Local riders raise awareness for motorcycle safety
Syracuse Police say the likelihood of a motorcycle crash happening increases around May each year. Sgt. Blake says motorcycle crashes happen in the city every year, and at least one person dies as a result.
'If operated improperly, motorcycles can be dangerous. We have to remember to be very responsible, not only when we're on the motorcycle but also on the road and observing folks that are riding motorcycles,' said Syracuse Police Sgt. Tom Blake. 'It is both the rider's responsibility and the responsibility of those sharing the road with motorcycles as well to make sure everyone is being safe.'
Members of Hades Hounds LEMC in Syracuse are also raising awareness about motorcycle safety.
'We try to keep our bikes up to par, inspected all the new parts and everything and most motorcyclists, except maybe some of the crotch rocket guys, are pretty safety conscious. We want to live another day,' said Lawrence Barnes, a member of Hades Hounds.
Barnes, an 82-year-old veteran, said he's been riding his motorcycle since 1996. Despite some of the dangers that come with motorcycling, Barnes doesn't plan on stopping anytime soon.
'We try to keep our bikes up to par, inspected all the new parts and everything and most motorcyclists, except maybe some of the crotch rocket guys, are pretty safety conscious. We want to live another day,' said Barnes.
Making safety their first priority.
'As long as you maintain your bike, do proper maintenance on your bike, that's pretty much where safety comes in,' said Kurt Sorensen, founder of Hades Hounds LEMC.
Hades Hounds says wearing a motorcycle helmet that's DOT approved isn't just a law in New York state. But it can also save your life.
'Other states have options where you can ride with a helmet and without a helmet. If I had my choice, I would wear a helmet, just simply because you don't get a second chance,' said Sorensen.
'Keep in mind, about 50 percent of the fatalities occur with people who are not wearing motorcycle helmets,' said Blake.
More motorcycle safety tips can be found here.
Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Yahoo
3 days ago
- Yahoo
Passenger on F-15 ride-along ejected on runway, video shows
An F-15D Eagle flight that was apparently intended to be a reward for hard work ended up not getting off the ground, when its passenger was ejected while the fighter was still on the flight line. The video, posted Wednesday on the unofficial Air Force amn/nco/snco Facebook page, shows the immediate aftermath of the unusual on-the-ground ejection, as an F-15 from the 104th Fighter Wing at Barnes Air National Guard Base in Massachusetts slowly rolls down the flight line, away from a plume of smoke that was left behind by the ejection. The unfortunate airman who seconds before was its passenger, who the video's caption identifies as a recruiting officer for the wing, can be seen next to the flight line, seemingly struggling to his feet. Smoke left over from the ejection also trails out of the F-15's rear seat. According to a report by The War Zone, the 104th said the ground mishap occurred Tuesday afternoon and prompted a 36-hour safety standdown of all flight operations, which has now ended. There were apparently no injuries caused by the unexpected ejection, although one service member was sent to the hospital for an evaluation, the 104th said. The incident is now being investigated, the 104th said. Incentive flights like Tuesday's are regular occurrences, typically offered as a reward for service members who excelled at their job. On-the-ground ejections, however, are rare — but not unheard of. In 2019, a civilian going on a fly-along with the French Air Force was ejected from a Rafale B fighter jet during takeoff, injuring his back but not causing more serious harm. And in December 2022, an F-35B pilot conducting a quality check on a new jet was forced to punch out of the jet at ground level when its engine failed in a dramatic and alarming way. Video of that crash showed the fighter hovering close to the ground and descending, then bouncing, tipping forward and spinning around with its nose and wing touching the ground before the ejection. That incident led to a months-long delivery halt of new F-35s as engine manufacturer Pratt & Whitney looked for a way to fix the engine vibration problem that led to that crash. Tuesday's mishap at the 104th, however, seems to have primarily prompted jokes and memes on web pages such as amn/nco/snco. One video, captioned 'The Simpsons predicted the future once again' and shared by the Facebook page Thursday shows the character Milhouse sitting in the cockpit of an F-15 at an air show, angrily pretending to conduct strafing runs and stabbing at the jet's controls — until he hits the wrong button and sends his ejection seat flying through the air. Solve the daily Crossword
Time Magazine
28-07-2025
- Time Magazine
A Woman Says She Was Denied Prenatal Care For Being Unmarried
