What's a palindrome date? Just take a look at the calendar this week

Today’s date is 4-24-24. Today’s date in reverse is 4-24-24.

Yes, you are currently in the midst of a palindrome week!

A palindrome is a word, verse, sentence or number that reads the same backward or forward. So, words like “mom” and “kayak” and “noon” all qualify. As for numerical patterns, just take a look at this month’s calendar. This April features 11 palindrome dates, including a stretch of 10 straight from April 20 through April 29.

On these dates, there is a somewhat rare calendrical symmetry.

Are palindrome dates rare?

The number of palindrome dates varies from year to year and century to century. And also from country to country and format to format.

Palindrome days are more common in certain decades in the U.S. under the m-dd-yy format, which has included 10 consecutive days in every year since 2011.

After 2029, no other year in this century will feature an abundance of consecutive palindrome dates, according to Farmers’ Almanac.

Under the mm/dd/yyyy format, palindrome dates are most frequent in the United States during the first few centuries of a millennium, according to timeanddate.com. The current millennium will feature 36 palindrome days using this format, with the first having occurred Oct. 2, 2001 (10-02-2001) and the last set for Sept. 22, 2290 (09-22-2290).

If using the mm/dd/yyyy date format, there are 12 palindrome dates this century:

October 2, 2001 (10-02-2001)

January 2, 2010 (01-02-2010)

November 2, 2011 (11-02-2011)

February 2, 2020 (02-02-2020)

December 2, 2021 (12-02-2021)

March 2, 2030 (03-02-2030)

April 2, 2040 (04-02-2040)

May 2, 2050 (05-02-2050)

June 2, 2060 (06-02-2060)

July 2, 2070 (07-02-2070)

August 2, 2080 (08-02-2080)

September 2, 2090 (09-02-2090)

What was the last palindrome date?

The last palindrome date prior to those in April of 2024 was approximately one year ago.

March of 2023 featured 11 palindrome dates, which included a stretch of 10 straight from March 20 to March 29.

How many palindrome dates are there in 2024?

In 2024, there are also 11 palindrome dates. Those are:

April 2, 2024 (4-2-24)

April 20, 2024 (4-20-24)

April 21, 2024 (4-21-24)

April 22, 2024 (4-22-24)

April 23, 2024 (4-23-24)

April 24, 2024 (4-24-24)

April 25, 2024 (4-25-24)

April 26, 2024 (4-26-24)

April 27, 2024 (4-27-24)

April 28, 2024 (4-28-24)

April 29, 2024 (4-29-24)

What are the palindrome dates in 2025?

There will be 11 palindrome dates every year from 2025 to 2029 under the m/dd/yy format, according to Farmers’ Almanac.

Those dates in 2025 will be:

May 2, 2025 (5-2-25)

May 20, 2025 (5-20-25)

May 21, 2025 (5-21-25)

May 22, 2025 (5-22-25)

May 23, 2025 (5-23-25)

May 24, 2025 (5-24-25)

May 25, 2025 (5-25-25)

May 26, 2025 (5-26-25)

May 27, 2025 (5-27-25)

May 28, 2025 (5-28-25)

May 29, 2025 (5-29-25)

‘Our Planet: The Voices of Climate Change.' Telemundo releases climate change documentary

Climate change is real and its effects are transforming our lives, even if we don’t realize it.

The phenomenon is impacting our health, our safety and our economy, which is why several communities have already begun to adapt and explore mechanisms to protect the environment and themselves.

Scientists agree that the main cause of climate change is human activities, especially the burning of fossil fuels such as coal, oil and natural gas. These fuels release greenhouse gases into the atmosphere.

“We are mainly seeing an increase in the temperature of both the land surface and the ocean,” explained Edil Sepúlveda, a NASA engineer.

Over the last decade, Earth has recorded a steady rise in temperatures, to the point that 2023 was a record year with the warmest temperatures since records began in the mid-1800s. 

To give a real and complete picture of climate change and how it is transforming daily life, Telemundo stations worked on this original documentary “Nuestro Planeta: Voces del Cambio Climático” (“Our Planet: Voices of Climate Change”).

