Author: CNN Newsource

By Adam Thompson, Tara Lynch

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    BALTIMORE (WJZ) — Baltimore’s Leakin Park will be closed off during the evenings and overnights until March 19 as sharpshooters from the U.S. Department of Agriculture kill deer to reduce the city’s deer population.

Baltimore City officials say deer are overpopulated in the city. The city’s deer management program will target three parks this month.

Sharpshooters will kill off more than 100 deer in Leakin Park. The park will be closed from 4 p.m. until 7 a.m. on March 9 through March 19.

Volunteers and the Baltimore City Police Department will help to clear the park so the sharpshooters can work.

Druid Hill Park in Northwest Baltimore and Herring Park in East Baltimore will follow.

The meat harvested from this operation will be donated to the Maryland Food Bank, and is estimated to create 40,000 meals.

“This problem has been going on for decades. We’ve let it go for far too long,” said Shane Boehne, leader of the city’s deer management program.

Baltimore City Rec and Parks said the deer population in parts of the city can be more than 20 times higher than what is considered normal for a forested area.

Overall, the goal is to bring the deer population to 20 per square mile.

“If you’re able to bring it down to that 20 deer per square mile, and if you basically go hands off for a little while, you’ll have an increase back in the population. So we have to do constant management,” Boehne said.

The project is expected to make the parks healthier as part of its effort to increase the tree canopy.

“In this era of rapid change, we want to have stable, resilient ecosystems, especially forested ecosystems,” said Jerry Burges, the Johns Hopkins University Environmental Science and Studies Director. “They give us all sorts of services. But if you even value small things, like seeing a variety of birds, that’s often an important thing for residents. In areas where we have really high deer densities, we see the disappearance of certain bird species.”

Baltimore officials say sharpshooting was chosen as the method because it is cost-effective and less disruptive to surrounding communities.

“The whole point of sharp shooting is to kill these deer on impact,” Boehne said. “We don’t want to spook, spook these deer and make them flee the area and go out into residential areas.”

Baltimore City residents have raised concerns over the city’s deer-kill plan, which includes a less harsh method.

“I’m more of one who believes in taking a balanced approach, maybe sharp shooting is a percentage of how we get to the attrition, but maybe there are other modest and milder methods,” said Linda Batts, with the Hanlon Improvement Association.

“When we talk about disadvantaged and marginalized communities, we’re talking about changing the economic mainstream, eliminating the long standing effects of redlining that have some communities impoverished and without their basic needs, while other communities are living their best lives and have access to goods and services and the economics that make them thrive.”

Please note: This story was provided to CNN Wire by an affiliate and does not contain original CNN reporting. This content carries a strict local market embargo. If you share the same market as the contributor of this article, you may not use it on any platform.

By La’Tasha Givens

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    DUNWOODY, Georgia (WUPA) — For many students, the morning routine can become mundane. But a group of fathers known as the Hero Dads at Dunwoody Springs Elementary School welcome students with music, hugs, and high-fives, getting them excited about the day ahead.

Dressed in costumes and armed with portable speakers, these fathers have taken over the carpool lane to ensure students, parents, and teachers start their day with a smile.

They started 15 years ago with the goal of giving hardworking teachers the morning off and breaking up the monotony of the school week.

“The teachers do a lot of hard work; they get here early in the morning,” said Adewale Odetunde, a Hero Dad known to the students as “Dynomo the Dolphin.” “We try to make carpool a little bit fun for them, for the kids, and the parents.”

“It brings up the energy for the kids as they’re coming into school,” Odetunde said. “They jumped out the car and gave me a high five… they were very excited to see us this morning.”

Over the past 15 years, Hero Dad Elston Nesbitt has seen four of his own children pass through Dunwoody Springs Elementary.

“It’s absolutely great because my kids get to participate in that same thing too,” Nesbitt shared. “My kids get to see that other dads care about kids as much as I do.”

The Hero Dads have become such a staple of the school culture that students now frequently request their presence at other school events to “get the party started.”

Please note: This story was provided to CNN Wire by an affiliate and does not contain original CNN reporting. This content carries a strict local market embargo. If you share the same market as the contributor of this article, you may not use it on any platform.

By Matteo Iadonisi

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    OCEAN CITY, New Jersey (WPVI) — Affectionately known as Ocean City’s ‘Number One Beach Bum,’ 90-year-old Earl Paul has counted more than 10,000 visits to the beach.

Paul and his wife, Catherine, had moved to Ocean City in the 1990s following his four-decade career as a pipe fitter. Unfortunately, Catherine passed away just a couple years later.

