Daylight Switch Increases Crash Risk

Lost Creek Guide November 4, 2020Page 8 Alert: Daylight Switch Increases Crash RiskGardner Applauds $6 Million Investment

from USDA to Expand Rural Broadband Annual “Fall Back” means sun glare for the AM in Northwest Colorado commute, darkness for the PM commute, and po-

Washington, D.C. – U.S. Senator Cory Gardner (R-CO), a member of the Senate tential for drowsy drivers. Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation, applauded the announcement DENVER (Oct. 29, 2020) - The end of Daylight Saving Time brings with it much more that the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) is awarding $6 million to expand rural than just an extra hour of sleep this coming Sunday. In fact, the seasonal shift in our sleep broadband service in Northwest Colorado. The funding will be provided to Yampa Valley patterns, combined with new lighting conditions during morning and evening commutes, Electric Association through USDA’s ReConnect program to increase access to reliable significantly increase the risk of a car crash for several weeks following the switchover. and affordable high-speed internet, which is expected to connect 553 people, 27 farms, 27 “Shorter days mean many of us will drive more in the dark, especially 9-5 commutbusinesses and three post offices to high-speed broadband internet in Moffat, Rio Blanco, ers,” said AAA Colorado spokesman Skyler McKinley. “That’s a problem, in part, because Routt, Grand, and Eagle counties in Northwest Colorado. we’ve gotten used to nearly eight months of daylight during the evening commute. That “The COVID-19 pandemic has laid bare the digital divide that exists in many of our rural communities, and it’s more important than ever to keep Colorado residents connected to reliable and speedy broadband, no matter which corner of the state they happen to live in,” said Senator Gardner. “The people that live in Northwest Colorado are some of the toughest and most resilient people I know and they deserve the same access to high-speed broadband as other regions of the state. I will continue working to ensure all of Colorado is connected.” The funding for this project was made possible in part by the 2018 Farm Bill, which auall changes now. Sunset is one of the most challenging times to drive, as your eyes must frequently adjust to increasing darkness.” AAA recommends that motorists prepare for night driving by reducing speed and increasing following distances, ensuring that headlights and taillights are operational, and getting plenty of rest before driving. Behavioral Changes Increase Risk Paradoxically, even though we should be gaining an hour of sleep, the disruption to our thorized USDA’s ReConnect program at $600 million with Gardner’s support. It comes in sleep patterns helps drive fatigue-related crashes. addition to the $6.3 million in funding to from USDA to expand broadband in Southwest Researchers at Stanford University and Johns Hopkins University, in partnership with Colorado earlier this month. the Insurance Bureau of British Columbia, found that changes in motorist behavior as

