CHARLOTTE, N.C., May 13, 2015 /PRNewswire/ — SPX Corporation (NYSE: SPW) today announced that Chris Kearney, Chairman, President and Chief Executive Officer, and Gene Lowe, President, Thermal Equipment and Services, will present at the Electrical Products Group Conference in Longboat Key, Florida on Monday, May 18, 2015 at 2:45 p.m. Eastern time. Jeremy Smeltser, Vice President and Chief Financial Officer, will also be in attendance. 

A live webcast of the presentation and related materials will be posted to the Investor Relations section of SPX’s website (www.spx.com). The audio replay will be accessible on the website through June 1, 2015. 

About SPX

Based in Charlotte, North Carolina, SPX Corporation (NYSE: SPW) is a global, multi-industry manufacturing leader with approximately $5 billion in annual revenue, operations in more than 35 countries and over 14,000 employees. The company’s highly-specialized, engineered products and technologies are concentrated in flow technology and energy infrastructure. Many of SPX’s innovative solutions are playing a role in helping to meet rising global demand for electricity and processed foods and beverages, particularly in emerging markets. The company’s products include food processing systems for the food and beverage industry, critical flow components for oil and gas processing, power transformers for utility companies, and cooling systems for power plants. For more information, please visit www.spx.com.

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While the $60 million dollar plan for the Tanger Performing Arts Center gets all the headlines, it’s the collection of small street art projects known as tactical urbanism whose sum could eventually transform the true character of Downtown Greensboro.

The monied interests of the city have the power to change the skyline by demolishing entire urban blocks in order to erect new buildings — hotels, apartments, civic centers — but without a street-level adhesive holding together the unique character of the place, such development risks hollowing out the creative youth culture Greensboro’s leaders say they are desperate to retain.

It doesn’t take a high-paid consultant, or an expert source with inside knowledge, to recognize the transformation and tension at work in the downtown business district. Elected officials and booster organizations alike seek to capitalize on the momentum at work in projects like Union Square Campus, Bellemeade Village, and the TPAC. Economic development leaders point to the multiple hotel projects planned for downtown as proof of such progress.

But what will be left, and who will Downtown Greensboro be for, once the big-money transformation is complete?

That’s just one of the supporting principles of Elsewhere Museum’s South Elm Projects, which seek to take the museum’s philosophy of creative play outside the walls of its building in order to enhance what’s already there.

Similarly, Arts Greensboro’s participation in a state funded SmART Initiative brought fresh creative eyes to the downtown streets last fall. The process resulted in new perspectives on Greensboro’s existing street character in addition to suggestions for street art projects that could enhance public space.

Taken together, these projects have the potential to serve as a form of economic development, one that creates a story, giving Greensboro that elusive “wow factor” with which to entice more of its creative class to stay.

That’s one of the unique challenges facing Greensboro so far in the 21st century. In addition to competing against Charlotte and Raleigh for jobs and new businesses, the city is painfully aware each year of the flight of recent college graduates.

“Greensboro is a college town, but not a lot of those students stay here,” said Reggie Delahanty, small business coordinator for the City of Greensboro. “There are a variety of reasons why. One of them is that there are places they deem cooler to be in at the age they are at in their lives than Greensboro.”

Greensboro officials made Delahanty available for an interview when YES! Weekly requested someone to discuss placemaking as economic development. Delahanty’s primary job is to serve as first point of contact for people looking to start small businesses in the city. He’s often involved in many of the initiatives looking at ways to increase the city’s appeal to young entrepreneurs, or to increase its “cool factor.”

Delahanty said the city views placemaking as a serious part of its economic development strategy.

“There is an economic argument that could be made for placemaking and doing those things that create a more vibrant downtown environment,” Delahanty said. “Ultimately what you’re dealing with is human capital. It’s not just about where the job is, there’s a factory here, that’s where we will go because that’s where the job is. Now it’s more than just where the job is, but is that a place that I want to live? “ Cultural vibrancy often is the first factor, not just in terms of events and lifestyle options, but even something as simple as being stimulated more by other urban environments.