REGENERATIVE AGRICULTURE, THE SOLUTION?

In the face of climate change, regenerative agriculture is emerging as a hopeful method to ensure food security and is already being implemented in many U.S. crops.

“It’s very important to adapt to climate change and to help and promote the sustainability of sustainable production…and do my part to combat the effects of climate change,” said Fabricio Prico, an agronomist at Rio Grande Valley College.  

Regenerative agriculture and livestock farming incorporate techniques including crop rotation and soil cover. It requires less machinery and energy, translating into a smaller carbon footprint. 

The key is to always keep the soil alive, which translates into better quality produce and, most importantly, limiting greenhouse gas emissions.

“Everyone wants to eat more beef or chicken and all that production is associated with the production of greenhouse gases,” said Alexis Racelis, professor of Environmental and Land Studies at the University of Rio Grande Valley.

CLIMATE CHANGE AND HISPANICS

In charge of one of the most relevant 2023 studies was Edil Sepúlveda, a Puerto Rican engineer who is the senior research scientist at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center.

After the devastation of Hurricane Maria in Puerto Rico, part of his work focused on disaster recovery and resilience, according to his NASA bio page.

Sepúlveda talked about the reasons for increasing temperatures in an interview with Telemundo Stations Group.

“They were due to natural changes on planet Earth, many of them due to small changes in the Earth’s orbit around the Sun. Others had to do with significant volcanic eruptions… or, for example, the fall of an asteroid or comet,” Sepúlveda said.

In Alaska, Telemundo stations met Samarys Seguinot Medina, a Puerto Rican environmental researcher at the Arctic Pole.

She has led important efforts to understand climate change and protect vulnerable communities.

“This is a real problem… I honestly feel that a decision needs to be made at the governance level,” Seguinot Medina said.

In California, there are workers like Carlos Contreras, who has spent a lifetime doing the important work of harvesting food and now, he says, has begun to see losses because the heat destroys the crops.

Fausto Sánchez is a representative of the organization Asistencia Legal Rural de California. As part of his work, he tours farmland to monitor the welfare of workers and make sure they are not exposed to extreme heat conditions.

Students at the University of Texas Rio Grande Valley are also looking for solutions to minimize the effects of climate change.

“I am very proud of the work we are doing because we are starting with a group of students and maybe in the future we will be able to develop technologies that we can use globally,” said Fabricio Prico, agronomist at the University of Texas Rio Grande Valley.

FROM INVESTMENT TO REJECTION: US POLICY ON CLIMATE CHANGE

United States policy on the climate crisis has depended on the political party occupying the White House.

After landmark agreements signed by former President Barack Obama, former President Donald Trump was quick to call the issue a sham and withdrew the U.S. from the 2015 Paris Agreement, a pact of 200 countries aimed at mitigating climate change.

Now, President Joe Biden has called the crisis the No. 1 problem facing humanity.

Under his administration, the U.S. rejoined the Paris Agreement and dozens of laws have been signed to allocate funds in the hundreds of millions of dollars to reduce the burning of fossil fuels.

The Biden administration’s plan focuses on three components: encouraging the production of more affordable electric vehicles; enacting legislation to limit greenhouse gas pollution; and investing in mitigation projects in the most vulnerable communities across the country and around the world.

Heading into the upcoming election in November, climate change could be an important issue for U.S. residents.

Yale University research in 2023 found that 72% of respondents believe global warming is occurring and 70% fear it will hurt future generations.

Of those surveyed, 55% believe the issue should be a priority for the next president and Congress.

CLIMATE CHANGE, A RACE AGAINST TIME

Signs of climate change are already visible on our planet, such as devastating fires, powerful hurricanes, rising sea levels and melting at the poles.

According to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), sea level rise has accelerated from 1.7 mm/year during most of the 20th century to 3.2 mm/year since 1993.

But as time marches on, the time frame we have to respond is shortening. 