Background: Daylight Saving Time ends fundamentally increase crashes following the time change. • In July 2020, Gardner introduced the DEPLOY Broadband Act, which appro- Why? Initially, people stay up later than usual, anticipating they’ll get an extra hour of priates $6.5 billion to the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) for broadband sleep, and end up driving drowsy. buildout in unserved areas. The broader disruption to our body’s sleep/wake cycle and circadian rhythm, mean• After a hearing held by the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and while, can last up to two weeks. Transportation, Gardner called for greater broadband access in unserved and under- Sleep-deprived drivers cause more than 6,400 deaths and 50,000 debilitating injuries served areas in Colorado. on American roadways each year, per the National Sleep Foundation. • Gardner called for a concentrated effort to make rural broadband a reality on Symptoms of drowsy driving can include trouble keeping eyes open, drifting from lanes, the Senate floor in May 2020. or not remembering the last few miles driven. Alarmingly, however, more than half of • In April 2020, Colorado healthcare providers received more than $850,000 drivers involved in fatigue-related crashes experienced no symptoms before falling asleep from the FCC through the CARES Act for telehealth services during the COVID-19 pan- behind the wheel. demic. “Your body can’t always warn you that you’re too tired to drive,” McKinley said. “The • In an April 2020 op-ed, Gardner wrote about the need to provide broadband for only safe bet is making sure you get enough sleep.” rural communities. Research from the 2016 AAA Foundation for Traffic Safety report on sleep deprivation • In March 2020, the Senate Commerce Committee passed the ACCESS BROAD- and motor vehicle crashes shows that missing just one to two hours of sleep in a 24-hour BAND Act, bipartisan legislation Gardner introduced to establish a single point of contact period nearly doubles crash risk. All told, drowsy driving contributes to more than one in office to streamline management and oversight of federal broadband resources across five fatal crashes on U.S. roadways each year. multiple agencies. Additional data from the 2017 AAA Traffic Safety Culture Index show that more than 95 • In December 2019, the Senate Commerce Committee passed Gardner’s measure to provide substantial funding for rural broadband by ensuring at least 10 percent of the sale from a C-band spectrum would be allocated for rural buildout in unserved and underserved areas. Cory Gardner is a member of the U.S. Senate serving Colorado. He sits on the Energy & Natural Resources Committee, the Foreign Relations Committee, the Commerce, Science, & Transportation Committee, and is the Chairman of the Subcommittee on East Asia, the Pacific, and International Cybersecurity Policy. percent of motorists consider drowsy driving “completely unacceptable” – and yet, three in ten Americans admitted to driving when they were too tired to keep their eyes open at least once in the past month. “America’s problems with drowsy driving stem from this ‘Do as I say, not as I do’ mindset,” McKinley said. “The end of Daylight Saving Time gives us a good reason to review our driving habits, especially because traffic death rates are three times greater at night than during the day. Get enough rest, and be mindful of everyone on the roads – other drivers, bicyclists, and pedestrians. The pandemic demands that we do everything we can to protect our first responders and maintain hospital capacity by preventing crashes.” AAA Colorado offers the following tips to help drivers avoid potential crashes: • Rest up. Your crash risk goes way up whenever you get fewer than seven hours of sleep. If you do begin to feel drowsy while driving, pull over immediately and rest or call a family member or friend for assistance. • Be prepared for morning/afternoon sun glare. Sun glare in the morning or late afternoon can cause temporary blindness. To reduce the glare, wear high-quality sunglasses and use your car’s sun visors. Use of the night setting on rear-view mirrors can reduce glare from headlights approaching from the rear. • Care for your car. Keep headlights, tail lights, signal lights, and windows (inside and out) clean. • Ensure headlights are properly aimed. Misaimed headlights blind other drivers and reduce visibility. • Keep headlights on low beams when following another vehicle, so other drivers are not blinded. Turn off your high beams when there’s traffic in the oncoming lane. • Reduce your speed and increase your following distances. It is more difficult to judge other vehicles’ speeds and distances at night. • Be mindful of pedestrians and crosswalks. Yield the right of way to pedestrians in crosswalks and do not pass vehicles stopped at crosswalks. AAA Tips for Pedestrians and Bicyclists • Cross only at intersections. Look left, right, and left again and only cross when it is clear. Cross at the corner – not in the middle of the street or between parked cars. • Avoid walking in and near traffic when there are no sidewalks or crosswalks. If you have to walk on a road that does not have sidewalks, walk facing traffic • Evaluate the distance and speed of oncoming traffic before you step out into the kinnearinsurance@outlook.com street. • Wear bright colors or reflective clothing if you are walking or biking near traffic at night. Carry a flashlight when walking in the dark. • Avoid distracted walking and biking, including looking at your phone, wearing headphones, or listening to music. • Bicycle lights are a must-have item for safe night riding, especially during the winter months when it gets dark earlier. About AAA – The Auto Club Group AAA Colorado is a proud part of The Auto Club Group (ACG), the second-largest AAA club in North America with more than 14 million members across 14 U.S. states, the province of Quebec and two U.S. territories. ACG and its affiliates provide members with roadside assistance, insurance products, banking and financial services, travel offerings and more. ACG belongs to the national AAA federation with more than 60 million members in the United States and Canada. AAA’s mission is to protect and advance freedom of mobility and improve traffic safety. For more information, get the AAA Mobile app, visit AAA. com, and follow us on Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn. Learn more.

(Washington, DC) – Judicial Watch announced today that it received 116 pages of records from the State Department which includes a briefing checklist of a February 22, 2019, meeting in Kyiv between then-U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine Marie Yovanovitch and Sally Painter, co-founder and chief operating officer of Blue Star Strategies, a Democratic lobbying firm which was hired by Burisma Holdings to combat corruption allegations.

The briefing checklist notes that Painter also planned to meet with Foreign Commercial Service (FCS) Officer Martin Claessens “regarding the Burisma Group energy company.” (Painter was implicated in the Clinton-era fundraising scandal exposed by Judicial Watch that involved the alleged sale of seats on Commerce Department trade missions to Democratic National Committee donors.) The records were obtained by Judicial Watch in response to a FOIA lawsuit filed in January 2020 seeking records of communications from the U.S. Embassy in Kyiv mentioning Burisma (Judicial Watch v. U.S. Department of State (No. 1:20-cv-00229)).

