America, an electric vehicle racing organization that describes itself as offering "hands-on opportunities for participants to learn about STEM (science, engineering, technology and math) principles as they design and build an electric vehicle for competition." Electrathon goes beyond standard classroom learning and gives students a stepping stone into the world of engineering, said Forrest Hawthorn, a career and technical education instructor at East Central High School and faculty adviser for the local club. "Going through the engineering process, a lot of times it feels like you're banging your head against the wall," he said. "But for these kids, I'm always telling them, 'Hey, that is engineering in a nutshell. You try something, you build it, you test it, you break it, you redesign it and you try it again.'" Hawthorn has worked to expand Electrathon racing in the San Antonio area. There was just one local race last year, he said, but this year the students in his club have four opportunities to race against teams from other schools and school districts. Saturday's race, at Zamora Middle School in South San Antonio Independent School District, is the second local race of the season. The four local races will lead up to the series championship in April, the Alamo City Electrathon Race, where a couple hundred students from 20 San Antonio schools will participate. Hawthorn is director of the ACE Race, working with South Texas Business Partnership, which lines up sponsors, venues, concessions and other logistics. To compete in Electrathon races, the vehicles must meet certain specifications. The Electrathon American handbook describes them as "single person, lightweight, aerodynamic, high efficiency, electric vehicles with three or four pneumatic tires ... powered by standard non-leaking lead acid battery packs not exceeding 73 pounds." The vehicles can be built from a variety of materials and, as long as they adhere to safety guidelines, can have a number of different designs. With everyone on the same playing field, the challenge becomes designing a the most energy-efficient car possible and racking up the most laps. One East Central car won the Alamo City Electrathon Race last year with 125 laps in two hours. In preparation for Saturday's race, the East Central High students on Tuesday were fine-tuning the cars during their free periods at school in the the John Glenn Annex machine shop on the CAST Lead campus across the street from the high school. The team members say they aren't nervous about their chances in the upcoming race. They have plenty of shop hours and practice laps behind them. They know the goal is endurance, not speed. "If we don't maximize the amount of energy that we have during a certain time, then we could potentially lose the amount of laps we get," said Jose Ochoa, the club's vice president The team has four electric vehicles, which they've named named Hornet, Wasp, Stinger and Plan Bee. Some were built using kits donated by Toyota. The students built Wasp from scratch. As the students secured pre-heated batteries — which one theory says allows them to absorb more energy — in the vehicles, preparing to scoot around a school parking lot, Hawthorn mainly supervised. When he brought Electrathon to East Central High in 2017, he had to be a lot more active in his instruction, he said. Now, if all goes well, the students perform like a well-oiled machine. "Some are just total nerds, and they geek out on the whole math side of it. They love doing the battery testing," he said. "I've got other kids who could not care less about testing batteries, but they love wrenching on the cars. Or maybe you've got a couple kids who really get into the fabrication and cutting and grinding and welding metal." Dylan Ellington, 17, gravitates toward mechanics. He's learned how to use an angle grinder and TIG welder, and he spends most of his free time during school in the shop. "Even if it's not specifically working on the Electrathon cars, this is the one class I look forward to the most every day, because it's just fun to make stuff," Ellington said. "Those are skills that are going to pay off in the future." Some students, like Hollie Helmke, 18, get their hands into lots of things. During the race, she'll be driving Hornet. She's already clocked more than 1,000 miles in the vehicle. When Helmke joined the club last year, she started as a mechanic and learned to use a drill press and angle grinder — "simple stuff like that," she said. She's now club president and plans to study engineering at Texas A&M University next year. Helmke said she sees Electrathon as a creative outlet, like when she recently figured out how to install a mount for one of the vehicle's switches. "There are so many different ways you could install the mount, but I decided, OK, I'm going to use a scrap piece of metal and kind of just work my way around it, just drill in the holes and weld it on," she said. The team is eyeing an even bigger competition in the spring: Emerald Coast Electrathon, in Florida. This year, Hawthorn wants to bring more local schools with them. Hawthorn said the East Central team has placed first in the Florida race's high school division, but this time he's giving his students an edge against the older competitors. He wants to win in the other division, for college and adult competitors. He recently bought a German motor called a Heinzmann with funds from a competitive grant from the district's nonprofit foundation. If all goes according to plan, it will arrive in time to install it and prepare for the big race. "I really want to go there and see my kids beat all the adult and college teams," he said.BISMARCK, N.D. (AP) — North Dakota regulators approved permits Thursday for underground storage of carbon dioxide delivered through a massive pipeline proposed for the Midwest, marking another victory for a project that has drawn fierce opposition from landowners. The governor-led Industrial Commission voted unanimously to approve permits for Summit Carbon Solutions’ three proposed storage sites in central North Dakota. Summit says construction of the project would begin in 2026 with operations beginning in 2027, but it’s expected that resistant landowners will file lawsuits seeking to block the storage plans. “With these permits, we’re one step closer to providing vital infrastructure that benefits farmers, ethanol producers, and communities across the Midwest," Summit Executive VP Wade Boeshans said in a statement. People are also reading... Summit’s proposed 2,500-mile (4,023-kilometer), $8 billion pipeline would transport planet-warming CO2 emissions from 57 ethanol plants in North Dakota, South Dakota, Iowa, Minnesota and Nebraska for underground storage. Carbon dioxide would move through the pipeline in a pressurized form