According to the United Nations, the average global temperature of planet Earth is about 1.1 degrees Celsius (2.8 degrees Fahrenheit) higher than that recorded in 1800.

“We are at a very important moment in which we all have to do our bit and take action,” Sepúlveda said.

HOW TO CURB CLIMATE CHANGE

The answer is complex but the biggest change will be seen if we reduce our carbon footprint.

Some countries and large companies are major contributors to emissions that cause climate change, so changes in government and private policies will be key.

The most important thing would be to switch from fossil fuel energy systems to renewable energies such as solar or wind, according to the United Nations.

Moreover, there are no small actions and change can start with ourselves. Here are some recommendations from the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA):

• Buy products with the “ENERGY STAR” certification label.
  
• Reduce food waste by buying only what you need, composting food scraps and donating what you don’t use.
  
• Buy used items and donate what you no longer use.
  
• Change your vehicle to an electronic one or walk, use bicycles or the public system.
  
• Take shorter showers.
  
• Plant trees whenever you can.

UTD students protest war in Gaza alongside other student bodies

As many cram for finals, more than 100 University of Texas at Dallas students instead spent the day lining the front hall of the university’s administration building, hoping to make their voices heard.

“You know, they have continuously been ignoring us, so we’re taking it to the next step until they meet our demands,” said Fatima Tulkaren.

Tulkaren is an officer with Students for Justice in Palestine, which is asking the university to pull investments from companies that it says provide weapons to Israel.

“This is our money that’s going into these companies that are providing Israel with these weapons, and not just Israel, but other countries around the world. So again, we’re making it clear that we don’t want to be complicit,” she said.

Tuesday’s sit-in was one of several protests on college campuses across the country, from the West Coast to the East.

At U.C. Berkley, demonstrators have set up an encampment on campus.

At NYU, protestors were forced off campus after the school erected a plywood wall one day after police arrested 120 demonstrators.

“They literally have signs that say anarchy, violence, and resistance is thy way to do it. So I think it makes sense that they put up boards,” said a freshman student at NYU.

“I’m a Jew, and I am walking around campus. I am scared. I’m scared to walk around with my Jewish star.”

NYU officials have said they believe most of the protesters are not students.

At Columbia, tensions reached a breaking point, with university officials moving all in-person classes online through the end of the semester.

These students say they’re taking action as the death toll in Gaza surpasses 34,000 Palestinians, according to the Palestinian Health Ministry.

“I must stand up and organize and make sure that like we are keeping the movement going here in the United States and here in Dallas, Texas specifically. That is the fact that has kept me going,” said Palestinian student Noor Saleh.

UTD has yet to respond to NBC 5’s request for comment.

Mariners beat Rangers, knocking the World Series champions out of first place

Logan Gilbert allowed only two hits pitching into the seventh inning, Julio Rodríguez hit his first homer and the Seattle Mariners beat Texas 4-0 on Tuesday night, knocking the World Series champion Rangers out of first place for the first time this season.

Gilbert (2-0) struck out six and walked four while throwing 100 pitches over 6 2/3 innings. It was the franchise-record 11th game in a row for the Mariners to have their starter pitch at least five innings and allow two earned runs or less.

The Mariners (12-11), who missed the playoffs last season a year after ending a 21-year postseason drought, have won eight of those games and moved a half-game ahead of Texas (12-12) in the AL West.

Ryne Stanek (one batter), Gabe Speier (one inning) and Andrés Muñoz (one inning) finished off Seattle’s third shutout of the season. The Rangers, 6-10 since winning six of their first eight games, were held scoreless for the second time.

Rodríguez, who had 60 homers over his first two big league seasons, put the Mariners up 4-0 in the third when he pulled a drive 434 feet for a two-run shot that landed about five rows deep in the second deck in left field.

Cal Raleigh put the Mariners ahead to stay with a two-run homer in the first inning off Dane Dunning (2-2).

Dunning struck out seven in 4 1/3 innings, but walked three and all four hits he allowed were for extra bases.

