Archive for the ‘Media Control’ Category

Were Going To Flood Again: This Houston Neighborhood Got Hit Twice In 2019 – Houston Public Media

A partially filled flood detention pond under construction at the Woodridge Village construction site.

As it always does, Christmas is coming to Kingwood. But this year, for some residents whove been flooded, it wont be the same.

When Nancy Veras home in Kingwoods Elm Grove subdivision flooded for the first time in May, the family carefully saved all their holiday decorations. But those boxes didnt survive when Tropical Storm Imelda hit in September, just four months later.

I dont have any Christmas decorations. I lost everything, Vera said. Thats one of my big heartbreaks.

Vera said she was at work during the first flood.

And Im seeing that Kingwood is flooding. My area is flooding. And Im like, that doesnt make sense. We dont flood, Vera said.

But they did flood two feet of muddy water damaged her home. Vera said they used to be surrounded by woods until a year ago, when a developer, Perry Homes, cleared the trees to make room for Woodridge Village, a 260-acre residential development under construction next door to her house. Veras home is right on the county line she lives in Harris County, while the development is in Montgomery County.

She and other Elm Grove residents decided to sue. They argue theyre flooding because the developers violated state law by causing more runoff, while the developers say this years storms were simply more intense. The lawsuit raises questions about how the expanding Houston area is grappling with new development in a changing climate.

A Montgomery County official told Houston Public Media the flooding was caused by the rainfall intensity, not the new development. Vera disagreed.

Hes an idiot, Vera said. Because there were trees there, and for 30 years we never flooded.

In May, she and her husband decided not to rebuild their house right away. Thats because, a few days after that first flood, it rained again.

I stayed home and I saw the retention pond fill up, with less than an inch or two of rain. And I said, well that doesnt make sense. How are we not going to flood again, if its barely any rain at all? So we said were going to wait and see, Vera said.

Houston City Councilmember Dave Martin, whose district includes Elm Grove, said something needs to be done quickly to address the problem.

When you have a two-inch rainfall that youre scared to death about, Martin said, whats going to happen over these next months and years?

The lawsuit

In May, neighbors in Elm Grove banded together to sue the companies responsible for the development, including Perry Homes subsidiary Figure Four Partners Ltd., PSWA, Inc. and Rebel Contractors, Inc. They allege the project violated the Texas Water Code. In court documents, they said were going to flood again which turned out to be true, just a few months later.

Jim Blackburn, a law professor with Rice University, has seen cases like this for decades, where residents blame new development for creating flooding.

We dont really have time to fool with simple issues like getting runoff right from new developments, Blackburn said. Thats a problem that simply should not occur. We know enough to keep that from happening, and if it takes litigation to stop it, so be it. We have strong laws we should use them.

With suburbs continuing to expand all around the edges of Harris County, and climate change producing more intense storms more often, the legal arguments in this case matter to many neighborhoods, not just Elm Grove.

Perhaps the more unusual thing is that in this case it appears that the problem has been discovered in a more timely manner, Blackburn said. But theres a long history in Texas of suing over what one neighbor does to another neighbor with regard to flooding.

The storms

The Elm Grove case hinges partly on one big question was the rainfall in May actually worse than in Hurricane Harvey, when the homes didnt flood?

In the defendants motion to dismiss the lawsuit, the attorneys said rainfall in Elm Grove on May 7 was unprecedented: Early reports show rain fell at a rate of up to 6 inches per hour, with a total of 16 inches within a 24-hour period. This massive rainfall was of historical significance; the rate of rainfall in and around the Elm Grove area over such a short time period surpassed even that of Hurricane Harvey.

Space City Weather meteorologist Eric Berger said, based on data from the Harris County Flood Control District, rainfall in the area on May 7 was very intense, but does not necessarily match that claim.

That is not in the Harris County data, but they may have some more localized information theyre using from some other source, Berger said. Some of the closest [rain gauges] did show rainfall rates above three inches per hour, which suggests that near Elm Grove or just upstream of Elm Grove it certainly could have been higher.

According to the Harris County Flood Control District, the Kingwood area received a four-day total of around 30 inches during Harvey in 2017. In this years storms, the Kingwood area received 6-7 inches total during the May 7 rain event, and a four-day total of around 17 inches during Tropical Storm Imelda in September.

It would be really interesting to know the source of the data behind the claims for total rainfall and rainfall intensity that the defendants are basing their defense on, Berger said. And I think that will be pretty important to deciding the outcome of the case. There could have been localized storm totals not reflected in the government observation sites.

