Monthly Archives: April 2017

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HAZELGREEN, Mo. – Floodwaters from the Gasconade River are expected to close the westbound lanes of Interstate …

• Scott Dixon finishes fifth, Tony Kanaan sixth in first short-oval race of 2017
• Opening lap crash eliminates five Honda drivers
• Separate incidents end the race for Ryan Hunter-Reay, Alexander Rossi and Takuma Sato

AVONDALE, Ariz. – Chip Ganassi Racing teammates Scott Dixon and Tony Kanaan led the way for Honda Saturday night at Phoenix International Raceway, finishing fifth and sixth, respectively, in a Verizon IndyCar Series race that saw five Honda drivers eliminated in an opening-lap crash, and three more fall by the wayside prior to the checkers.

A spin by Mikhail Aleshin as the field funneled into the first turn triggered a series of collisions that also ended the night for Marco Andretti, Sebastien Bourdais, Graham Rahal and Max Chilton.  Dixon and Kanaan both avoided the melee and remained in the top six the rest of the night, but were unable to move up any further during the 250-lap contest.

In a third Ganassi Honda, Charlie Kimball enjoyed a trouble-free run to move from 14th at the start to finish eighth, while Dale Coyne Racing’s Ed Jones continued his run of impressive rookie efforts to end the night 11th.

James Hinchcliffe avoided the Lap 1 crash, and ran as high as fifth for Schmidt Peterson Motorsports, but was forced to make a late-race stop for fuel and dropped to 12th at the checkers. 

Ryan Hunter-Reay fell to the back of the field after he cut a tire driving over debris in the first-lap crash, recovered to run as high as 10th, but later dropped out with suspension damage after contacting the wall on Lap 212.  Separate wall contacts also ended the race for Hunter-Reay’s Andretti Autosport teammates, Takuma Sato and Alexander Rossi.

Video recaps from this weekend’s race at Phoenix International Raceway are being posted on the „Honda Racing/HPD” YouTube channel. In addition to Honda Racing’s Indy car activities, video highlights of the Acura Motorsports NSX GT3s of RealTime Racing at Virginia International Raceway in the first „Sprint-X” event of the Pirelli World Championship will also be posted on the site.  Produced by the Carolinas Production Group, the video packages can be found at: https://www.youtube.com/HondaRacingHPDTV.

The Verizon IndyCar Series now heads „home” to the Indianapolis Motor Speedway for „Month of May” activities, including the May 13 Grand Prix of Indianapolis road race and the May 28 101st running of the Indianapolis 500.  Both races will be broadcast live on ABC.

Scott Dixon (#9 Chip Ganassi Racing Honda) started 8th, finished 5th: „Obviously, it was a tough night for the NTT DATA car, and all the Honda entries, I think. The other guys had a leg up on us here and they showed that tonight. We tried to keep our nose clean, but just didn’t have anything for them tonight. Hopefully, we can get some momentum back at the Grand Prix of Indy next month.”

Tony Kanaan (#10 Chip Ganassi Racing Honda) started 6th, finished 6th: „We knew coming into this weekend that it was going to be a difficult one for us. Eric [Cowdin, race team engineer] gave me a stellar car, but we just couldn’t get it done. We have good cars heading into next month, so we’ll just refocus on the Month of May and hopefully, get the results we’ve been wanting all year.”

James Hinchcliffe (#5 Schmidt Peterson Motorsports Honda) Started 11th, finished 12th: „Certainly not the end result we were hoping for. For us, the race started pretty decent. But we ended up having to stop a whole lot earlier than the other cars, and we just weren’t getting the [fuel] mileage. Even though it gained us positions early on, ultimately, we had to come in for a splash [of fuel]-and-go, which cost a couple spots. It’s too bad; I think we could have had a solid top-10 finish. The Arrow Electronics car was the strongest that we’ve had here between last year, the test and now; it was a really good car. Unfortunately, the mileage situation really deterred us today. We’ll head into the Month of May [in Indianapolis] and see what we can do!”

Art St. Cyr (President, Honda Performance Development) on tonight’s race: „It seems like we just couldn’t get a break tonight, starting with the opening-lap crash that took out five of our cars, and right on through to the late-race yellow that put three of our best cars one lap down.  Thanks to Scott Dixon and Tony Kanaan for hanging tough throughout the race, and never giving up.  This is one to put behind us as we look forward to the Month of May and the Indianapolis 500.”