SHORT HOPS

Gilbert is now 31-0 in his career when the Mariners score at least three runs while he is in the game. … The Rangers didn’t have a hit until Josh Smith’s two-out double in the fourth. Nathaniel Lowe had their other two hits, a leadoff double in the seventh and a single in the ninth.

TRAINER’S ROOM

Mariners: RHP Collin Snider (left knee contusion) was reinstated from the 15-day injured list and optioned to Triple-A Tacoma.

Rangers: C Jonah Heim was activated from the MLB Bereavement List after missing two games, and RHP Jonathan Hernández (right lat strain) was activated from the 15-day injured list after being out the first 23 games. RHP Josh Sborz (right rotator cuff strain) was sent to Double-A Frisco on an injury rehab assignment. RHP Owen White and C Sam Huff were optioned to Triple-A Round Rock.

UP NEXT

RHP Bryce Miller (3-1, 1.85), who has allowed opponents to bat only .153, pitches for Seattle. RHP Jon Gray goes for the Rangers, who have to win to avoid falling under .500 for the first time since Bruce Bochy became their manager before the 2023 season.

World War II-era Douglas C-54 plane with 2 people on board crashes in Alaska

A Douglas C-54 Skymaster airplane carrying two people crashed into the Tanana River near Fairbanks on Tuesday and burst into flames, authorities said. No survivors have been found.

The plane took off in the morning from Fairbanks International Airport. It crashed about 7 miles (11 kilometers) from there and “slid into a steep hill on the bank of the river where it caught fire,” according to Alaska State Troopers.

Clint Johnson, chief of the National Transportation Safety Board’s Alaska regional office, said it remained unclear what happened in the time between the takeoff and the crash but the tower operator “saw a large plume of smoke.”

Michaela Matherne was flying from the village of Galena to Fairbanks to catch a flight to New Orleans when her small plane was diverted to verify the coordinates of the crash site.

“When we were in the air there was speculation that it was a cabin that caught fire, maybe a fish camp,” she told The Associated Press via Facebook Messenger.

“We actually didn’t know what we were looking at until after we landed a few minutes later,” she said. “We were shocked and saddened to hear that.”

The C-54 is a military version of the Douglas DC-4, which was a World War II-era airplane. The website www.airlines.net said standard passenger seating for a DC-4 was 44 during its heyday, but most have been converted to freighters.

The Federal Aviation Administration described the plane as a Douglas C-54. Troopers identified it as a DC-4.

The NTSB was sending investigators to the site, Johnson said.

Further information such as the flight’s purpose and destination was not immediately available.

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Choctaw Stadium to undergo multimillion-dollar renovation

The city of Arlington and the Texas Rangers are partnering on a multimillion-dollar renovation of the outside of Choctaw Stadium.

The Arlington city council approved the project in a vote on Tuesday night, with the plan set to build a range of new shops and restaurants into the exterior of the ballpark.

In recent years, the Arlington Entertainment District has seen $3.9 billion in investment that has brought new ballparks, hotels and apartments to the area.

Right in the middle of it all is Choctaw Stadium, where fans used to spend their summers cheering on the Texas Rangers.

“Great games,” said Gigi Martinez. “It was super hot though, I’m actually glad that we switched up to the new one, to be honest.”

The team moved across the street to Globe Life Field in 2020.

But now, the Rangers and the city of Arlington are giving Choctaw a facelift.

“We’re coming in and repurposing this stadium so that people can continue to enjoy the stadium by enjoying restaurants, and retail, and everything like that,” said Arlington Mayor Jim Ross.

As part of the deal approved by the city, the Texas Rangers will build 6000 feet of commercial space into the stadium’s exterior, along with new hubs for the police and fire departments aimed at boosting public safety.

The city will put $4.2 million towards the project.

“When you bring that type of density to a community, you’ve got to have something else for them to do,” said Ross.

More to do is coming:

• In 2026, AT&T Stadium will host nine FIFA World Cup matches.

• Four years later, the stadium will bring in the NCAA Men’s Basketball Final Four.

