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It’s much cheaper to replace a set of windshield wiper blades yourself than to hire a mechanic to do the work. You can find the correct replacement blades for your car’s make and model at an auto parts store. The blades come with instructions for installation, but it’s a good idea to also consult your owner’s manual.
Many wiper arms have tabs that can be pushed to remove old blades. Be careful not to damage the wiper arms by bending them too far back from the windshield when you replace the blades.
Fix says you always should buy premium, high-quality replacement blades, since most of your driving decisions are based on visibility.
Checking tire pressure is something you easily can do yourself, with the help of tire gauge.
The recommended tire pressure usually can be found on the inside of your driver side door frame or in your owner’s manual. Tire pressure is measured in pounds per square inch, or psi. Michael E. Gray, co-author of “Auto Upkeep,” tells Money Talks News that air pressure should be checked at least once each month.
Air expands when you drive, so test your tires when they’re cool. Edmunds.com, which provides advice to motorists, recommends waiting a half-hour for warm tires to cool down so you can get a true reading.
When you check the air, make sure your valve cap has no cracks. Place the exposed end of the gauge onto the valve stem. When you take a reading, make sure there is no hissing, which indicates that air is escaping. Replace the valve cap when you’re done.
Screen Northants is hosting an information session tomorrow for budding young film makers wanting to break into the industry.
Ambitious young movie-makers from Northampton have been set the ultimate challenge - make a film in 48 hours.
Budding Steven Spielbergs will be given a ‘theme, line of dialogue and a prop’ to use just two days before they have to hand in their cinematic masterpiece.
The competition has been launched by Screen Northants to promote the new Northampton Film Festival 2019: Coming of Age.
The social enterprise company is holding an information session tomorrow (Thursday, February 14) from 5pm at its plush new shop on the ground floor of the Grosvenor Centre.
Spokeswoman Becky Adams said: “We want to help residents make films, showcase their work and discover new things about Northampton and the county.
“There’s free support and events to help people meet other filmmakers, learn new skills and make films.
Judges for the festival confirmed so far include legendary Northampton writer Alan Moore (Hell, League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, Jerusalem, The Show), director and photographer Mitch Jenkins (Show Pieces, The Show), and editor Colin Goudie (Rogue One, Monsters).
Although you may only use them for swimming or fishing, the oceans are some of the busiest thoroughfares on the planet. Fleets of tankers, cruisers, drilling platforms, and barges constantly criss-cross the globe via these aquatic highways, leaving string of pollution and environmental destruction in their wake. Regula...
Cryo is an autonomous robot with eight mechanical legs and a silicone balloon. Created by a team of engineers from Virginia Tech, the bot bears a striking resemblance to the jellyfish. Scientists believe this doppelganger could revolutionize the field of oceanographic surveillance, making waterways cleaner and safer.
Unlike its predecessor, RoboJelly, Cryo is powered by an advanced rechargeable nickel metal hydride battery. Right now the battery gets three to four hours of swimming time per charge, but researchers are working to change those hours into months. The much smaller RoboJelly took some of its power from ocean currents bu...
Cryo's body consists of a rigid support structure with direct current electric motors which control the mechanical arms that are used in conjunction with an artificial mesoglea, or jelly-based pulp of the fish's body, creating hydrodynamic movement.
Virginia Tech: Autonomous Robotic Jellyfish from virginiatech on Vimeo.
The size and weight of a grown man, 5 foot 7 inches in length and weighing 170 pounds, the Cryo is surprisingly lifelike and quite nimble in the water. In fact, you'd be hard pressed to pick it out of a jellyfish line up, which is why it has so much potential as an ocean sentry.
Both RoboJelly and Cryo are part of a multi-university, nationwide $5 million project funded by U.S. Naval Undersea Warfare Center and the Office of Naval Research. The goal is to place self-powering, autonomous machines in waters for the purposes of surveillance and monitoring the environment, in addition to other use...
Scientists believe this doppelganger could revolutionize the field of oceanographic surveillance, making waterways cleaner and safer.
A farewell to Armey. Plus: Orwell's cheap imitators; racial politics on the bayou.
Yes, al-Qaida and fascistic Islamism must be defeated. Yes, Stalin was a mass-murdering dictator. (Are we still arguing about this?) Yes, Saddam Hussein should be disarmed, at least, and deposed if he refuses to honor U.N. mandates.