Verizon IndyCar Series Desert Diamond West Valley Phoenix Grand Prix Circuit:              Phoenix International Raceway (1.0-mile oval) Avondale, Ariz. 2016 Winner:    Scott Dixon (Chip Ganassi Racing) 139.822 mph average Weather:           Clear, mild, 74 degrees F

Top-10 Race Results:

Fn.	St.	Driver	Team	Manufacturer	Laps	Notes
1.	5.	Simon Pagenaud	Team Penske	Chevrolet	250	144.058  mph average speed
2.	2.	Will Power	Team Penske	Chevrolet	250	+9.1028 seconds
3.	3.	JR Hildebrand	Ed Carpenter Racing	Chevrolet	250
4.	1.	Helio Castroneves	Team Penske	Chevrolet	250
5.	8.	Scott Dixon	Chip Ganassi Racing	Honda	249	Running
6.	6.	Tony Kanaan	Chip Ganassi Racing	Honda	249	Running
7.	21.	Ed Carpenter	Ed Carpenter Racing	Chevrolet	248	Running
8.	14.	Charlie Kimball	Chip Ganassi Racing	Honda	248	Running
9.	3.	Josef Newgarden	Team Penske	Chevrolet	248	Running
10.	19.	Carlos Munoz	A.J. Foyt Racing	Chevrolet	247	Running

Other Honda Results

11.	16.	Ed Jones-R	Dale Coyne Racing	Honda	247	Running
12.	11.	James Hinchcliffe	Schmidt Peterson Mtspts	Honda	247	Running
13.	12.	Ryan Hunter-Reay	Andretti Autosport	Honda	220	Did not finish – suspension
15.	15.	Alexander Rossi	Andretti Autosport	Honda	141	Did not finish – suspension
16.	18.	Takuma Sato	Andretti Autosport	Honda	135	Did not finish – crash
17.	7.	Mikhail Aleshin	Schmidt Peterson Mtspts	Honda	0	Did not finish – crash
18.	9.	Marco Andretti	Andretti Autosport	Honda	0	Did not finish – crash
19.	10.	Sebastien Bourdais	Dale Coyne Racing	Honda	0	Did not finish – crash
20.	13.	Max Chilton	Chip Ganassi Racing	Honda	0	Did not finish – crash
21.	17.	Graham Rahal	Rahal Letterman Lanigan	Honda	0	Did not finish – crash

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iCrowdNewswire – Apr 30, 2017

Dr. Mark Bynoe, senior environment and resource economist with the Belize-based Caribbean Community Climate Change Centre (CCCCC). Credit: Desmond Brown/IPS

By Desmond Brown
KINGSTON, Jamaica, Apr 30 2017 (IPS)

Climate change remains inextricably linked to the challenges of disaster risk reduction (DRR). And according to the head of the United Nations Office for Disaster Risk Reduction (UNISDR), Robert Glasser, the reduction of greenhouse gases is “the single most urgent global disaster risk treatment”.

Glasser was addressing the Fifth Regional Platform for Disaster Risk Reduction (DRR) in the Americas. Held recently in Montreal, the gathering included more than 1,000 delegates from 50 countries, including the Caribbean.“We see disaster risk reduction and climate change adaptation as two sides of the same coin.” –Dr. Mark Bynoe

“We recognise that reducing greenhouse gas emissions is arguably the single most urgent global disaster risk treatment, because without those efforts our other efforts to reduce many hazards and the risks those pose to communities would be overwhelmed over the longer term,” Glasser said.

The conference, hosted by the Canadian government in cooperation with UNISDR marked the first opportunity for governments and stakeholders of the Americas to discuss and agree on a Regional Action Plan to support the implementation of the Sendai Framework for DRR 2015-2030.

The Sendai Framework is the first major agreement of the post-2015 development agenda, with seven targets and four priorities for action. It was endorsed by the UN General Assembly following the 2015 Third UN World Conference on Disaster Risk Reduction (WCDRR). The Framework is a 15-year, voluntary non-binding agreement which recognises that the state has the primary role to reduce disaster risk but that responsibility should be shared with other stakeholders including local government, the private sector and other stakeholders.

“The regional plan of action you will adopt . . . will help and guide national and local governments in their efforts to strengthen the links between the 2030 agenda for Climate Change Adaptation and Disaster Risk Reduction as national and local DRR strategies are developed and further refined in line with the Sendai Framework priorities over the next four years,” Glasser said.