A pregnant woman in Tennessee said her doctor declined to treat her because she's unmarried, citing a newly enacted state law that broadly allows health care providers to refuse to perform or pay for a service if it goes against their religious or ethical beliefs. At a town hall earlier this month, the 35-year-old woman said she's been with her partner for 15 years, though they're not married. When she had her first visit with her provider after she found out she was pregnant, she recalled, the provider said 'they were not comfortable treating me because I am an unwed mother and that goes against their Christian values.' 'I'm traveling to Virginia for my prenatal care, scared out of my mind that I will go into labor and have to deliver in this state with a provider who feels that that child's life is more valuable than mine,' she said. 'While we do love and want this child, I also have a 13-year-old and I can't leave her behind.' The woman, whose remarks at the town hall can be seen in a widely shared video, later spoke with TN Repro News on the condition of anonymity due to concerns of retaliation, saying that she fears being pregnant in her home state because of its near-total ban on abortion. She also told the outlet that she has filed complaints regarding the provider who denied her care with the Department of Commerce and Insurance and the American Medical Association. Tennessee's Medical Ethics Defense Act went into effect in April. The law 'prohibits a healthcare provider from being required to participate in, or pay for, a healthcare procedure, treatment, or service that violates the conscience of the healthcare provider.' It applies to doctors, health care institutions, and insurance companies, among others. So-called 'conscience' clauses have been considered or enacted in a number of U.S. states. These clauses have typically been quite narrow and tended to focus on a specific service, like abortion. But health law experts say that some states have, in recent years, been passing what they call very broad conscience laws, like the one in Tennessee, which they warn could lead to care denials for a wide range of health care services. 'It was exactly what I feared,' Valarie Blake, a professor at the University of Tennessee Winston College of Law, says about the story of the woman being denied prenatal care. 'Because what the law does is it essentially allows any health care professional, very broadly defined, to refuse care based on their ethical or moral beliefs for any kind of service, and there's really no limitations to that,' with very narrow exceptions. Blake says that 'there is nothing to stop a health care professional from denying care on any basis at all that they see as conflicting with their moral or ethical beliefs' under this new law—whether that be objections to providing reproductive care, or other factors, such as marital status, obesity, poverty, diet, cigarette use, or vaccination status. The law stipulates that a patient can't be denied care for services mandated under federal law, such as the Emergency Medical Treatment and Labor Act (EMTALA), which requires hospitals that receive Medicare dollars to provide stabilizing treatment to patients who are experiencing medical emergencies or transfer them to a hospital that can provide that care. But Blake says that's a narrow exception, since EMTALA only applies to patients in those emergency situations. Reproductive rights experts have also criticized the effectiveness of exceptions of this kind; many people have filed complaints against hospitals in states with abortion bans, alleging that they were denied care even while experiencing pregnancy complications, in violation of EMTALA. The Tennessee law was backed by the Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF), a conservative Christian and anti-abortion legal advocacy group. After Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee signed the bill into law, ADF Senior Counsel Greg Chafuen praised the move, saying in a statement that 'doctors and nurses have been targeted for caring for their patients by refraining from harmful and dangerous procedures' and claiming that the Act 'ensures that health care professionals are not forced to participate in procedures that violate their ethical, moral, or religious beliefs.' Mary Ziegler, a professor at the University of California, Davis School of Law, says she doesn't think the people behind the Tennessee law intended for it to be so far-reaching, but 'if you write a law this broad, you will discover lots of people who are involved in health care have all kinds of objections to all kinds of things.' Experts fear that the Medical Ethics Defense Act will make it even more difficult to access care at a time when the health care system is already facing a number of challenges. Many pregnant people living under abortion restrictions have been forced to travel across state lines to access care since Roe v. Wade was overturned in 2022. President Donald Trump's 'Big Beautiful Bill,' which he signed into law on July 4, includes sweeping cuts to Medicaid and is projected to cause millions of people to become uninsured by 2034. Rural hospitals across the country have been shutting down or fighting to stay open, leaving many community members struggling to access care. Read More: 'An Exodus of OB-GYNs': How the Dobbs Decision Has Shaken the Reproductive Health Landscape 'Tennessee is a place that has already banned abortion. There have been hospital closures. It ranks as one of the highest states with maternal mortality in the country,' says Israel Cook, legislative counsel at the Center for Reproductive Rights. 'I think [the law] is just pushing health care out of reach for so many people. Abortion care, prenatal care, postpartum care, all of these reproductive health care [services] are standard health care that should be accessible and available for everyone.' Health law experts say the 35-year-old woman's story was the first example they've heard of a care denial under the new law—but that they fear there may be more. 'I do think that it's only a matter of time before we hear more and more of these stories,' Blake says.