Several initiatives in the city are doing a good job of laying the groundwork for entrepreneurs, Delahanty said, led by the Greensboro Partnership’s Entrepreneur Connection, Collab, the Entrepreneurship Center at UNCG, and the Small Business and Technology Development Center. Keeping that creative class here for the long haul is a larger challenge.

“The economic argument is that if you are losing those highly educated folks locally, they are not taking highly paid
positions here and spending that money locally,” Delahanty said. “They
are going to other communities. We’re also not attracting folks from
those other communities … that have invested in placemaking.”

Delahanty cited the TPAC and LeBauer Park as recent examples of the city’s focus on placemaking.

“You
can walk down Davie Street now and you can feel the excitement from the
stuff on the ground, on what are essentially placemaking initiatives,”
Delahanty said. “To put in a LeBauer Park next to (Center City Park),
and the PAC will have placemaking as a huge part of the entire project.
You’re creating this cultural district at some level that doesn’t only
become attractive to talent, but it becomes a tourist destination as
well. So there is an economic outcome related to tourism that
placemaking created.”

While
the new things to come are emerging on the north side of downtown,
Elsewhere Museum launched its South Elm Projects recently with the goal
of preserving and enhancing the character of its neighborhood. One piece
of the mission is to preserve what’s already in place in order to help
shape the scope of the transitions going on in Greensboro.

Patrick
McDonnell is the South Elm Projects coordinator for Elsewhere. He
describes the museum as a collection of toys, materials, objects and
items from a 58-year time period in Greensboro’s history. Since 2003,
none of the materials are for sale. Nothing new enters the collection.
Nothing leaves the collection. Artists come into Elsewhere and use the
materials to create artworks that live in the museum, McDonnell said.

“That’s
the concept of Elsewhere and this notion of having all these materials
on hand and creating and recreating things out of them is constantly
evolving,” McDonnell said. “That philosophy is translated over to the
South Elm Projects, but instead of being internal, where all the objects
are inside the building, now it becomes a question of how do we create
things outside of the museum that will continue to evolve as the
community evolves?”

The
projects launched last month when an elaborate hopscotch appeared on
sidewalks on South Elm Street. Beginning at the underpass below the
Davie-McGee Street Trestle at Hamburger Square, artist Augustina
Woodgate created a public art piece that at first seems nothing more
than a simple child’s game.

“The
hopscotch starts from a simple idea, let’s paint a giant hopscotch on
the sidewalk and get people to play and enjoy the city,” McDonnell said.
“Then you start asking questions. How can we get people to rethink, or
think about, their city? What do artscaping projects mean for a
neighborhood like South Elm? How do these projects come in advance of a
lot of the development that is happening and preserve the culture or
make people aware of the culture that exists in the neighborhood? You
start with a simple idea, but then you start asking a lot of questions
and it becomes a complex idea.”

The
hopscotch project rolled out first partly due to scheduling of artists,
but more so in order to prepare people for the many projects to come.

“The
hopscotch frames the entire neighborhood that we are working, it’s
massive,” McDonnell said. “The sheer scale of it is something that we
wanted to get people prepared for. This is what public art looks like
and feels like.

There is an element of surprise, just because you don’t know until you see it, just how big it really is.”

Fifteen more South Elm Projects are to come in the next six months. At an artist introduction meeting earlier this spring, the
global collection of artists gathered at Elsewhere to discuss their
backgrounds and give a glimpse of what may transpire on Greensboro’s
streets this summer.

The
South Elm Projects will consist of four types of projects:
greenscaping, light installations, media based art, and participatory
programming/socially engaged artworks.

Greenscaping,
a growing field in the art world, involves creating art with living
plants. Light installations that help illuminate the four project areas,
coupled with greenscaping, could give an immediate aesthetic boost.
Media based art is a broad category that includes sculpture, murals and
projections. Participatory programming uses the project spaces for
things like spoken word and other live events.