The Caribbean is a minute contributor to global greenhouse gas emissions but will be among the most severely impacted.

The region is already experiencing its impacts with more frequent extreme weather events such as the 2013 rain event in the Eastern Caribbean, extreme drought across the region with severe consequences in several countries; the 2005 flooding in Guyana and Belize in 2010.

Inaction for the Caribbean region is very costly. An economic analysis focused on three areas – increased hurricane damages, loss of tourism revenue and infrastructure – revealed damages could cost the region 10.7 billion dollars by 2025. That’s more than the combined Gross Domestic Product (GDP) of all the member countries of the Organisation of Eastern Caribbean States (OECS).

At the Montreal conference, Head of the Caribbean Disaster Emergency Management Agency (CDEMA) Ronald Jackson was a panelist in a forum discussing the linkages between disaster risk reduction, climate change and sustainable development. He said the region needs to marry its indigenous solutions to disaster risk management with modern technology.

“We’ve recognised that in the old days, our fore parents…had to deal with flood conditions and they survived them very well. There were simple things in terms of how they pulled their beds and other valuables out of the flood space in the house in particular. This contributed to their surviving the storms with minimal loss,” Jackson said.

“That knowledge of having to face those adverse conditions and surviving them and coping through them and being able to bounce back to where they were before, that was evident in our society in the past. It has subsequently disappeared.”

CDEMA is a regional inter-governmental agency for disaster management in the Caribbean Community (CARICOM). The Agency was established in 1991 with primary responsibility for the coordination of emergency response and relief efforts to participating states that require such assistance.

Another regional agency, the Belize-based Caribbean Community Climate Change Centre (CCCCC) is collaborating with other agencies on the Caribbean Risk Management Initiative (CRMI).

The CRMI aims to provide a platform for sharing the experiences and lessons learned between different sectors across the Caribbean in order to facilitate improved disaster risk reduction.

“We see disaster risk reduction and climate change adaptation as two sides of the same coin because to the extent we are able to enhance disaster risk reduction we are also beginning to adapt to climate change,” Dr. Mark Bynoe, the CCCCC’s senior environment and resource economist said.

He explained that there are a range of activities carried out specifically in terms of climate adaptation that will also have a disaster risk reduction element.

“We are looking at enhancing water security within a number of our small island states. One of the things we are focusing on there is largely to produce quality water through the use of reverse osmosis systems but we’re utilizing a renewable energy source. So, on the one hand we are also addressing adaptation and mitigation.”

Meantime, CCCCC’s Deputy Executive Director Dr. Ulric Trotz said the agency is rolling out a series of training workshops in 10 countries to share training tools that were developed with the aim of assisting in the generation of scientific information and analysis to help in making informed decisions. These include the Weather Generator (WG), the Tropical Storm Model/ Simple Model for the Advection of Storms and Hurricanes (SMASH), and the Caribbean Drought Assessment Tool (CARiDRO).

The training will target key personnel whose focus are in areas of agriculture, water resources, coastal zone management, health, physical planning or disaster risk reduction.

“The CARIWIG [Caribbean Weather Impacts Group] tool is a critical tool in that it more or less localizes the projection so that for instance, you can actually look at climate projections for the future in a watershed in St. Kitts and Nevis. It localizes that information and it makes it much more relevant to the local circumstance,” said Dr. Trotz.

Training and application of the tools will allow decision-makers to better understand the potential impacts of drought, tropical storms, and rainfall and temperature changes. When combined with other data and information, they can help to build a picture of potential impacts to key economic sectors in the various countries.

