Oak Ridge Today

National Park Service will offer free eclipse glasses, viewers for total solar eclipse

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National Park Service 2017 The All-American Total Solar Eclipse

The National Park Service will distribute free eclipse glasses and free eclipse viewers at two viewing sites in Oak Ridge during the total solar eclipse on Monday, August 21.

The two viewing sites are:

  • American Museum of Science and Energy/Manhattan Project National Historical Park Visitor Center at 300 South Tulane Avenue in central Oak Ridge, and
  • East Tennessee Technology Park, 200 Heritage Center Boulevard, in west Oak Ridge.

Oak Ridge is part of the Manhattan Project National Historical Park.

The total solar eclipse will cross the Manhattan Project National Historical Park on Monday, August 21. The entire area of the park falls within the path of totality, a press release said.

“The park will be offering two free viewing locations where park rangers will be distributing free eclipse glasses and free eclipse viewers that include a commemorative artistic rendering of the ‘All-American Total Solar Eclipse,'” the press release said. “Park rangers will also be discussing safe viewing practices and using enhanced viewing equipment to help visitors enjoy all phases of the eclipse.” [Read more…]

ORNL building world’s smartest supercomputer

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This a graphical representation of the Summit computer cabinets. It is not a photograph of the final design. (Image courtesy ORNL/Oak Ridge Leadership Computing Facility)

This a graphical representation of the Summit computer cabinets. It is not a photograph of the final design. (Image courtesy ORNL/Oak Ridge Leadership Computing Facility)

 

Note: This story was last updated at 10 a.m. Aug. 8.

Oak Ridge National Laboratory on Wednesday said it is building the world’s smartest supercomputer.

The new supercomputer is called Summit. It will be located in a new data center next to Titan, which is now the fourth most powerful supercomputer in the world.

Summit will be 5-10 times faster than Titan, ORNL said. It will move data five to 10 times faster, store eight times more data, and perform many more calculations simultaneously than Titan, the lab said in information provided by spokesperson Morgan McCorkle.

Summit will be the world’s smartest supercomputer because of its enormous memory and data handling capabilities as well as its unique machine learning processor design, McCorkle said.

“The first of Summit’s cabinets arrived Monday, and our team is in the process of uncrating and putting them in place,” McCorkle said in response to questions from Oak Ridge Today. [Read more…]

Rack Room Shoes now open in Oak Ridge

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Rack Room Shoes Interior July 27 2017

The interior of the new Rack Room Shoes store is pictured above at Main Street Oak Ridge. The store opened Thursday, July 27, 2017. (Photo courtesy Rack Room Shoes)

 

The new Rack Room Shoes store opened at Main Street Oak Ridge on Thursday.

The new store is 5,000 square feet. It is near Belk and between two other new stores at Main Street Oak Ridge: rue21 and Ulta.

Rack Room Shoes is a family footwear retailer.

It’s the fifth new store to open at Main Street Oak Ridge since mid-June. Main Street Oak Ridge is the 58-acre project to redevelop the former Oak Ridge Mall.

The other four stores that have also opened are rue21, maurices, Dick’s Sporting Goods, and PetSmart. The other three stores expected to open soon are Electronic Express, T.J. Maxx, and Ulta. [Read more…]

See 2017 Oak Ridge girls’ soccer schedule here

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Here is the 2017 game schedule for Oak Ridge Lady Wildcats soccer:

Preseason

  1. July 29—KIL Jamboree: McMinn County (away)—10:30 a.m./Webb (away)—11:30 a.m.
  2. August 1—South Doyle (home)—7 p.m.
  3. August 3—CAK (away)—6 p.m.
  4. August 8—Alcoa (home)—7 p.m.
  5. August 10—Maryville (away)—7 p.m.

Regular Season [Read more…]

Baldwin joins planning, design company in Knoxville

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Kathryn Baldwin

Kathryn Baldwin

 

Former Oak Ridge Community Development Director Kathryn Baldwin has joined Lose & Associates, a planning and design company that once developed a master plan for the Oak Ridge City Center.

Lose & Associates is a landscape architecture, architecture, civil engineering, and planning firm with offices in Nashville and Atlanta, a press release said. The company recently announced its expansion to the Knoxville area, in Franklin Square on Kingston Pike.

Baldwin, office manager and senior planner, will lead the Knoxville office, the press release said. She has a master’s degree in geography from East Tennessee State University, and she “brings a wealth of geographic knowledge, management skills, and technical knowledge to her new position,” the press release said.

Baldwin retired after 16 years with the City of Oak Ridge, and her last day was July 28. Wayne Blasius, who had been executive director of the nonprofit East Tennessee Community Design Center, has been hired to replace her, starting August 28. [Read more…]

See 2017 Oak Ridge football schedule here

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Note: This story was updated at 11:20 a.m.

