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HOUSTON (AP) — Getting ready for a hurricane’s landfall means making sure everyone in your household is prepared, including your furry family members.It’s important that the work in gathering essential items for your dog or cat and determining if your pets have their ID tags and are microchipped is done before a storm is bearing down, said Julie Kuenstle, a spokeswoman for the Houston Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals.“All of that stuff needs to be done in advance because you can’t do that obviously if your pet gets away before, during or after a disaster. And that’s…

“I like controlling my own future,” says the former Florida state legislator turned homebuilding mogul. On an average weekday morning at 5 a.m., homebuilding billionaire Pat Neal starts readying himself for work while mulling over the stock and bond markets. “Thought processes usually begin in the shower and are completed by 8:00 in the morning,” he says, and include asking himself: “‘What is the 10-Year T-Bill going to do today?’” But Neal doesn’t hold any treasury bills. In fact, he doesn’t own any bonds at all—or any public stocks. He follows those markets to predict how their activities will impact…

When it comes to weight-resistance exercise, you can choose free weights such as dumbbells or barbells. Or weight machines, which are often driven by cables or levers. You can use resistance bands or tubes to build strength. Or try pushups and pullups — old standbys that create muscle overload by using your own body weight.These four basic options for strength training present fitness possibilities for young or old or beginners. And they offer flexibility for use in the gym, your home or in a hotel room during travel.You’ll probably wind up using a combination of the four, and they all…

PARIS (AP) — Cries of “It is warm!” rang out across the Seine on Saturday morning as Parisians jumped into the river — legally — for the first time in more than 100 years.Public swimming was allowed in designated areas of the Seine, including two newly built wooden decks near the Eiffel Tower and the Île Saint-Louis in central Paris. Before sunrise, a municipal officer skimmed away the last few patches of algae with a fishnet. Soon after, a line of eager Parisians formed, towels in hand, waiting for their chance to jump in.Woos and cries of joy echoed across…

St. Louis (AP) — The Fourth of July is Americana at its core: parades and cookouts and cold beer and, of course, fireworks.Those pyrotechnics also make it an especially dangerous holiday, typically resulting in more than 10,000 trips to the emergency room. Yet fireworks remain at the center of Independence Day, a holiday 247 years in the making.Here are five things to know about July Fourth, including the origin of the holiday and how fireworks became part of the tradition.WHAT’S THE ORIGIN OF INDEPENDENCE DAY?The holiday celebrates the Second Continental Congress’ unanimous adoption of the Declaration of Independence on July…

PARIS (AP) — For the first time in over a century, Parisians and tourists will be able to take a refreshing dip in the River Seine. The long-polluted waterway is finally opening up as a summertime swim spot following a 1.4 billion euro ($1.5 billion) cleanup project that made it suitable for Olympic competitions last year.Three new swimming sites on the Paris riverbank will open on Saturday — one close to Paris’ Notre Dame Cathedral, another near the Eiffel Tower and a third in eastern Paris.Swimming in the Seine has been illegal since 1923, with a few exceptions, due to…

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — Matthew “Moose” Musquiz was working as a diesel mechanic in the 160th Special Operations Aviation Regiment at Fort Campbell, Kentucky, when his physical therapist told him about a bar in Nashville, Tennessee, that he might like.Musquiz loves the Texas dance hall style of venues popular there, but he hadn’t really found a good one in Nashville, which is about an hour south of the U.S. Army installation. “He told me, ‘Tuesday night at the American Legion Post 82 is kind of like a dance hall,’” said Musquiz.In a dimly lit cinderblock building tucked away off a…

A volunteer helping a client collect their grocery bag at the Holy Apostles Soup Kitchen And Pantry in New York City.Erik McGregor/LightRocket via Getty Images On Tuesday afternoon, Robin Hood, which describes itself as the largest anti-poverty philanthropy in New York City, issued a statement condemning the U.S. Senate’s passage of the One Big Beautiful Bill Act. The bill has been widely criticized as a “billionaire bill” for cutting taxes on the wealthiest Americans and removing access to Medicaid for millions of poor Americans. Robin Hood CEO Richard R. Buery, Jr, who receives over $1 million annually in compensation, called…

Denny’s and Waffle House have removed surcharges that the two restaurant chains added to their menus when U.S. egg prices spiked earlier in the year. Denny’s confirmed Thursday that it eliminated its egg surcharge on May 21. Waffle House said Wednesday on social media that it canceled its surcharge on June 2.Waffle House instituted a 50-cent per egg surcharge in February at all of its 1,900 U.S. restaurants due to the soaring cost of eggs. Denny’s also put a surcharge in place in February, but it varied by location.Outbreaks of bird flu in January and February caused the average price…

LONDON (AP) — If you’re using ChatGPT but getting mediocre results, don’t blame the chatbot. Instead, try sharpening up your prompts.Generative AI chatbots such as OpenAI’s ChatGPT, Google’s Gemini and Anthropic’s Claude have become hugely popular and embedded into daily life for many users. They’re powerful tools that can help us with so many different tasks.What you shouldn’t overlook, however, is that a chatbot’s output depends on what you tell it to do, and how. There’s a lot you can do to improve the prompt — also known as the request or query — that you type in. Here are…