As Michael Tomasky points out in an excellent entry on Altercation today, however, liberal columnists ought to avoid treating every dissent from White House foreign policy as equivalent to surrender. As Mike says, there are many millions of Americans "who are alarmed at the way things are going under this administratio...
At election time the ancient racial attitudes behind the GOP's Southern strategy abruptly emerge, just like acne erupting before the prom. The Republican Party of Louisiana, an organization whose "mainstream" candidates have been known to consort with David Duke, provides today's most instructive example. Featured on t...
The Louisiana Republican organization includes "mainstream" figures who buy mailing lists from David Duke, so racial polarization isn't a foreign tactic to them. Louisiana's multicandidate Senate race may not end on Nov. 5, because of the Bayou State's strange open-primary system. The Republicans are promoting two or t...
In the wake of Charlottesville, race and the fates of the state’s many Confederate monuments were front and center during the second Virginia gubernatorial debate between Republican Ed Gillespie and Lt. Gov. Ralph Northam.
MCLEAN, Va. — The second debate between the candidates running for Virginia governor was dominated by their plans to improve the state’s economy, but in the wake of Charlottesville, race and the fates of the state’s many Confederate monuments were also front and center.
During a civil but energetic debate, Republican Ed Gillespie and Lt. Gov. Ralph Northam, a Democrat, saved their sharpest words for the white supremacists whose Aug. 12 rally turned deadly.
The comments are similar to statements he’s made in the wake of the violent confrontation.
Gillespie also reiterated his view that the statues erected in the decades after the Civil War should remain in place, but with proper historical context. He also called for more statues to celebrate newer civic leaders like former Gov. Doug Wilder, the first black governor elected in any state.
Northam said such memorials allow groups like those who rallied in Charlottesville to “spew hatred and bigotry.” And although he would leave the decision to local communities to determine their future, he said he would prefer they would be relocated to museums.
He said allowing communities to discuss what the statues and figures mean and what legacy they intended also gives the state a chance to breathe after last month’s violence.
Both candidates were running a tight race in the run up to the second of three debates. The Northern Virginia Chamber of Commerce and the Schar School of Policy and Government at George Mason University organized the event, which was broadcast on NBC affiliates statewide.
Libertarian candidate Cliff Hyra attended but did not participate in the debate.
The race is the first major election in the year since President Donald Trump won office, and it is considered an early barometer of his presidency.
Northam said he was willing to work with Trump on expanding shipbuilding and protecting Naval Station Norfolk, and to end sequestration. But he tried to link his opponent to several of Trump’s policies that Northam attacked, including the travel ban and the end of an Obama-era program that allowed immigrants who came t...
“Pulling away from the Paris accord … Ed supports that as well — very detrimental to Virginia,” he said.
Gillespie has tried to sidestep Trump and run his own race. He told Republican voters, many of whom are still angry over the results of last November’s election, to look at his policies — all 17 of them are detailed on his website. And he pledged to serve all Virginians if elected.
Here’s video of their opening statements from WTOP’s TV news partner, NBC Washington.
Both men pledged to save Metro but neither is willing, at this point, to pony up more money for the ailing transit system. Neither would say whether they would take Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan up on his suggestion that all four jurisdictions — Maryland, Virginia, D.C. and the federal government — give the system an extra...
Both said they are hoping that former Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood’s final report to Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe provides answers on a path forward.
Although Northam said he won’t spend more money until the system’s challenges of safety and reliability are fixed, he said he would work with lawmakers in Richmond to make sure they understand how important Metro is, not just to Northern Virginia but to the whole state, comparing it to the Port of Virginia in Hampton R...
Convincing state legislators — who have historically shied away from raising taxes to pay for transportation — to support new funding for Metro will be a major hurdle for Virginia’s next governor.
Gillespie has attacked Northam for voting while in the Senate for a 2013 transportation package that increased the state sales tax, among other tax changes, and has pumped millions of new funding into state transportation programs. The law also gave Northern Virginia and Hampton Roads the ability to leverage some tax d...
Northam defended the state’s economy. He said since the McAuliffe administration took the helm, unemployment has dropped statewide to 3.8 percent.