Here is the 2017 game schedule for Oak Ridge Wildcats football:

  • August 18—Hardin Valley at home (Blankenship Field)—7:30 p.m.
  • August 25—Dobyns-Bennett in Kingsport (away)—7:30 p.m.
  • September 1—Campbell County in Jacksboro (away)—7:30 p.m. (Region 3-5A game)
  • September 8—Farragut at Farragut (away)—7:30 p.m.
  • September 15—West at home—7:30 p.m. (Region 3-5A game)
  • September 22—Sevier County at home—7:30 p.m.
  • September 29—Karns at home—7:30 p.m. (Region 3-5A game)
  • October 13—Clinton at home—7:30 p.m. (Region 3-5A game)
  • October 20—Powell at Powell (away)—7:30 p.m. (Region 3-5A game)
  • October 27—Fulton in Knoxville (away)—7:30 p.m. (Region 3-5A game)

Fulton and West, both of Knoxville, are new regional opponents of Oak Ridge in 2017 under the 2017-2018 classification.

Farragut and Lenoir City—two high schools that were in Division I, Class 5A, Region 3, with Oak Ridge last year—have both moved to another class or region. Farragut, a longtime Oak Ridge rival, is now in Class 6A, although the Wildcats will still play the Admirals this season. Farragut won the Class 5A state championship in 2016 after losing to Oak Ridge during the regular season. [Read more…]

Driver, passenger arrested after car allegedly flees from THP, strikes two patrol units

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Clarissa Sharee Tindell

Clarissa Sharee Tindell

 

Two Knoxville residents face charges of aggravated assault and reckless endangerment, among other charges, after fleeing from a Tennessee Highway Patrol trooper and crashing into state and county patrol cars in Rocky Top on Sunday afternoon, authorities said.

The initial pursuit by THP Trooper Isaiah Lloyd started on State Route 61 (North Charles G. Seivers Boulevard) at Longmire Road in east Clinton, near the Clinch River, according to a preliminary THP report. It continued onto northbound US 25 W (Lake City Highway), headed toward Rocky Top (the former Lake City).

After passing through Rocky Top, the chase headed north on SR 116 into Campbell County before looping back into Rocky Top, traveling down Cherry Bottom Road and Oak Grove Road before taking US 441 (Norris Freeway) back into the city, according to a narrative in the THP report and an Anderson County Sheriff’s Department incident report.

After the car, a 1992 Honda Accord, passed under Interstate 75, it tried to make a left turn onto Sunshine Drive in Rocky Top, the report said. But it was unable to complete the turn and the car struck a concrete curb, busting its left front tire, the report said. [Read more…]

Senate committee rejects proposal to close NOAA lab with Oak Ridge division

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The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's Atmospheric Turbulence and Diffusion Division on South Illinois Avenue in Oak Ridge is pictured above on Tuesday, July 11, 2017. (Photo by John Huotari/Oak Ridge Today)

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Atmospheric Turbulence and Diffusion Division on South Illinois Avenue in Oak Ridge is pictured above on Tuesday, July 11, 2017. (Photo by John Huotari/Oak Ridge Today)

 

The U.S. Senate Appropriations Committee has rejected a Trump administration proposal to close a National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration laboratory that has a division in Oak Ridge.

The budget submitted to Congress by President Donald Trump on Tuesday, May 23, had proposed closing NOAA’s Air Resources Laboratory. That air research laboratory has a field office in Oak Ridge, the Atmospheric Turbulence and Diffusion Division, or ATDD, on South Illinois Avenue.

But an appropriations bill approved by the Senate Appropriations Committee in a 30-1 vote on Thursday explicitly rejected the proposed elimination of the Air Resources Laboratory, which is part of NOAA’s Office of Oceanic and Atmospheric Research. (See page 40 here.)

The Senate committee recommended providing at least as much funding for the Air Resources Laboratory in fiscal year 2018 as in fiscal year 2017. Fiscal year 2018 starts October 1.

The bill approved by the Senate Appropriations Committee on Thursday is the Fiscal Year 2018 Commerce, Justice, Science, and Related Agencies Appropriations Act. It’s not clear when the legislation will be considered by the full Senate. [Read more…]

See solar eclipse path maps by NASA, National Weather Service, Washington Post

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Image courtesy National Weather Service in Morristown

Image courtesy National Weather Service in Morristown

 

On Monday, August 21, a total solar eclipse will blot out the sun starting at 2:31 p.m. for viewers in areas within an hour’s drive of Oak Ridge.