Elsewhere
won a competitive grant last summer that will help fund the project.
ArtPlace America announced in June that Elsewhere was one of 55 grantees
selected from 1,270 applicants. The grant gives Elsewhere $200,000 to
fund the South Elm Projects and “activate four alleyways and green
spaces in the vibrant, naturally occurring cultural district of its
South Elm neighborhood in downtown Greensboro.”

ArtPlace
America awards about $14 million a year to four percent of its
applicants. It is part of a broader placemaking movement that connects
cultural vitality and grassroots art with economic development.

“People are attracted to other people,” McDonnell said.

“When
you have good public spaces, that brings people together, allows them
to bump into each other, allows them to create connections that they
wouldn’t otherwise have. What’s interesting about art is it functions as
a catalyst to invite people to come together.”

The
unpredictable happens when people come to gether, McDonnell said, and
the museum is still conceptualizing ways to measure each project’s
impact on the neighborhood.

“There
are things that we are noticing that are immediate,” McDonnell said.
“People are randomly jumping, from little kids to families. I saw an
older gentleman the other day in a suit, he was probably about 60,
jumping. People outside of Beloved Community Center after church
jumping. People running into each other on the street and then striking
up a conversation, asking what this is, and then getting into deeper
conversations about the political meaning of space, how sidewalks are
public space and there are tax dollars going to it.”

When
people have those conversations, McDonnell said, they can begin to look
at shaping policy by asking for more public art. That in turn can help
to define public space by giving definitions, and answering questions
like who defines public space, who is it for, and why is it there?

“I
would say that placemaking is trying to create an identity for a
certain part of a neighborhood, to create a character, or magnify what
is already there,” McDonnell said. “That’s another way that art can draw
that out. If there’s already stuff happening, just shine a light on
it.”

With
so many large development projects in the area, McDonnell said the city
needs to account for how to maintain the unique character of the South
Elm neighborhood.

“I
don’t know if people understand it, but massive change is occurring
right now in this neighborhood,” McDonnell said. “I’m hopeful that our
project will help get the neighborhood to come together and to think
about all the projects going on. The idea of placemaking as an economic
driver, I think, is a conversation that hasn’t been had yet in
Greensboro. I don’t think it’s on the city council’s agenda. They don’t
account for how public art will act as an economic driver. I would
definitely like to seem them start conversing about it.”

Understanding
the different scales of art is important, he said, so that the focus is
not always on the multimillion building or the $400,000 sculpture.

The South Elm Projects fall between $2,000 and $10,000.

“You
can do one $400,000 project or you can do 400 $1,000 projects,”
McDonnell said. “That notion of 400 projects, small projects, but
aggregated together, touches so many more people than just the one
project where you had one artist and one architect and a few people
sitting on a panel. We are learning very quickly that the South Elm
Projects are more about the sum of its parts rather than the individual
pieces.”

Micro
projects are an emerging field in the arts world, often called tactical
urbanism. The goal is to alter space immediately and have people
respond to the environment. McDonnell said it would be a good fit for
Greensboro because of the city’s history as a maker culture given its
history of textiles, furniture and other manufacturing.

“This
idea of doing small, DIY projects that everybody can invest in, as you
keep building on top of them, it eventually becomes one big initiative,”
McDonnell said.

Tom
Philion, president and CEO of Arts Greensboro, said he too experienced
the cumulative power of small change when he was in charge of bringing
the Eastern Music Festival back to prominence in the early part of the
last decade.

EMF
was struggling in 2000, he said, so much so that when he got off the
plane to interview for the position, the fate of the festival was the
topic of that night’s television news.

Thanks to a lot of community support, Philion said, EMF was stabilized relatively quickly. A lot of it had to do with the interesting risks they took.

Philion
said the EMF’s Fringe Series was one such risk. With downtown quiet at
the time, the Fringe Series staged concerts and performances at The
Depot, then vacant spaces downtown, eventually settling in at Triad
Stage.

“We
did it because it reached a whole different audience,” Philion said.
“It was great economic development for downtown because there were not a
whole lot of clubs operating at that point.”

Philion said those performances helped build a buzz downtown in addition to helping bring the EMF into a new period of success.