Tuesday’s decision will build at least 200 more parking spots and open the door for more parking construction, with the goal of helping the district prepare for events bringing hundreds of thousands of visitors in the coming years.

“It’s crazy but it’s exciting,” said Ross. “This is what we’re born to do, and I’ll argue there’s nobody that does it better than Arlington.”

Some Rangers fans felt the new development would also bring even more options for gameday.

“The World Cup is coming too,” said Martinez. “And we’re going to have a lot of people from all over the states and it’s going to be pretty awesome for this new thing coming up.”

NBC 5 reached out to the Rangers, who wouldn’t confirm how much the organization will be investing in the new development.

A spokesperson for the team said they expected construction in the area wouldn’t start until after the MLB All-Star Game that’s being held at Globe Life Field in July.

Suspect in custody after Fort Worth shooting leaves 1 dead, another seriously hurt

Authorities are investigating a shooting in Fort Worth that left one person dead, another fighting for their life, and a third person in police custody Tuesday evening.

Fort Worth Police responded to the 2400 block of Irion Avenue around 5:35 p.m. after reports of a shooting in the area.

Once officers arrived at the scene, they found two people suffering from apparent gunshot wounds.

One victim, whose name has not been released, was pronounced dead at the scene. The other victim was rushed to a local hospital with possible life-threatening injuries.

According to officers, they believed the fatal shooting happened in an alley behind a building.

Police said they did have a suspect who was taken into custody without incident.

Homicide detectives are actively investigating the deadly shooting.

This is a developing story that NBC 5 will update as more information becomes available.

Congress passes potential TikTok ban in the US. What to know

The Senate passed legislation Tuesday that would force TikTok’s China-based parent company to sell the social media platform under the threat of a ban, a contentious move by U.S. lawmakers that’s expected to face legal challenges and disrupt the lives of content creators who rely on the short-form video app for income.

The TikTok legislation was included as part of a larger $95 billion package that provides foreign aid to Ukraine and Israel and was passed 79-18. It now goes to President Joe Biden, who said in a statement immediately after passage that he will sign it Wednesday.

A decision made by House Republicans last week to attach the TikTok bill to the high-priority package helped expedite its passage in Congress and came after negotiations with the Senate, where an earlier version of the bill had stalled. That version had given TikTok’s parent company, ByteDance, six months to divest its stakes in the platform. But it drew skepticism from some key lawmakers concerned it was too short of a window for a complex deal that could be worth tens of billions of dollars.

The revised legislation extends the deadline, giving ByteDance nine months to sell TikTok, and a possible three-month extension if a sale is in progress. The bill would also bar the company from controlling TikTok’s secret sauce: the algorithm that feeds users videos based on their interests and has made the platform a trendsetting phenomenon.

The passage of the legislation is a culmination of long-held bipartisan fears in Washington over Chinese threats and the ownership of TikTok, which is used by 170 million Americans. For years, lawmakers and administration officials have expressed concerns that Chinese authorities could force ByteDance to hand over U.S. user data, or influence Americans by suppressing or promoting certain content on TikTok.

“Congress is not acting to punish ByteDance, TikTok or any other individual company,” Senate Commerce Committee Chairwoman Maria Cantwell said. “Congress is acting to prevent foreign adversaries from conducting espionage, surveillance, maligned operations, harming vulnerable Americans, our servicemen and women, and our U.S. government personnel.”

Opponents of the bill say the Chinese government could easily get information on Americans in other ways, including through commercial data brokers that traffic in personal information. The foreign aid package includes a provision that makes it illegal for data brokers to sell or rent “personally identifiable sensitive data” to North Korea, China, Russia, Iran or entities in those countries. But it has encountered some pushback, including from the American Civil Liberties Union, which says the language is written too broadly and could sweep in journalists and others who publish personal information.

Many opponents of the TikTok measure argue the best way to protect U.S. consumers is through implementing a comprehensive federal data privacy law that targets all companies regardless of their origin. They also note the U.S. has not provided public evidence that shows TikTok sharing U.S. user information with Chinese authorities, or that Chinese officials have ever tinkered with its algorithm.