In response, a Perry Homes spokesperson said, That portion of Montgomery County has few, if any, publicly reported rain gauges as far as we know. Because the rainfall information in this portion of Montgomery County is sparse, Figure Four retained a nationally recognized expert to determine accurate rainfall amounts for the 2019 flood events.

Whats next

After the flooding during Tropical Storm Imelda, Martin was outraged. The city of Houston filed cease and desist orders, which Martin hoped would keep that land undeveloped. Martin reached out to Kathy Perry Britton, the CEO of Perry Homes, to talk about incentives to turn the land back into green space.

I wanted to sit down and have coffee with her to discuss some of the things that I think would work well, and they didnt think that was a necessary step, Martin said. Lets have a conversation and see if we can protect the neighborhood, maybe do something unique Perry Homes could be proud of, instead of building a development theyre not going to be proud of, and that the neighbors arent going to want.

Beth Guide, the Elm Grove Homeowners Association Director, said she would like to see the development stopped, too.

Im hoping that human decency wins out in the end and they walk away, Guide said.

A spokesperson with Perry Homes said Montgomery County signed off on the Woodridge Village drainage plan after an engineering firm found that the development wouldnt negatively impact nearby homes. That plan includes detention basins to hold water, which are under construction now.

Houston Councilmember Martin said hes concerned about the region, not just Elm Grove.

What we really need to do, Martin said, is look at our policies and do we continue to build in the floodplains? To put peoples homes and lives at risk?

As for Nancy Vera, shes working on putting her home back together.

I dont know what Im hoping for, Nancy Vera said. Its hard to say. Im just taking one day at a time. Im going through the motions. Because what else are you supposed to do?

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Were Going To Flood Again: This Houston Neighborhood Got Hit Twice In 2019 - Houston Public Media

Then and now: How Ireland and the business world have changed from 2010 to 2020 – Fora.ie

CAST YOUR MIND back to the beginning of 2010: Ireland was mired in the banking crisis, Instagram had not been founded yet and Alex Ferguson still bestrode the Premier League.

From climate concerns to the influence of social networks, the computing power in our pockets and wearable tech, a lot has changed in the past decade

We asked some of Irelands top business people to look back ten years and pick out what they think has been the most influential innovation, idea or tech shift since 2010 and how has it affected the business world.

Norman Crowley, founder and chief executive of Crowley Carbon and Electrifi:

One can look at it through the lens of the smartphone revolution or the lens of the social media revolution or the wider lens of what will impact humanity most.

When you look at it through the lens of the future of humanity then you would have to say that the most influential technologies are batteries and solar panels.

For the first time in the history of the modern world, we do not have to burn fossil fuels to sustain our modern lifestyle. In light of the threat of climate change, this is truly a game-changer.

Patricia Scanlon, founder and chief executive of SoapBox Labs:

The advancement of deep learning-based machine learning is probably the most impactful innovation of the last decade.

Such advancements have led to high accuracy, real-world applications of machine learning in every area of business from customer service and finance to communications and product development and in every area of our personal lives from how kids learn to read to how we deliver caring services to the elderly, and everything in between.

Iain McDougall, country manager for UK and Ireland at Stripe:

We shouldnt take for granted the enormous computing power that resides in the pockets ofover two billion people around the world. Ten years ago it wasnt there.

The combination ofsmartphones and cloud computing has radically altered nearly every area of society, from howdemocracy works to how families keep in touch. This change has reached deep intothe business world.

A startup today can access a global audience of potential customers fromday one and faces dramatically reduced costs in getting to that point. Large legacy businessoperations have become a hindrance rather than a help, upending the order of multipleindustries.

Sonia Deasy, founder and managing director of Pestle & Mortar:

Since its inception in 2010, Instagram has changed how we experience and share our stories with the world.

It changed how businesses think about marketing. You can get in front of the right audience very easily but when you get there, you have to be absolutely authentic, human and consistent.

Bertrand Van Overschelde, head of Qualtrics in Ireland:

At the start of 2010 things were a littlequieter- then came 4G, Snapchat, Instagram, the iPad, Amazon Alexa, Google Home, Slack. A wholeswathe of new ways for consumers and employees to share their viewpoint and stay connected.

As a result, customers and employees have become more demanding of the brands they work for and buy from. The brands that have continued to thrive or emerge as disruptors are the ones that have realised that experiences drive loyalty, not price or product.