to be injected deep underground into a rock formation. The company has permits for its route in North Dakota and Iowa but can’t yet begin construction. Also on Thursday, Minnesota regulators approved a permit for a 28-mile (45-kilometer) leg of the project in western Minnesota. Summit also recently applied in South Dakota, where regulators denied the company’s previous application last year. Last month, the company gained approval for its North Dakota route , and Iowa regulators also have given conditional approval. Summit faces several lawsuits related to the project, including a North Dakota Supreme Court appeal over a property rights law related to the underground storage plan. Further court challenges are likely. North Dakota Republican Gov. Doug Burgum, who chairs the Industrial Commission, is President-elect Donald Trump's choice for Interior Secretary and to lead a new National Energy Council. Burgum has frequently touted North Dakota's underground carbon dioxide storage as a “geologic jackpot.” In 2021, he set a goal for the No. 3 oil-producing state to be carbon-neutral by 2030. His term ends Saturday. Summit's storage facilities would hold an estimated maximum of 352 million metric tons of CO2 over 20 years. The pipeline would carry up to 18 million metric tons of CO2 per year to be injected about 1 mile (1.6 kilometers) underground, according to an application fact sheet. Jessie Stolark, who leads a group that supports the project and includes Summit, said the oil industry has long used similar technology. “We know that this can be done safely in a manner that is protective of human health and underground sources of drinking water,” said Stolark, executive director of the Carbon Capture Coalition. Summit's project has drawn the ire of landowners around the region. They oppose the potential taking of their property for the pipeline and fear a pipeline rupture releasing a cloud of heavy, hazardous gas over the land. A North Dakota landowners group is challenging a property rights law related to the underground storage, and attorney Derrick Braaten said they likely would challenge the granting of permits. “The landowners that I'm working with aren't necessarily opposed to carbon sequestration itself,” Braaten said. “They're opposed to the idea that a private company can come in and use their property without having to negotiate with them or pay them just compensation for taking their private property and using it.” Carbon capture projects such as Summit's are eligible for lucrative federal tax credits intended to encourage cleaner-burning ethanol and potentially result in corn-based ethanol being refined into jet fuel. Some opponents argue the amount of greenhouse gases sequestered through the process would make little difference and could lead farmers to grow more corn despite environmental concerns about the crop. In Minnesota, regulators granted a route permit that would connect an ethanol plant in Fergus Falls to Summit’s broader network. They attached several conditions, including requirements that Summit first begin construction in North Dakota. An administrative law judge who conducted hearings concluded in November that the environmental impacts from the Minnesota segment would be minimal and noted that Summit has secured agreements from landowners along most of the recommended route. Environmental groups that oppose the project disputed the judge’s finding that the project would have a net benefit for the environment. Iowa regulators required Summit to obtain approvals for routes in the Dakotas and underground storage in North Dakota before it can begin construction in Iowa. The Iowa Utilities Commission's approval sparked lawsuits related to the project. In Nebraska, where there is no state regulatory process for CO2 pipelines, Summit is working with individual counties to advance its project. At least one county has denied a permit. Karnowski reported from Minneapolis. Copyright 2024 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without permission. Get local news delivered to your inbox! Subscribe to our Daily Headlines newsletter.The best women’s snow pants for skiing, sledding and beyond
Researchers from a local university are conducting a community-led research project to map the drug crisis in Surrey. Michael Ma, PhD and Tara Lyons, PhD from Kwantlen Polytechnic University (KPU) are working with the Surrey Union of Drug Users (SUDU) to highlight "the lack of specific research on Surrey’s toxic drug supply crisis, harm reduction and the regulation of people who use drugs," notes a KPU news release Tuesday (Dec. 10). Surrey had the second-highest number of drug overdose deaths in the province for the first nine months of 2024, according to the B.C. Coroners Service . Gina Egilson, a board member at SUDU, said, "Surrey's losing more and more people to toxic drug overdoses, with at least four to five people dying every week." “There's a deep urgency to improve the system through more support and resources in Surrey. This research will be an empowering skill-building opportunity that will help guide SUDU's advocacy." In an October article for Oxford University Press , Ma noted that the majority of research on overdoses in B.C. is focused on Vancouver's Downtown Eastside, even though most overdoses have occurred in Vancouver, Surrey and Victoria. “For too many years there hasn't been enough focus on the escalating drug crisis in Surrey,” Ma said. “So we want to try to build more capacity and support in Surrey through resources, funding and infrastructure.” The project will draw from people with lived experience of substance use, who will take an "active role as participants and collaborators in the research," notes the KPU release. “This research is just not for pure scholarly academic reasons. It’s a community development project that has a research component. It can be leveraged for social action to generate new social, economic and political policy that could benefit people who are suffering, being misunderstood or being under-researched,” Ma said. Pete Woodrow, a board member at SUDU, said, “I've never seen this kind of collaboration between people of lived experience and established researchers." “It not only creates a bridge of understanding between two groups that would not normally have contact, it also gives us an opportunity to gain a greater handle on where services are most needed. So often the intent of help falls short or misses the mark due to the lack of a proper map of marginalized population.” Lyons added, “We don’t see people as objects of study in the work we're doing. They're experts who are guiding the kind of questions we're going to ask and how we will communicate the information.” A $339,159 grant from the College and Community Social Innovation will help fund this project.