At the time of the meeting, Hunter Biden, son of former Vice President Joe Biden, was serving on the board of directors for Burisma Holdings, a Ukrainian energy firm. Hunter Biden served on the board of Burisma until April 2019. The records obtained by Judicial Watch also include a May 18, 2016, email from a redacted sender to Amos Hochstein, senior advisor to Vice President Joe Biden on international energy affairs, under the subject “Burisma News Devon Archer.”

The email includes links to two articles, one by the New York Post on May 12, 2016, which detail how Archer, a business partner of Hunter Biden and also a member of the Burisma board of directors, had been arrested on suspicion of securities fraud in a “$60 million scam that ripped off impoverished South Dakota Sioux and others.”

The records also include several emails in which officials in the U.S. Embassy in Kyiv closely monitored media and social media reaction to John Solomon’s reporting for The Hill on Yovanovitch and Ukraine corruption. Individuals whose statements were flagged included Dan Bongino, Sean Hannity, Rush Limbaugh, Jack Posobiec, and Rudy Giuliani, as well as Ukrainian journalists and politicians.

A March 23, 2019, email from a redacted sender to several Kyiv embassy officials, including Yovanovitch and Acting Deputy Chief of Mission George Kent, cites a Dan Bongino tweet reacting to Solomon’s reporting.

The email reads: “Host of the Dan Bongino Podcast and Fox News Contributor Dan Bongino (with nearly a million Twitter followers) tweeted about 20-30 minutes ago (in a string of separate tweets):

They knew, The entire time. #MediaBias

Marie Yovanovitch

George Kent

Yuriy Lutsenko

Scrhiy Leshchenko

Fusion GPS

Joe Biden

Hunter Biden

Burisma

Devon Archer

The most important piece you can read today: “Top Ukrainian justice official says US ambassador gave him a do-not prosecute list” (link to earlier Hill article) I’ll explain more on my show Monday. A March 22, 2019, email from a redacted sender to several Kyiv embassy officials, including Yovanovitch and Kent, notes: “@JackPosobiec of One America News Network (with about 440 thousand followers) tweeted about 15 minutes ago: “U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine, Maria (sic) Yovanovitch, an Obama holdover, has told U.S. Embassy employees and Ukrainian officials that they need not pay attention to Trump since he is going to be impeached.” The email continues: “(This appears to be in the line stated by (Joe) DiGenova on the air with Hannity a couple days ago; just flagging that it is being recirculated now by a Twitter user with a large number of followers, in case it leads to new press inquiries in DC, etc).”

A March 22, 2019, email from a redacted sender to sender to several Kyiv embassy officials, including Yovanovitch and Kent, cites a tweet from Giuliani: “See tweet below from Rudy Giuliani, directing people to content released by Dan Bongino (host of The Dan Bongino Podcast and a Fox News Contributor, per his Twitter profile). The Dan Bongino video is an hour long, I’ll try to skim through and get key points now….”

The email then quotes the tweet in which Giuliani writes: “Pay attention to @dbongino for an analysis of some real collusion between Hillary, Kerry and Biden people colluding with Ukrainian operatives to make money and affect 2016 election.” The email then cites a tweet in response to Giuliani’s in which Bongino writes: “Joe Biden is going to have A LOT of explaining to do regarding Ukraine. A LOT.” “These new documents show anti-Trump State Department knew about the shady Biden-Burisma connections and were desperate to monitor conservative critics of Biden,” said Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton.

The Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee on May 20, 2020, voted to subpoena Blue Star Strategies as part of its investigation into Hunter Biden’s role on the Burisma board. Committee Chairman Ron Johnson (R-WI) is also seeking depositions from Painter and Blue Star CEO Karen Tramontano. Painter was a senior adviser in the Clinton administration. The Wall Street Journal noted in an October 8, 2020, report that a federal appeals court reinstated the conviction of Archer on securities fraud and conspiracy charges, ruling a lower-court judge erred last year in vacating a jury’s verdict. Bevan Cooney, another a former business partner of Hunter Biden, was also convicted and in July 2019 was sentenced to 30 months in prison.

Cooney was recently moved out of his jail cell in Oregon by federal agents for his protection after he provided emails and alleged Biden family corruption to Breitbart News, a, October 20, 2020, Breitbart report said.