Philion
left Greensboro for Seattle in 2008, but was recruited back to take
over at Arts Greensboro a few years ago. Increasing the “wow factor” of
the city, and its cultural vibrancy, is at the forefront of his effort.

“What
can we do to make this place the city where everybody wants to live, as
opposed to ‘well we have to live here but we want to go to Charlotte,
or we want to go to Cary, or Carrboro, or whatever it is? That’s what we
try to stay focused on,” Philion said.

One
of those initiatives is the result of winning a state grant last year
to study ways the arts can impact economic development.

The NC Department of Cultural Resources awarded Greensboro a SmART Initiative grant to study streetscaping possibilities.

“We
talked about the need to revitalize downtown in the context of … what
kind of whimsical fun things can we do downtown that just get people
excited about being there,” Philion said.

At
the end of the process in December, artists were invited to walk
downtown and make suggestions for engaging with the public through
various art projects. Most of the concepts are similar to the South Elm
Projects, involving a range of ideas that included lighting train
trestles, reactivating alleyways, improving pedestrian crosswalks, and
ad hoc seating downtown.

Two
possibilities include improving pedestrian safety and slowing traffic
beneath the train trestle in Hamburger Square and reactivating the
alleyway from Washington Street that runs behind Scuppernong Books to
the city parking lot in between Ham’s and M’Coul’s.

“The
thing that really jumped out at me after that day-long session was that
there were a lot of possibilities and they weren’t high-cost
possibilities,” Philion said. “This town already has the beginning of
great stuff, and a lot of great stuff already. We are not starting from
zero.” !

ASHEVILLE, N.C. — Buncombe County’s hotel tax has generated $19,758,500 in revenue for the city’s Tourism Product Development Fund.

Since 2001, the fund (supervised by a 9-member committee) comprised largely of hotel managers and tourism and lodging industry appointees, is overseen by the Tourism Development Authority Board. The fund has given away millions to both non-profit and for-profit private projects. 

The goal is to expand Asheville’s tourist offerings and generate more overnight hotel stays.

“It’s got to produce room nights,” said Robert Foster, the TPDF Committee’s chairman. “So it’s not already something already serving the customer we have here.”

TPDF funding only goes to capitol projects, meaning bricks and mortar, not promotion or publicity of a project to generate tourists.

In Buncombe County, 11 percent tax is what a visitor pays when they stay at a local hotel. The first 7 percent is sales tax, the remaining 4 percent is a room tax. Three percent goes into tourism promotion for Asheville and 1 percent goes into the TPDF or Tourism Product Development Fund.

Grants awarded include a total of $1.3 million in 2002, 2004 and 2009 to help build the John B. Lewis Soccer complex, a total of $1.5 million in 2007 and 2009 for the Asheville Art Museum and $750,000 in 2003 to help build the Bonsai Pavillion at Asheville’s Arboretum.

“The Bonsai exhibit, if you were here on a weekend or on a busy time of day, you would see that it’s one of the busiest and most popular exhibits that we have here,” said George Briggs, Executive Director of the Arboretum. Briggs helped spearhead the attraction in 2003 that features about 50 Bonsai.

“We were probably at about 100,000 people per year in 2003 and 2004 when this was happening,” Briggs said. “We just passed 500,000 last year.”

In 2013, UNCA was awarded $500,000 to help pay for overhead night lights for the baseball and soccer fields. University officials said the addition would bring in more night games, tournament play, and overnight stays for the Asheville hotel industry.

Figures provided by the university indicate that that has happened. The lighting project was finished in spring 2014. According to UNCA, room nights in the first measured year ending in January of 2015, were 3,041 related to games played at the fields, more than tripling a university spokesman said, the baseline year before the lights were up.

“We look for projects that are more shovel ready,” Stephanie Brown said, Executive Director of Asheville’s Convention and Visitors Bureau. “They have to have a one-to-one funding match that’s already in place. And we hope to see them breaking ground within 18 months of receiving their grant.”