But Gillespie decried what he described as the state’s anemic economic growth that’s led to Virginians leaving to seek jobs elsewhere.
He said Virginia must make it easier for existing small companies to grow and to stop focusing its economic development hopes on large employers, like Amazon, which is currently searching for the home of its new East Coast headquarters and bringing 50,000 jobs with it.
Northam chastised Gillespie for painting such a dour portrait of the state’s economy.
His economic plan focuses on expanding workforce training, modernizing public school curriculum to focus on science and technology, and to continue to build the state’s energy production – especially wind and solar power.
Alachua County officials are planning to ask voters this year to extend a sales tax to provide money for conservation land purchases and park improvements, the Gainesville Sun reports.
The local conservation community has been considering trying to gain support for a measure to extend the property tax for environmental lands that voters approved in 1994, but it may have to wait.
The authorization ended last year. The tax didn’t go away. In a bit of budgetary sleight of hand, commissioners essentially increased the property tax rate without seeming to by shifting what the environmental millage would pay for to other parts of the budget.
I don’t think it’s likely another referendum will occur until either 2018 or 2020, depending on the f ate of other tax referendum.
This year’s ballot is already booked with the measure to ask voters to extend the indigent health care sales tax.
The School Board wants to extend its sales tax for school construction, but until there’s a court ruling this summer, it’s unclear whether school officials will have to wait for the 2018 general election or be able to hold a special election in 2017.
That could be complicated if voters reject the indigent tax extension this year, which would send it to the 2018 ballot for another try.
Strategically, no one thinks it’s advisable to have two tax referendums on the same ballot. It appears 2020 is the first opportunity. The big question is whether three will still be opportunities to spend the money for worthwhile conservation projects by then.
One important advantage of having a local fund was that it could be used to match other funding sources.
County Manager Jim Freeman has pledged to include some money in future budgets that could be used as matching funds for any purchase opportunities that might arise, either for outright purchases or conservation easements.
At this point there’s no word on when the money would be available and how much would be budgeted.
In the meantime, the economy is improving and the bulldozers are moving again.
Lawrence Pezzullo, an American diplomat who brokered the 1979 resignation of Nicaraguan strongman Anastasio Somoza Debayle, whose family had ruled the country for more than four decades, died July 26 at his home in Baltimore. He was 91.
The cause was heart ailments, said a son, Ralph Pezzullo.
A career Foreign Service officer, Mr. Pezzullo was known as a straight-talking pragmatist, more interested in facilitating negotiations than relaying threats of military action — a fact that sometimes placed him at odds with his superiors in Washington.
He was serving as U.S. ambassador to Uruguay when President Jimmy Carter reassigned him to Nicaragua in April 1979. His predecessor in Managua, Mauricio Solaún, had abruptly resigned amid the escalating civil war between the left-wing Sandinista National Liberation Front and the Somoza government.
Somoza, a rotund five-star general known as El Jefe, had promised to “fight to the death” rather than relinquish the political power that his family had exerted since the late 1930s, when his father, head of Nicaragua’s National Guard, seized power and established the Somoza dynasty.
The family had long presented itself as a bulwark against communism in Central America, and long had the backing of the United States during the Cold War. But Carter began to make human rights a cornerstone of his foreign policy, and the Somoza family received strong criticism for its abuses.
The Nicaraguan National Guard had reportedly tortured civilians as part of its campaign against the Sandinista guerrilla fighters, and helicopters were dropping 500-pound bombs on shantytowns near Managua.
Mr. Pezzullo, a veteran diplomat with experience in Vietnam, Mexico, Bolivia, Colombia and Guatemala, was tasked with convincing Somoza to resign, thereby bringing the war to an end.
The country was led by Sandinista leader Daniel Ortega until free elections in 1990 handed power to the opposition. Ortega returned as president in 2007 and was reelected in 2011 and 2016.
Mr. Pezzullo initially sought to moderate the junta’s political views, plying it with planeloads of aid from Washington and insisting that he was there as a potential partner, not as an enemy.
And in a small yet powerful gesture at reconciliation, he moved out of the old ambassador’s residence, a hillside mansion that had long served as a symbol of U.S. dominance in the country. His son Ralph said that Mr. Pezzullo frequently hosted Sandinista leaders at his new, smaller home, imploring them to stop traffick...