“Banning TikTok would be an extraordinary step that requires extraordinary justification,” said Becca Branum, a deputy director at the Washington-based Center for Democracy & Technology, which advocates for digital rights. “Extending the divestiture deadline neither justifies the urgency of the threat to the public nor addresses the legislation’s fundamental constitutional flaws.”

China has previously said it would oppose a forced sale of TikTok, and has signaled its opposition this time around. TikTok, which has long denied it’s a security threat, is also preparing a lawsuit to block the legislation.

“At the stage that the bill is signed, we will move to the courts for a legal challenge,” Michael Beckerman, TikTok’s head of public policy for the Americas, wrote in a memo sent to employees on Saturday and obtained by The Associated Press.

“This is the beginning, not the end of this long process,” Beckerman wrote.

The company has seen some success with court challenges in the past, but it has never sought to prevent federal legislation from going into effect.

In November, a federal judge blocked a Montana law that would ban TikTok use across the state after the company and five content creators who use the platform sued. Three years before that, federal courts blocked an executive order issued by then-President Donald Trump to ban TikTok after the company sued on the grounds that the order violated free speech and due process rights.

The Trump administration then brokered a deal that had U.S. corporations Oracle and Walmart take a large stake in TikTok. But the sale never went through.

Trump, who is running for president again this year, now says he opposes the potential ban.

Since then, TikTok has been in negotiations about its future with the secretive Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States, a little-known government agency tasked with investigating corporate deals for national security concerns.

On Sunday, Erich Andersen, a top attorney for ByteDance who led talks with the U.S. government for years, told his team that he was stepping down from his role.

“As I started to reflect some months ago on the stresses of the last few years and the new generation of challenges that lie ahead, I decided that the time was right to pass the baton to a new leader,” Andersen wrote in an internal memo that was obtained by the AP. He said the decision to step down was entirely his and was decided months ago in a discussion with the company’s senior leaders.

Meanwhile, TikTok content creators who rely on the app have been trying to make their voices heard. Earlier Tuesday, some creators congregated in front the Capitol building to speak out against the bill and carry signs that read “I’m 1 of the 170 million Americans on TikTok,” among other things.

Tiffany Cianci, a content creator who has more than 140,000 followers on the platform and had encouraged people to show up, said she spent Monday night picking up creators from airports in the D.C. area. Some came from as far as Nevada and California. Others drove overnight from South Carolina or took a bus from upstate New York.

Cianci says she believes TikTok is the safest platform for users right now because of Project Texas, TikTok’s $1.5 billion mitigation plan to store U.S. user data on servers owned and maintained by the tech giant Oracle.

“If our data is not safe on TikTok,” she said. “I would ask why the president is on TikTok.”

__

Associated Press writers Mary Clare Jalonick and Matt O’Brien contributed to this report.

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Bird flu virus found in pasteurized milk, though officials maintain supply is safe

The Food and Drug Administration said Tuesday that fragments of the bird flu virus had been detected in some samples of pasteurized milk in the U.S. While the agency maintains that the milk is safe to drink, it notes that it is still waiting on the results of studies to confirm this.

The findings come less than a month after an outbreak of the H5N1 strain of bird flu was found, for the first time, in herds of dairy cows in several states. It has since been detected in herds in eight states. 

The FDA has been working with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the U.S. Department of Agriculture to investigate the outbreak.

The fragments of the virus were found while testing samples of pasteurized milk, the FDA said. The testing method, called PCR testing, looks for bits of genetic material; a positive result doesn’t mean that live, infectious virus has been found.

“Based on available information, pasteurization is likely to inactivate the virus, however the process is not expected to remove the presence of viral particles,” the agency said in a release that it plans to make public later Tuesday. “To date, we have seen nothing that would change our assessment that the commercial milk supply is safe.”

The FDA is specifically testing whether pasteurization inactivates bird flu in cow milk. The findings will be available in the “next few days to weeks,” it said.