The 70-mile-wide path of totality will extend from Oregon to South Carolina, passing through Nashville, Murfreesboro, Sparta, Cookeville, Crossville, Sweetwater, Athens, and Clingman’s Dome, contributor Carolyn Krause wrote in this story.

The National Weather Service in Morristown has published a map showing the eclipse path and showing the duration of the total solar eclipse in parts of East Tennessee. See that map above. Many locations will see more than two minutes and 30 seconds of totality, the Weather Service said.

Another map, which was published by the Washington Post, is interactive and allows you to follow the path of the solar eclipse across the United States from Oregon to South Carolina, with details about points along the way, including Nashville and the Great Smoky Mountains National Park. See that Washington Post map here. [Read more…]

JMS Principal Phil Cox inducted into basketball hall of fame in Kentucky

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Phil Cox, principal of Jefferson Middle School in Oak Ridge, has been inducted into the Kentucky High School Basketball Hall of Fame. (Photo courtesy Kimberly Cox)

Phil Cox, principal of Jefferson Middle School in Oak Ridge, has been inducted into the Kentucky High School Basketball Hall of Fame. (Photo courtesy Kimberly Cox)

 

Phil Cox, principal of Jefferson Middle School in Oak Ridge, has been inducted into the Kentucky High School Basketball Hall of Fame, according to the Middlesboro (Kentucky) Daily News.

The newspaper reported that Cox, a high school basketball legend, was one of 19 inductees in the 2017 class.

Cox was a standout at Loyall Elementary School, where he played for Hall of Fame member Billy Hicks, and he earned all-state honors by the time he was a junior at Cawood High School, where he averaged 35 points a game, the Daily News said. He was Mr. Basketball in Kentucky as a senior and was, at the time, the all-time leading scorer in Harlan County, with 2,401 points. [Read more…]

Teen rescued from cave in Claxton

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A teenager was rescued from a cave in Claxton on Thursday, July 27, 2017, and he was taken to a hospital to be evaluated for back and ankle pain, authorities said. (Photo by Anderson County Volunteer Rescue Squad)

A teenager was rescued from a cave in Claxton on Thursday, July 27, 2017, and he was taken to a hospital to be evaluated for back and ankle pain, authorities said. (Photo by Anderson County Volunteer Rescue Squad)

 

Note: This story was updated at 1:30 p.m. July 29.

A teenager was rescued from a cave in Claxton on Thursday, and he was taken to a hospital to be evaluated for back and ankle pain, authorities said.

The 16-year-old boy had called 911 to say he was in a cave off Mehaffey Road in Claxton, and he was not able to find his way out, according to an Anderson County Sheriff’s Department incident report.

The cave was in woods behind Spring Hill Baptist Church.

A family member said the boy had previously asked to go into the cave, the report said. On Thursday, he told his grandmother that he was going to a neighbor’s house to mow the lawn but instead went to the cave alone, the report said. [Read more…]

Some concern in Oak Ridge as Congress considers repealing Affordable Care Act

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Protesters express their opposition to the health care vote in May by U.S. Representative Chuck Fleischmann, a Tennessee Republican, during a ribbon-cutting ceremony at the Rocky Top post office on May 9, 2017. (Photo by John Huotari/Oak Ridge Today)

Protesters express their opposition to the health care vote in May by U.S. Representative Chuck Fleischmann, a Tennessee Republican, during a ribbon-cutting ceremony at the Rocky Top post office on May 9, 2017. (Photo by John Huotari/Oak Ridge Today)

 

The U.S. Senate continued to debate a potential repeal of at least part of the Affordable Care Act, also known as “Obamacare,” on Thursday night. It’s not clear what the Senate will eventually approve.

It’s also not clear what type of agreement the Senate can reach with the U.S. House of Representatives, if the Senate passes a bill. The House has already passed its own bill, the American Health Care Act.

On Thursday night, the Senate debate was focused on a so-called “skinny repeal,” which would roll back parts of the Affordable Care Act, or ACA. It would repeal the mandates that most people have health insurance and that large employers cover their employees, but it would leave most of the health law in place, The New York Times reported.

It wasn’t clear if the Republican-controlled Senate had the votes to advance the legislation.

The vote on “skinny repeal” expected tonight comes after Senate Republicans were unable to reach consensus on broader legislation to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act and after an earlier repeal bill failed on Wednesday.

The health care debate in the Senate started with a 51-50 vote on Tuesday.

As the health care debate has played out in Congress this year, there has been some concern in Oak Ridge and Anderson County over the potential repeal of the Affordable Care Act, which was signed into law by President Barack Obama in March 2010. It’s considered his signature domestic legislative achievement.

There has also been some concern here over possible Medicaid cuts. [Read more…]