He largely succeeded, with Nicaragua’s foreign minister calling him “the best U.S. ambassador to Nicaragua in this century.” Yet with the election of President Ronald Reagan in 1980, the State Department began to treat Nicaragua as a menace.
Months later, however, Mr. Pezzullo was replaced as ambassador. Reagan subsequently authorized the CIA to provide funding and arms to the contras, a group of conservative-aligned revolutionaries. The resulting conflict between the guerrillas and the government resulted in the deaths of more than 30,000 Nicaraguans and ...
Lawrence Anthony Pezzullo was born in the Bronx on May 3, 1926, to a family of immigrants from Italy. His father owned several New York City butcher shops and fruit stands.
Mr. Pezzullo graduated from Columbia University in 1951 with a bachelor’s degree in history and taught at a high school before entering the Foreign Service in 1957.
Survivors include his wife of 67 years, the former Josephine DiMattia of Baltimore and Naples, Fla.; three children, Ralph Pezzullo of Los Angeles and David Pezzullo and Susan Pezzullo Johnston, both of Naples; and seven grandchildren.
In 1983, Mr. Pezzullo became the first layman to lead Catholic Relief Services, the church’s foreign-aid arm in the United States.
He was credited by some with modernizing the organization, and in March 1993 was appointed special envoy to Haiti by newly elected President Bill Clinton, charged with coordinating the White House’s efforts to restore power to the country’s president, Jean-Bertrand Aristide.
Aristide had been ousted in a military coup the previous year, and some of his supporters had been killed or tortured. Mr. Pezzullo helped negotiate a United Nations agreement that granted amnesty to the soldiers and military leaders who committed the crimes, in exchange for Aristide’s return to power.
But the military failed to step aside, and Mr. Pezzullo was blasted by organizations such as Human Rights Watch and the National Coalition of Haitian Refugees, which described Mr. Pezzullo and the White House as contributing to a “reign of terror” in Haiti.
Mr. Pezzullo was forced to resign in April 1994, as the Clinton administration moved from a policy of negotiation to one of forceful intervention, with thousands of U.S. troops occupying the country for six months in 1994 and 1995.
Aristide was restored to the presidency, but the country’s political system ultimately devolved into chaos. Aristide was reelected in 2000, but there were allegations of electoral fraud, and he fled the country four years later during a second coup.
Correction: An earlier version of this story incorrectly reported the circumstances of Mr. Pezzullo’s departure from Catholic Relief Services. According to news accounts at the time, Mr. Pezzullo resigned as executive director in March 1993 to become the U.S. special envoy to Haiti. He was not forced out because of con...
In a move that gave us "American Idol" finale flashbacks, country crooner Curtis Grimes and rock rebel Emily Valentine shocked "The Voice" judges (and America) with a passionate kiss as they put an end to their Tuesday night battle.
The pair, who belonged to Cee Lo Green's team, shared a surprising smooch as a conclusion to the romantic Lady Antebellum hit, "Need You Now."
Watch the video to see the entire performance, complete with Curtis and Emily's kiss.
"The Voice" airs Tuesday nights on NBC.
This was a track meet with no ordinary highlight.
The best performance, by far, did involve running and jumping and teamwork, though. Along with wonderful bravery.
Three shot-putting members of Germantown High's track team, along with an opponent from West Philadelphia, yesterday saved a woman from a house fire that broke out shortly after 3 p.m. on East Gorgas Lane near Baldwin Street, across the street from Germantown's track-football stadium. Fire officials said the one-alarm ...
Stephany Tate-Yancey, who coaches the Bears' boys' and girls' teams, said the four youths - Dwyne Hall, Sherrod Graham and Jerome Plant of Germantown, and Kyle Young of West Philadelphia - were just beginning competition in the southeast corner of the stadium when thick, black smoke could be seen pouring out of the hou...
"There was a lot of commotion. It was really scary," Tate-Yancey said. "These young men just took off running. They scaled the fence [about 8 feet high] and went right over. No hesitation.
"I'm so proud of them. You hear so many negative things about Germantown and West Philly. And here are these kids, risking their lives."
Hall said the woman they helped was elderly.
Tate-Yancey was under the impression the woman had a prosthesis.
"I didn't notice that, and I didn't hear about that," Hall said. "But if so, God bless her."

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