In 2013 the TPDF committee, and TDA Board that ultimately approves grants, awarded $50,000 to help buy the canopy at Pack Square Park.  Meghan Rogers, Executive Director of Asheville’s Downtown Association, said by email that the venue has hosted two events since the canopy went in: the Ingles Independence Day Celebration on July 4, 2014, and Easter on the Green on April 4, 2015.

The ADA then did a survey.

“At July 4th, we asked 762 of the 15,000 people two questions, zip code and did you stay in a paid accommodation,” said Rogers. She said the survey showed 11.2% stayed in a hotel, bed breakfast, or other paid accommodation and that  51% of those who came to the event lived in Buncombe County with 79% residing in North Carolina. The survey indicated there were attendees from Atlanta, Charlotte, Raleigh areas as well as Florida, Ohio, South Carolina, Tennessee.

Private business can also apply and receive money from the TPDF.  Highland Brewery got $850,000 last year to add, in part, a new rooftop event venue, improve their outdoor venue, and add additional parking for more visitors. No money went to the brewing side of the business.

In 2009, The Orange Peel got a $50,000 grant and the TDA served as guarantor on a $250,000 loan to help the venue expand to more than 1,000 capacity.

“Since we did the build-out, we’ve now gone from 30,000 out of town visitors to about 42,000 out of town every year,” said Pat Whalen, Orange Peel’s owner. “This is obviously a huge increase in use of the hotels and motels which was intended by the TDA.”

Whalen said many name bands with larger followings look for venues that can hold more than 1,000 fans.

In 2012, Navitat Canopy Adventures in Barnardsville received a $500,000 grant to help build three new ziplines as part of their $1.8 million expansion.

“If it were not for the $500,000 we received from the TPDF, we would not have done this project,” said Ken Stamps who owns Navitat with his family. 

Stamps is aware there was some controversy when Navitat won the grant, but he said the remaining investment dollars in the project came from the company.  He said the TPDF application process is rigorous.

The company, Stamps said, now has proof the investment delivered results in terms of increased visitors who drove a distance to come to the zips and stay overnight around Buncombe County.

In 2013, Navitat reported 17,521 visitors. In 2014, that number grew to 23,626 visitors — a 35 percent increase after the zipline expansion. Stamps also said all guests get an exit survey via email after their visit. Stamps said a survey done by Navitat in 2011 showed over a 12-month period in 2011 that 72 percent of Navitat guests who stayed overnight, stayed in a Buncombe County lodging property.

In 2014-2015, over a 12-month period, Stamps said Navitat showed a bump in that 85 percent of guests stayed in a Buncombe County lodging property.

“It is a destination and that was part of the attractiveness to the TPDF committee that it’s not an hour adventure,” said Stamps. “This is a half-day adventure so that further [motivates] people to stay overnight.”

TPDF committee chair Foster agreed.

“Navitat came with a product that gave us national attention, the longest and tallest zipline in the country,” Foster said. “And it was new room nights in the market.”

According to the legislation enacted to create the TPDF, the committee does have the right to choose both for-profit and non-profit projects they think will draw in more tourists, who’ll stay in hotels and potentially add to the county’s tax base.  However, longtime Asheville chef Mark Rosenstein who helped create the TPDF fund and draft the legislation it operates under, said he always had reservations about the money going to for-profit enterprise.

“The argument is, if a privately funded project can stand on its own, why should it have a public partnership?” Rosenstein said. “Obviously, if one business gets a grant and a similar business does not, how do you balance that? I personally steered away from private funding when I was on the TDA just because of this very question.  I’m really glad I’m not on this committee now because it is, it’s charged, it’s really charged with what’s fair.”

But Robert Foster who chairs the TPDF committee feels the committee is justified in awarding grants to private enterprise and said the committee carefully reviews and considers every year which projects will potentially draw more overnight hotels stays. He also cites the benefits for the larger community in Asheville.

“These things have created an infrastructure and an image that makes employers like New Belgium want to move here,” Foster said.

One TPDF project that failed was the Asheville Health Adventure. Though the project received more than $1 million from the TPDF fund, the Health Adventure isn’t listed on the TPDF fund’s website.
“Through circumstances that no one anticipated, [the project] did not come to fruition,” said Stephanie Brown. “And they had received a series of grants.”