In September 2020, Judicial Watch uncovered State Department records showing Russia-linked media “trolling” Joe Biden over “his son’s business.” In a related case, also in September, Judicial Watch made public records it received from the U.S. Department of State that confirm Judicial Watch’s prior reporting that the Ukraine Embassy under then-Ambassador Marie Yovanovitch monitored, in potential violation of law, Donald Trump, Jr. Rudy Giuliani, and major journalists on Twitter on their commentary on Ukraine, “Biden-Burisma 2020”, and George Soros.

The documents list the targeted persons as Sean Hannity, Laura Ingraham, Rudy Giuliani, Dan Bongino, Sebastian Gorka, John Solomon, Jack Posobiec, Ryan Saavedra, Sara A Carter, Donald Trump Jr., Michael McFaul, Lou Dobbs and Pamela Gellar. The search terms that were flagged to be monitored by State Department officials on social media included Yovanovitch, Ukraine Ambassador, Ukrainian Ambassador, Ukraine Soros, Clinton campaign, and Biden-Burisma. The emails show that Yovanovitch was aware of the social media monitoring program.

Weldon Valley News

By GLAD Club

A Pirate Tonight Tonight I am a pirate

With a dagger in my teeth,

A golden erring in my ear, A bloody scar beneath. A swagger down the gangplank, The scourge of every land, Sailing o’er the seven seas While daddy holds my hand. Marauding up and down the street, Besieging every door,

Till terror-stricken villagers

Enrich my treasure store. Then, when my ship is laden With mounds of god and red, I’ll sail back home to Mommy, And she’ll tuck me safe in bed Florence Crouse

We got a hint of winter, with trace of snow covering the yards. Of course the wind was with it as well as the cold. Everyone was checking the closet for the winter coats.

Smile a little: Who’s there-Wife: “There is a man at the door who wants to see you about a bill you own him. He wouldn’t give his name.” Husband: “What does he look like?” Wife: “He looks like you had better pay him.”

Community news:

Remember to set your clocks back. Daylight Saving ends. In the fall we “fall back”. Every registered voter should have received a Ballet for the election. You may return your ballot by mail, place in the drop box at the Administration Building or drop in the ballot box inside the building. Ballots must be returned by 7:00 p.m. on November 3. If you have not registered you may do that at the Election Office in the Administration Building and vote. Let your voice be heard, VOTE!

The “trick and treaters” will be out on Saturday, “Halloween”. If you are sharing treats leave you on light on. Be safe everyone!

Time is running out, be part of the future. Complete your 2020 Census. You can respond at my2020census.go or call 1-844-330-2020.

Church Chat: The St. Francis of Assisi Catholic Church will celebrate Mass on Sunday morning at 7:00 a.m. Pastor Reverend Erik Vigil Reyes and Parochial Vicar Reverend Francis Saleth, HGN will share the services. Confession will be celebrated before mass.

Weldon Valley Presbyterian Church in Goodrich has Christian education and worship at 10 a.m. each Sunday.

The Session of the church met on Sunday. Plans are in the progress for the Advent Season.

Contact information for Pastor Denise Shannon is 720-271-6733 or pastordeniseshannon@gmail.com.

School Scoop: This was Homecoming week. The Homecoming candidates were: Coy Groves, Junio Flores, Riley Hughes, Kaytlyn Keating, Autumn Horn, and Katlyn Gellegos. Autumn Horn and Junior Flores were crowned Queen and King.

The Warriors play a great game, good show fellows! 4-H News: 4-H members are working on projects for the 2021 county Fair.

What’s cookin’: Apricot Sweet Potatoes- 1 can whole sweet potatoes, 1 cup brown sugar, 1 ½ tablespoon cornstarch, ¼ teaspoon salt, ¼ teaspoon cinnamon, 1 teaspoon shredded orange peel, 1 ( 1lb.) can apricots, reserve juice, 2 Tablespoon butter, ½ cu pecans.

Split sweet potatoes and put in a 6 X 10 inch baking dish. In saucepan, mix brown sugar, cornstarch, salt, cinnamon, orange peel and 1 cup drained apricot juice. Cook and stir over medium heat until it boils. Boils for 2 minutes. Add the apricots, butter and pecans; mix well.

Pour over sweet potatoes. Bake, uncovered, for 25 minutes in 375 degree oven. Great dish for Thanksgiving dinner.

First facts: 1890: President Benjamin Harrison signed a measure establishing Sequoia National Park.

Weldon Valley History: Orchard- John Miller and Clinton Barnes came to the farming area north of Orchard. They rented farm ground. Their family join them

Also.

Calendar of Events: November 3, election day, VOTE! Wednesday, November 4, GLAD Club.

Thought for the Day: “Perseverance is not a long race but many short races one after the other.