Triona Mullane, founder and chief executive of Madme Technologies

A major change since 2010 has been the use of technology to develop platforms that have massively disrupted traditional industries across many sectors. Technology has enabled new peer-to-peer based services like Airbnb, Uber, Lyft, Venmo, Deliveroo and many more.

In many cases they have supported businesses by making products more accessible to consumers, such as Deliveroo. In other cases they have massively disrupted and replaced existing service offerings such the impact of Uber on the local taxi industries and the use of Venmo to completely disrupt traditional payment and banking models.

The other side of this whole shift is the importance of consumer feedback and ratings. These models, and the parties within them, depend enormously on positive feedback and positive ratings to thrive.

Across the business world, gathering feedback from customers, understanding customer sentiment and the potential to influence others have been major changes in business focus. The focus is on customer experience because it is now well accepted that positive experience leads to loyalty and referrals and ultimately business success.

Sam Dennigan, founder and chief executive of Strong Roots:

There have been significant innovations in production and distribution. Were committed to sustainability at Strong Roots and are excited about the improvement of compostable, recyclable packaging. We have seen great strides to achieve that over the past decade.

Source: David Sexton

Cillian Kieran, chief executive and co-founder of Ethyca:

The single greatest technology shift of the decade still has to be social media. Facebook came before 2010, but if we examine the last decade at a macro-social, politicaland economic level, it took until the 2010s for the impact of social media to be felt on theRichter scale.

When that impact was felt, what we saw was a sort of backlash against a Utopianvision of the internet that existed in 2010. Weve gone from believing social media will unite usto realising that its architecture and reward systems lead to polarisation.

Its undeniableweve created a golem without understanding the consequences, and the leadership at thesebusinesses are equally at sea in how to remedy the problem. Is this a fun answer forinnovation? No? Ok, how about we just say blockchain and be done with it.

Carl Dempsey, vice president of solution engineering at Salesforce:

The Fourth Industrial Revolution has brought about an incredible wave of innovation and technology. One theme that has generated a lot of buzz in recent years is artificial intelligence, AI.

The excitement is justified; over the last decade, AI has rapidly become part of the fabric of our daily lives as it has moved out of academia and research labs (where perhaps it was a solution looking for a problem) and into the real world, and we are seeing this accelerate in the last number of years.

Today its impact can be seen everywhere from banks analysing countless data points in seconds to detect fraud to call centres where they are deploying chatbots to improve customer interactions. At the broadest level, unleashing the power of AI is allowing the human workforce to be more productive.

Michael Doody, group chief technology officer at Netwatch Group:

The shift to mobility and ubiquitous personal internet access has created huge opportunities for businesses but also challenges in terms of serving relevant up to date content to customers and also treating their personal information securely.

A decade ago it may have been normal for a business such as a restaurant to not to have more than a basic single page web site, but now consumers expect that businesses have an active up to date web or Facebook presence, accurate multilingual menus that are viewable from a phone, good reviews on social rating sites and allow the creation of a reservation online with automated reminders closer to the selected date.

The number of channels that a business has to effectively operate in to fully engage with customers has increased substantially in the last decade, but if done in a way that adds perceived value, it can offer huge potential upside.

Richard Haxby, managing director of MathWorks Ireland:

Over the last decade, wearables have changed the way we view health and fitness with trackers, revolutionised music and gaming with smart headphones and (augmented) reality glasses, and started changing assembly lines and factory floors with glasses that integrate computers to speed hands-free work.

This has created multiple paradigm shifts from blurring the lines between industry (medical), technology (fitness tracker) and consumer (smartwatch), to creating a whole new segment that merges fashion, clothing and technology.

PJ Byrne, chief executive of Flexi-Fi Europe:

Undoubtedly, the smartphone takes top prize. The fact we can do so much on our mobile devices is something that could never have been imagined twenty years ago.

Des Travers, chief executive of DPD Ireland:

The most influential shift in technology in the past decade would have to be the focus on user-friendly applications in the business world. Customers want to self-serve, so the development of technology that allows them to do this has been really important.

For DPD, sending messages with a one-hour delivery window, and then allowing the recipient to opt for an alternative delivery date or location via a link, gives control back to the parcel recipient and makes our job much more efficient.

Were all time poor we want as much convenience as is available and we want to control the use of our time. Equally, these options improve first time delivery rates which has a positive impact on the environment by reducing the amount of travel time per delivery.