The grants totaled $1.5 million.

“We began disbursements, that land was purchased,” Brown said.

The project failed during the recession years, but the TPDF Committee and TDA Board learned from the experience. There are now specific benchmarks of building a project must show before TPDF funds are dispersed. 

Brown also emphasized that a project can only be considered for a grant if the project shows it has matching funds from other sources besides a potential TPDF grant.

Foster emphasized what applicants should know before applying.

“Be ready to prove your case and be ready to back your numbers,” Foster said. “Be sure you have a tracking method that is solid, that allows us to understand how you’re going to create these new rooms.”

While there remains controversy about money going to for-profit local enterprise, Rosenstein said he feels the fund has done wonderful things to enhance Asheville.

“When you look at the amount of money that’s been re-invested into the community and projects it’s helped,” Rosenstein said. “It’s awesome.”

Applications for the 2015 TPDF grants are due in less than a month on June 3.

Related Links:
Asheville Convention and Visitors Bureau
Buncombe County Tourism Development Authority
Reality Check: Buncombe County Hotel Tax

Mississippi town mourns 2 slain police officers; 3 suspects arrested

HATTIESBURG, Miss. (AP) — One was a decorated “Officer of the Year.” The other was a proud recent graduate of the police academy.

A routine traffic stop led to their shooting deaths Saturday night — the first Hattiesburg police officers to die in the line of duty in more than 30 years — and three suspects were in custody, including two who were charged with capital murder.

The deaths of Officers Benjamin Deen and Liquori Tate stunned this small city in southern Mississippi. On Sunday morning, bloodstains still marked the street where the two were shot, and in the nearby New Hope Baptist Church, worshippers prayed for them and their families.

“This should remind us to thank all law enforcement for their unwavering service to protect and serve,” Mississippi Gov. Phil Bryant said in a statement. “May God keep them all in the hollow of his hand.”

Marvin Banks, 29, and Joanie Calloway, 22, were each charged with two counts of capital murder, said Warren Strain, a spokesman for the Mississippi Department of Public Safety. Banks also was charged with one count of being a felon in possession of a firearm and with grand theft for fleeing in the police cruiser after the shooting, Strain said.

—

Tropical storm warnings discontinued as Ana weakens to depression, moves inland in Carolinas

CHARLOTTE, N.C. (AP) — Tropical Storm Ana lost the last of its strength and was downgraded to a depression as it created wet and windy conditions along the North and South Carolina coasts.

At 2 p.m. Sunday, the National Hurricane Center said the center of the depression was located about 30 miles north of Myrtle Beach. The storm’s maximum sustained winds were at 35 mph. Gradual weakening was expected over the next few days, according to the hurricane center.

While the storm was stationary over the northeastern coast of South Carolina, forecasters said Ana should resume moving to the north on Sunday, turn to the northeast and pick up speed. It was expected that the storm would move over eastern North Carolina on Sunday night.

The forecast also called for between 2 and 6 inches of rain over the affected regions, and coastal flooding, especially around high tide. A combination of storm surge and the rising tide created the possibility of up to 2 feet of water above normal from Cape Hatteras as far south as South Carolina. Forecasters said those conditions should diminish as well over the next day or so.

Forecasters also reiterated their warnings for rip currents along the southeastern U.S. coast.

—

The Latest: Members pray for the 2 Mississippi officers killed right outside their church

HATTIESBURG, Miss. (AP) — 4 p.m.

At the shooting scene, blood stained the street beside New Hope Baptist Church. Inside, members prayed both for the slain officers and their relatives during worship Sunday morning on Mother’s Day.

Dorothy Thompson, wife of the pastor, said, “It’s sad. It’s just a tragedy, going from one mother to another.” She added, “Every day is a bad day (for violence), but especially on a day like today.”

The U.S. flag flew at half-staff outside the Hattiesburg Police Department, and red roses placed on a concrete sign wilted under the hot afternoon sun.