Boston Globe
21-07-2025
- Boston Globe
Bees have some ways to cope with a warming Earth, but researchers fear for their future
Get Love Letters: The Newsletter A weekly dispatch with all the best relationship content and commentary – plus exclusive content for fans of Love Letters, Dinner With Cupid, weddings, therapy talk, and more. Enter Email Sign Up 'Just like we go into the shade, or we sweat or we might work less hard, bees actually do the exact same thing so they can avoid the heat,' said Jon Harrison, an environmental physiologist at Arizona State University and one of the study's authors. Advertisement But that means the bees aren't able to do what they normally do, said Kevin McCluney, a biology professor at Bowling Green State University. 'They're not going out and getting more nectar. They're not mating. They're not doing the things that bees would otherwise do,' McCluney said. Heat is just one challenge for critical pollinator Generally, most bees are heat-tolerant, but as the climate warms, some experts think their ability to fend off disease and gather food might become harder. And habitat loss, increased use of pesticides, diseases and lack of forage for both managed and wild bees are all listed as potential contributors to the global decline of bees and other pollinators. Advertisement 'If you're not well-fed, and your body is intoxicated with pesticides and you have lots of diseases in your body, you're going to be less heat-tolerant than if you were healthy,' said Margarita López-Uribe, a pollinator health expert at Pennsylvania State University. Earlier this year, preliminary results from the annual U.S. Beekeeping Survey found that beekeepers lost almost 56% of their managed colonies, the highest loss since the survey started in 2010. Almost all of the managed honeybee colonies in the U.S. are used to pollinate agricultural crops such as almonds, apples, cherries and blueberries. Fewer pollinators can lead to less pollination and potentially lower yields. 'It's a very fragile system if you think about it,' López-Uribe said. 'Because if something goes wrong, you have these super high-value crops that won't get enough bees for pollination.' Losing hives at Honeyrun Farms Back at Barnes' hives in Ohio, thousands of honeybees fly around as he gathers boxes to take back to his farm for honey production. Nearby, a couple of his bees land on milkweed flowers, a rare bit of plant diversity in an area dominated by corn and soybean fields. For Barnes, who operates Honeyrun Farm with his wife, Jayne, one of the challenges heat can pose to his 500 honeybee hives is fending off parasitic mites that threaten the bees. If temperatures get too hot, he can't apply formic acid, an organic chemical that kills the mites. If it's applied when it's too hot, the bees could die. Advertisement Last year they lost almost a third of the 400 hives they sent to California to help pollinate commercial almond groves. Barnes thinks those hives may have been in poor health ahead of pollination because they were unable to ward off mites when it was hot months earlier. 'Dead hives aren't pollinating the almonds,' he said. 'It's a real ripple effect that stems back from the heat in the summertime.' Sometimes the heat helps. Here in Ohio, Barnes' hives last summer produced a bumper crop of honey as they feasted on nearby soybean nectar as the plants bloomed in the heat. Still, the lack of diverse plants for bees to forage in an area dominated by corn and soybean fields isn't ideal. And even the native blooms are appearing erratically, Barnes said. In autumn, his bees search for food on goldenrod, but those blooms are appearing later. And even then, he has supplemented his hive with additional food to keep them healthy into the winter. 'Every single plant that blooms is something that the bee can use,' Barnes said. 'And every single plant is affected by climate change.' Research that may aid bees is in peril It's only in the last decade that people have become aware of the magnitude of the pollinator decline globally, said Harrison, of Arizona State University. Data is limited on how much climate change and heat stress is contributing to pollinator decline. 'It's a relatively new focus for biology,' he said. 'I think it's super important, but it's not being studied a ton.' The Trump administration's proposed budget would eliminate the research program that funds the USGS Bee Lab, which supports the inventory, monitoring and natural history of the nation's wild bees. Other grants for bee research are also in jeopardy. Advertisement U.S. Sen. Jeff Merkley of Oregon said America's pollinators are in 'grave danger,' and he'll fight for the federal funding. Pollinators contribute to the health of the planet, the crops we grow and the food we eat, he said. 'Rather than taking bold action to protect them, the Trump administration has proposed a reckless budget that would zero out funding for critical research aimed at saving important pollinators,' he said in a statement to The Associated Press. Harrison said his research on this topic would come to a halt if cuts are made to his federal funding, and it would be more difficult in general for scientists to study the disappearance of bees and other pollinators and improve how they prevent these losses. Not being able to manage these pollinator deaths could cause the price of fruits, vegetables, nuts, coffee and chocolate to jump or become scarce. 'Hopefully, even if such research is defunded in the U.S., such research will continue in Europe and China, preventing these extreme scenarios,' said Harrison. ___ The Associated Press' climate and environmental coverage receives financial support from multiple private foundations. AP is solely responsible for all content. Find AP's standards for working with philanthropies, a list of supporters and funded coverage areas at