As a part of its testing, it will use so-called egg inoculation tests — considered the gold standard for determining if a sample is infectious — in which a chicken egg is injected with a small amount of infected milk and monitored to see if active virus begins to replicate.

Michael Osterholm, an infectious disease expert and director of the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy at the University of Minnesota, said he was not surprised by the preliminary findings. 

“If you tested most milk, you’d find E. coli and listeria and other things in it, too, but they’d all be dead. Pasteurization doesn’t take them out, it just kills them,” he said. That is, dead particles are unlikely to cause a person to get sick. 

“I wouldn’t have any problem drinking milk tonight from an influenza standpoint at all,” Osterholm said. “My grandchildren could drink the milk tonight.”

But there has been a scarcity of information on the matter coming from the USDA, he said. More data is needed to fully understand what’s going on with the current bird flu virus in dairy cows.

“We have a need for a lot of additional information that hasn’t been forthcoming,” Osterholm said. “We don’t know the epidemiology on these farms. We don’t know how many farms, how many samples. We have been very concerned.”

The FDA said it has also recommended that milk producers take precautions when discarding milk from sick cows so that the discarded milk does not become a source of spread. 

One person has been infected during the current outbreak. The person, a dairy worker in Texas, had a mild case and only developed conjunctivitis, or pinkeye.

A senior official at the CDC also said the agency is monitoring the situation for signs of unusual illness in people and has not seen any beyond the Texas case.

Still, the virus remains a cause of concern among health officials, given its particularly high mortality rate of around 50%. Bird flu doesn’t spread easily from person to person, but there’s worry that it could mutate as it spreads among cows to a version that spreads more easily among people. So far, there’s no evidence indicating that has happened, according to the CDC.

This story first appeared on NBCNews.com. More from NBC News:

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North Texas dedicates millions to new parks and green spaces throughout Dallas

Local leaders in North Texas have rolled out a series of announcements dedicating millions of dollars to new parks and green spaces throughout Dallas.

One advocate tells NBC 5 the push came after the COVID-19 pandemic and the success of Klyde Warren Park in downtown Dallas.

It costs public money to clear out green space instead of homes, businesses, and apartments.

On Tuesday afternoon families and TikTokers came to the Ronald Kirk Pedestrian Bridge.

“It’s very chill. It’s very calm. It’s very peaceful. And the best pictures in the city, there you go,” said Elvis Espinosa, who brought his friends from Mexico to shoot a video.

Maria de Jesus Vajelo de Garrillo walked with her nieces and nephews, saying the park was “Hermoso. Hermoso.” She’s visiting from Mexico.

A few feet away a George Mason University Dance team recorded one of their dances.

“We were recording a TikTok. We’re part of a dance team. So we just wanted to record one of our pieces. The view is beautiful so we thought might as well get it recorded here,” said Meshwa Desai from Virginia.

Earlier Tuesday, local leaders handed out another big check, this one for a million dollars. Each member of Congress gets fifteen projects to send Federal tax dollars to. This one to the Harold Simmons Park through the Trinity Park Conservancy was one of Rep. Marc Veasey’s, D – Fort Worth.

“A lot of spaces have been used to divide the city and by putting a park there it really is bringing people together. Because no matter what part of the Trinity you live on, people will be able to come and enjoy this,” said Rep. Veasey.

The planners aim to break ground on Harold Simmons Park in the Fall of 2024.

This is the latest in a rush of money to Dallas-area parks.

“The main element is Dallas is about green. Green space and green money. It’s economic development,” said Rep. Rafael Anchia, D – Dallas.

Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg was in the area earlier in April to unveil four new deck parks in Dallas and McKinney. Greenspace has also been a priority of Dallas Mayor Eric Johnson. Mayor Johnson helped navigate a whopping $345 million towards a park proposal in front of Dallas voters in the May 4 Bond Election.

Tony Moore, CEO of Trinity Park Conservancy tells NBC 5 the turning point was during the COVID-19 pandemic when people had to social distance.

“It was shocking how many individuals devalued or didn’t realize the emotional value that being in a greenspace does for your emotions,” said Moore.