Police officers Benjamin Deen, 34, and Liquori Tate, 25, were shot and killed during a traffic stop late Saturday.

—

Raul Castro at Vatican thanks pope for Cuban-US detente, says he might return to church’s fold

VATICAN CITY (AP) — Cuban President Raul Castro paid a call Sunday on Pope Francis at the Vatican to thank him for working for Cuban-U.S. detente — and said he was so impressed by the pontiff he is considering a return to the Catholic church’s fold.

“Bienvenido (welcome)!” Francis said in his native Spanish, welcoming Castro to his studio near the Vatican public audience hall. The Cuban president, bowing his head, gripped Francis’ hand with both of his, and the two men began private talks. The meeting lasted nearly an hour, as the Argentine-born Francis and Castro spoke in Spanish.

Francis will visit Cuba in September en route to the United States.

After leaving the Vatican, Castro, the brother of Fidel, the revolutionary leader who brought the Communists to power in Cuba, gushed with praise for Francis.

The pontiff “is a Jesuit, and I, in some way, am too,” Castro said at a news conference. “I always studied at Jesuit schools.”

—

Weather casts wide net: South Dakota sees snow, tornado, while Carolinas get tropical rain

South Dakota was the center of weather extremes Sunday, with a tornado damaging a small town on the eastern side of the state and more than a foot of snow blanketing the Black Hills to the west.

Several Great Plains and Midwest states were in the path of severe weather, including in North Texas, where the National Weather Service said a likely tornado damaged roofs and trees near Denton. At the same time, a tropical storm came ashore in the Carolinas and wintry weather also affected parts of Colorado.

Tropical Storm Ana made landfall near Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, on Sunday morning and was downgraded to a tropical depression by Sunday afternoon. The storm’s maximum sustained winds were at 35 mph, and it was expected to move over eastern North Carolina on Sunday night.

In South Dakota, National Weather Service meteorologist Philip Schumacher said law enforcement reported a tornado about 10:45 a.m. Sunday in Delmont — about 90 miles from Sioux Falls. Delmont Fire Chief Elmer Goehring told The Associated Press that there “have been some injuries,” and Avera Health spokeswoman Lindsey Meyers said three people were in good condition at a local hospital. No deaths were reported.

South Dakota Department of Public Safety spokeswoman Kristi Turman said about 20 buildings were damaged and the town has no water, power or phones.

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As sea level rise threatens massive Florida coast, state offers no clear plan or coordination

ST. AUGUSTINE, Fla. (AP) — America’s oldest city is slowly drowning.

St. Augustine’s centuries-old Spanish fortress sits feet from the encroaching Atlantic, whose waters already flood the city’s narrow streets about 10 times a year — a problem worsening as sea levels rise. The city relies on tourism, but visitors might someday have to wear waders at high tide.

“If you want to benefit from the fact we’ve been here for 450 years, you have the responsibility to look forward to the next 450,” said Bill Hamilton, whose family has lived in the city since the 1950s. “Is St. Augustine even going to be here? We owe it to the people coming after us to leave the city in good shape.”

St. Augustine is one of many chronically flooded communities along Florida’s coast, and officials in these diverse places share a concern: They’re afraid their buildings and economies will be further inundated by rising seas in just a couple of decades. The effects are a daily reality in much of Florida. Drinking water wells are fouled by seawater. Higher tides and storm surges make for more frequent road flooding from Jacksonville to Key West, and they’re overburdening aging flood-control systems.

But the state has yet to offer a clear plan or coordination to address what local officials across Florida’s coast see as a slow-moving emergency. Republican Gov. Rick Scott is skeptical of man-made climate change and has put aside the task of preparing for sea level rise, an Associated Press review of thousands of emails and documents pertaining to the state’s preparations for rising seas found.

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Girls, women rescued from Boko Haram, dozens raped and pregnant, confront trauma and stigma

YOLA, Nigeria (AP) — The taunts wouldn’t stop. “Boko Haram wives,” the schoolgirls were called because they had been briefly held by Nigeria’s Islamic extremists before escaping. The teasing was so relentless that some of the Chibok girls left their town and families.

