911 video

New opt-in video call option lets 911 see emergency live

Betsy PriceGovernment, Headlines

Starting Monday, New Castle County 911 operators will be able to ask callers if they would be willing to let 911 see what they’re witnessing through real-time video. If so, 911 will text a link to the caller that allows that person to livestream video of a scene through a phone camera. The choice to turn on the camera phone …

Spectrum Farms flowers

Felton farm to offer state’s first cut-it-yourself flowers next year

Betsy PriceBusiness, Headlines

It’s not visions of sugarplums dancing in the heads of Chris and Ashley Sylvester right now. It’s visions of the flowers they will share with the public next spring when they open what they say will be Delaware’s first U-cut flower farm. “This will be the first time that customers will actually be able to come to the farm for …

School funding

Report on school funding changes to be released Tuesday

Betsy PriceEducation, Headlines

  A mounting sense of anticipation surrounds Tuesday’s release of a report making suggestions about how to improve Delaware’s school funding system to make state education more equitable. The assessment — which the state paid $700,000 for — was conducted by the national research firm American Institutes of Research. It sprange out of the settlement of a 2020 lawsuit that …

clayton

They spend weeks lighting houses for Christmas. Here’s why

Betsy PriceCulture, Headlines

John Schatzschneider does it to keep Christ in Christmas and to dazzle the kids. Stephanie Raffa does it for the joy of seeing other people enjoy it. Both spend weeks putting up over-the-top holiday lighting displays for the pleasure of total strangers, he in Harrington, she in Clayton. They are some of the hundreds of Delaware home decorators whose outdoor …

Housing and homelessness

Hearing on housing, homeless leads to promise of attention

Betsy PriceGovernment, Headlines

A joint legislative hearing held by Delaware Senate and Housing committees Wednesday started picking threads out of the tangled wad of factors affecting affordable housing and homelessness in Delaware. The convening of the joint session was clearly a shot across the bow of the state political ship and a forerunner to more state, local and community action on the topics. …

DSU Longwood Foundation Nursing

Longwood Foundation gives DSU $1.75M to double nursing program

Betsy PriceEducation, Headlines

Hoping to help ease nursing and public health worker shortages, the Longwood Foundation has given Delaware State University a $1.75 million grant to help double the size of its nursing program. Delaware’s only Historically Black College and University plans to significantly increasing the number of nursing graduates through 2026 and then further increase that through 2030. Half of those graduates …

Wilmington Friends

Wilmington Friends ends plans to build new lower school

Betsy PriceEducation, Headlines

  With Incyte Corp. backing out of a deal to buy Wilmington Friends’ lower school to build a new 5-story building, the 275-year-old education institution this week told the Alapocas neighborhood  that it will not build a new lower school. Instead, officials said in a letter to the affluent neighborhood, the school will renovate the current lower school building. Incyte’s …

DNREC regulations electric vehicles

DNREC finalizes EV regulations. Critics are not impressed

Betsy PriceGovernment, Headlines

DNREC has finalized state regulations about electric and other zero emission vehicles it says will help Delaware achieve lower air pollution caused by light- and medium-duty cars,. Instead of demanding that by 2035 all new car sales in Delaware must be electric, the program will end in 2032 when sales are expected to hit 82%. That will address many of …

Longwood Christmas 2023

Here’s how Longwood created its retro Christmas display

Betsy PriceCulture, Headlines

Longwood Gardens planners kicked around the idea of a retro Christmas display for years before debuting it this holiday season. “I think everybody’s nostalgic around the holiday season,” said Jim Sutton, Longwood’s display designer. “Christmas is one of those times where it’s sort of a melding between what’s old and what’s new. A lot of people pull things out and …