LOS ANGELES, April 30, 2017 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — Dog owners should understand the importance of getting their dogs vaccinated to prevent canine influenza and avoid potential deaths of beloved pets. After recent outbreaks of canine influenza in LA and that in Chicago last year, Hancock Park Veterinary Clinic recommends that vaccination should be a priority for pet owners. Dogs need to get both doses of the vaccine, three weeks apart, to benefit from full protection against the influenza virus. While there currently isn’t any indication that canine influenza will result in an epidemic in LA, dog owners need to know how to take steps to protect their pet from contracting the virus and associated infection.
Canine influenza is highly contagious and often results in a potentially deadly infection from the virus. On March 31, 2017, Veterinary Public Health was alerted to the possibility of a respiratory outbreak in imported dogs that had tested positive for canine influenza H3N2, one strain of the virus. All dogs associated with the LA outbreak have been placed under quarantine and further tests are pending. Dogs are susceptible to contracting canine influenza when in close contact with an infected animal.“The word is out on the recent canine influenza outbreak in LA. Rest assured that Hancock Park Veterinary Clinic has the vaccine,” said Dr. White. “The best action to take at this time is to have pets in for a vaccination to protect against canine influenza. The outbreak in Chicago last year was scary for many pet owners and vets could be seen doing exams in the parking lot in cars in efforts to prevent the spread of the disease. Given what happened in Chicago last year, and how quickly getting all dogs vaccinated helped to control the problem, I do feel that vaccinating pets is a very good idea.”Concerned pet owners should get dogs in quickly for their vaccination. Remember that the vaccine itself requires two doses, three weeks apart. After that, a dog needs an annual vaccine update. A dog is not fully protected for 6-8 weeks after the initial dose, and only receives complete protection with the second dose. Any dog that has already been infected should be kept in isolation for three weeks.Dr. White of Hancock Park Veterinary Clinic serves residents of Los Angeles, CA and the surrounding areas. The staff at this full-service veterinary clinic offers skilled and compassionate veterinary services to beloved pets and their owners. Services for dogs, cats, small mammals, and avian patients include vaccinations, veterinary medical care, dental care, surgery, preventative and wellness care, and routine medical care.Call (323) 936-6952 to learn more about canine influenza or to schedule a vaccination. Visit http://hancockparkvetclinic.com/ for more details.Hancock Park Veterinary Clinic
5178 Wilshire Boulevard
Los Angeles, CA 90036
(323) 936-6952

OCALA, Fla., April 30, 2017 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — Pet owners should be aware of the benefits of a thorough dental cleaning for a beloved pet. Pets are put under for dental cleanings for their safety and so that they can receive a comprehensive cleaning experience. Dental disease can impact the oral health and general health of a pet. There are misconceptions surrounding anesthesia-free pet dental cleanings and the staff at Town & Country Animal Hospital wants pet owners to have the details needed to make an informed choice about their pet dental cleanings.
The American Veterinary Dental College (AVDC) recommends putting pets under anesthesia for their dental cleaning. Some veterinarians offer Anesthesia Free Dentistry or No Anesthesia Dentistry (NAD), however, pet owners should be aware that this approach may not be the best choice for a pet. In many cases anesthesia is the only way to preform dental procedures such as, scaling and remove the plaque and tartar buildup beneath the gum line. Reaching and removing tartar that breeds bacteria commonly seen in pets with periodontal disease. In addition, pets go through unnecessary stress and potential danger when restrained during a NAD cleaning session. Even with a high level of restraint, it is impossible to restrict all movement creating more risk around sharp dental tools.  Anesthesia keeps pets safe with minimal stress by allowing them to wake up after all the cleaning is complete.  The American Animal Hospital Association, American Veterinary Medical Association, and the AVDC all agree that no pet should have anesthesia free dental cleanings.Pet owners experience a false sense of security when their pet receives an anesthesia-free dental cleaning. Pets do not receive the deep cleaning necessary for a complete evaluation and are still susceptible to the development of periodontal disease. Teeth look whiter, but plaque, tartar, and bacteria may continue to exist just below the gum line. As periodontal disease progresses, it may be necessary to address loose teeth, discomfort, and other pet health issues.“Pet owners need to know of the difference anesthesia can make during a pet dental cleaning,” said Dr. Kelly Culbertson, DVM. “Gum disease is far too common. In order to effectively prevent and treat gum disease, pet owners should schedule a cleaning under anesthesia for a beloved pet.”Dr. Kelly Culbertson, DVM and the staff at Town & Country Animal Hospital, serve pets and owners in Ocala and the surrounding areas. They offer high-quality pet wellness care, pet surgery, veterinary dermatology, and more. Services include puppy and kitten care, pet dental, pet surgery, and wellness care.Call (352) 840-7020 to learn about anesthetic pet dental cleaning services at Town & Country Animal Hospital or to schedule an appointment. Visit http://www.bestocalavet.com/ for more information.Town & Country Animal Hospital
5204 N US Hwy 27
Ocala, FL 34482
(352) 840-7020