Their plight does not bode well for hundreds of girls and women recently rescued from months of captivity by Boko Haram, including dozens who are pregnant. After enduring captivity by the militants, the females may now face stigma from their communities.

“The most important thing is to restore their dignity,” the executive director of the United Nations Population Fund, Babatunde Osotimehin, told The Associated Press in a telephone interview from his office in New York.

“When you have been in captivity against your will, and God knows whatever they have done to them, some of them will have been violated, some raped, food insecure … We need to take them, work with them and bring them back to the reality of their lives,” said Osotimehin, who is Nigerian.

His agency is providing the women and girls with intense psychosocial counseling and medical care for reproductive and maternal health. It is also encouraging communities to allow the girls to return in peace.

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In Syrian civil war, AP journalists gain rare glimpse as Hezbollah fights for mountain range

QALAMOUN MOUNTAINS, Syria (AP) — Here in pockets of the rugged mountains near the Lebanese border, the distinctive yellow flag of Hezbollah now flies where al-Qaida militants once held sway.

These gains in the Qalamoun Mountains represent a bright spot for embattled Syrian President Bashar Assad’s government, now reeling from a unified insurgent assault in the country’s northwest. And again, they show the power and influence of the Lebanese militant group in Syria’s civil war, grinding on into its fifth year after killing more than 220,000 people.

A team of Associated Press journalists traveling with Hezbollah into Syria found smiling Hezbollah fighters proudly showing newly dismantled booby traps and food quickly left behind by the Sunni insurgents as commanders promised further advances they say protect Lebanon. But in Lebanon, worries persist that Hezbollah’s battlefield successes only further entangle the tiny country in Syria’s violence, risking attacks back home as well.

The Qalamoun Mountains are on the Syrian side of the border with Lebanon. They tower near Syria’s capital, Damascus, and linking that base of Assad’s power to the coast, an enclave of his Alawite sect, an off-shoot of Shiite Islam.

But the Sunni militants of the local al-Qaida chapter called the Nusra Front and the Islamic State group, have been dug into the terrain for years.

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Exit poll: Opposition candidate wins 1st round of Poland’s presidential vote, runoff needed

WARSAW, Poland (AP) — An exit poll predicted Sunday that nationalist opposition candidate Andrzej Duda will win the most votes in the first round of Poland’s presidential election and will face incumbent Bronislaw Komorowski in a May 24 runoff.

In a surprise prediction for the vote that took place Sunday, Duda, who is no fan of the European Union, is expected to capture 34.8 percent of the vote to Komorowski’s 32.2 percent, according to the IPSOS poll published by the private TVN24 and the state-run PAP news agency.

The prediction also suggested a rising dissatisfaction with the ruling pro-EU establishment led by the center-right and pro-business Civic Platform party, which has been in power since 2007. That dissatisfaction was also seen in the unexpectedly high support — 20.3 percent of the vote — predicted for punk rock star Pawel Kukiz, a candidate who is critical of the government.

The vote was a test for Poland’s two major political forces, represented by Komorowski and Duda, ahead of the country’s parliamentary election in the fall. Duda’s Law and Justice party backs a mix of national pride, Catholic values and socialist welfare promises and is more conservative than the current government.

Komorowski, who has served since 2010 and made harmony his trademark, called for a debate with Duda and vowed to urgently present new reforms.

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What a catch! Phillies fan makes play of the day, snags foul ball with baby strapped to chest

PHILADELPHIA (AP) — Oh, baby, what a catch!

A daring dad made the play of the day on Mother’s Day at Citizens Bank Park, snagging a hard foul ball with his 7 1/2-month-old son strapped to his chest.

Phillies fan Mike Capko caught the souvenir off the bat of the Mets’ Daniel Murphy with his left hand Sunday while sitting in the second deck behind home plate.

The 30-year-old Capko had son Kolton cradled in a baby carrier. Capko said it was the first foul ball he’d ever caught and that it was the infant’s first game.

“It was a natural reaction,” Capko said. “It was great, great.”