Paul visited the beach to find healing. After some time, he became determined to visit each and every day possible.

Nearly three decades later, Paul has counted more than 10,000 days on the beach. He says it’s easy to make the trip, only being a short walk from his home in Ocean City.

And he has no plans to stop visiting.

Please note: This story was provided to CNN Wire by an affiliate and does not contain original CNN reporting. This content carries a strict local market embargo. If you share the same market as the contributor of this article, you may not use it on any platform.

By Bryanna Gallagher

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    PHILADELPHIA (WPVI) — A small business in Center City Philadelphia is trying to figure out how hundreds of containers of French onion dip it never ordered ended up outside its storefront.

MacMart, a mac and cheese kiosk at the corner of 18th and Arch streets, received a large delivery of “Heluva Good” French onion dip.

“So you’re telling me I have 600 containers of Heluva Good French onion dip…” said Marti Lieberman, co-owner and operator of MacMart.

Lieberman said the unexpected shipment followed what initially appeared to be a routine promotional inquiry.

“A few weeks ago, I got an email from a promotional company based out of Australia,” she said.

She said the message did not seem unusual at first because the business has done promotional work in the past, but she got concerned after more emails were sent.

“As things progressed, there were red flags,” Lieberman said.

She eventually responded that she would take a sample to see whether the product would be a good fit and then blocked the email. Despite that, messages continued. Weeks later, a delivery arrived.

“I get a really nice man at the door, he says, ‘Hi honey, I have your cases,'” she recalled.

Lieberman shared the unusual situation, which she referred to as a “dip gate” scandal, on Instagram and tagged the “Heluva Good” brand.

While transporting the dip to her commissary, she said she heard directly from the company.

“I get a DM from Heluva Good dip saying, ‘Stop what you’re doing, we don’t know where this came from,'” Lieberman said.

She said the company told her it needed to conduct an internal investigation. About 24 hours later, she learned the product likely came from a third-party company that needed to get rid of the stock.

“Heluva Good dips has no affiliation with how this all went down. We appreciate the humor that all of our followers and everyone in the city has been able to find in this,” she said.

Lieberman also said she was told another female-owned and operated business in Philadelphia apparently received the same delivery, though the identity of that business remains a mystery.

Please note: This story was provided to CNN Wire by an affiliate and does not contain original CNN reporting. This content carries a strict local market embargo. If you share the same market as the contributor of this article, you may not use it on any platform.

By Ryan Lovell

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    TUSCALOOSA, Alabama (WVTM) — Two formerly University of Alabama-sponsored student magazines that were suspended by the administration will be independently published under new names.

Alice and Nineteen Fifty-Six were university-affiliated student magazines shut down following a memo from U.S. Department of Justice Attorney General Pam Bondi on anti-discrimination laws and diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) policies regarding “proxy organizations.”

The memo followed executive orders from the Trump administration that targeted ending DEI practices in the public and private sectors, specifically places that receive federal funding, which later affected both publications because Alice was geared toward women and Nineteen Fifty-Six focused on highlighting people of color.

An independent alumni organization, MASTHEAD (Media Alumni Seeking to Highlight Equity and Diversity), later stepped up to fundraise to help publish the publications independently of the university, an effort that proved successful.

The two publications later resurfaced as Sixty-Three (formerly Nineteen Fifty-Six) and Selene (formerly Alice), both keeping the missions they held when they were university-sponsored.

Both organizations released statements in recent days after resurfacing.

Sixty-Three said, in part, “Sixty-Three stands on the shoulders of giants. In 1956, Autherine Lucy was the first Black student to attend the University of Alabama and seven years later, in 1963, Vivian Malone and James Hood were the first Black students to enroll at the university. Just as 1963 could not have happened without 1956; Sixty-Three would not have been possible without Nineteen Fifty-Six.”

Selene, getting its name from the mythological Greek goddess of the moon, also said:

“While having been founded by and for college-aged women, Selene welcomes all readers into her audience regardless of gender, and her staff finds it imperative to the magazine’s mission that we uplift marginalized voices and stories. Selene is for everyone as we all deserve a place in journalism despite what administrations and the wider culture may say, and she will always hold true to progressive values.”

WVTM 13 reached out to the University of Alabama for comment and has not heard back.

Please note: This story was provided to CNN Wire by an affiliate and does not contain original CNN reporting. This content carries a strict local market embargo. If you share the same market as the contributor of this article, you may not use it on any platform.