Ciaran Mulligan, managing director of Blue Insurance:

Online banking and the way we now buy products or services has changed dramatically and for the better. It has now become very easy to shop online, watch movies or listen to music with a few clicks of a button through many different devices.

This has led to the consumer expecting a more quick and easy service in everything that they do so companies need to be forward-thinking and ensure they are not working with antiquated systems or complicated processes.

Get our Daily Briefing with the mornings most important headlines for innovative Irish businesses.

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Then and now: How Ireland and the business world have changed from 2010 to 2020 - Fora.ie

Why Is Trump Finding More Protection Than Nixon Did? – The New York Times

Several months later, details of a whistle-blower complaint, reportedly from someone in the C.I.A., leaked out and set the stage for the impeachment inquiry. The complaint laid out a conversation between Mr. Trump and Volodymyr Zelensky, the president of Ukraine, in which Mr. Trump appeared to pressure him to investigate Mr. Biden and his son. The complaint set in motion the congressional investigation that led to impeachment.

Then: While the F.B.I. and Congress played key roles in the Watergate investigation, President Nixon also faced another investigative adversary: a special prosecutor, Archibald Cox, appointed in May 1973 by Attorney General Elliot Richardson. After the former White House aide Alexander Butterfields surprise disclosure of a secret White House taping system that captured the presidents conversations, Mr. Cox issued a subpoena for the White House tapes in October 1973, provoking Nixon to order the attorney general to fire him. Mr. Richardson and his deputy attorney general, William Ruckelshaus, both refused and resigned. It fell to Robert Bork, the solicitor general who suddenly found himself acting attorney general, to fire Mr. Cox. The episode became known as the Saturday Night Massacre.

Partly as a result of public outrage over those events, impeachment proceedings in the House began nearly seven months later. Nixon was also forced to approve the appointment of a new special prosecutor, Leon Jaworski, who continued Mr. Coxs efforts to obtain the tapes. His willingness to challenge the president in court brought Watergate to the Supreme Court, which ruled unanimously that Nixon would have to turn over the tapes.

Now: The Justice Department has helped Mr. Trump throughout the Ukraine affair. In March, Attorney General William P. Barr announced that he had concluded that Mr. Mueller had found insufficient evidence that the president obstructed justice. Mr. Trump immediately declared a complete and total exoneration, even though the attorney general noted that the report had not exonerated him. But Mr. Barr then waited more than three weeks before releasing the report to the public, enabling Mr. Trump and his allies to mount a counteroffensive that insulated the president from potentially worse fallout. Democrats chose not to include any of the conduct revealed in the report in the articles of impeachment.

In addition, the Justice Department declined to open a criminal investigation or appoint a special prosecutor in response to the whistle-blower complaint. And in the face of congressional investigations, department lawyers have made the argument that Congress cannot even go to court to enforce subpoenas calling administration officials to testify.

Finally, by opening what would become a criminal inquiry into the origins of the F.B.I.s investigation of the Trump campaign in 2016, Mr. Barr has given credence to Mr. Trumps unfounded theory that people in American intelligence agencies worked against him. The attorney general has become perhaps Mr. Trumps most effective defender, a sharp contrast to those who ran the Nixon Justice Department.

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Why Is Trump Finding More Protection Than Nixon Did? - The New York Times

SolarEdge and Enphase Now Control 80% of the US Residential Solar Inverter Market – Greentech Media News

The U.S. residential solar market just experienced its best-ever quarter, with 712 megawatts (DC) installed. Growth is diversifying across U.S. state markets, and there is opportunity across the solar value chain.

So which inverter suppliers are benefiting?

According to the latest edition of Wood Mackenzies U.S. PV Leaderboard, released this week, SolarEdge inverters were used on 60.5 percent of U.S. residential installations through the first three quarters of this year. Thats more than triple SolarEdge's closest competitor, Enphase, with its 19.2 percent market share.

Source: Wood Mackenzie U.S. PV Leaderboard, Q4 2019

The current market stands in stark contrast to just a few years ago, when SolarEdge was still growing its footprint in the U.S. residential solar sector. In 2013, with just 4.5 percent market share, SolarEdge ranked fifth behind then-leader ABB, Enphase, SMA and Fronius.

It should be noted that there was about as much residential solar capacity installed in the third quarter of 2019 as there was in the whole of 2013. In other words, SolarEdge is today dominating a much bigger pie.

SolarEdge differentiates its product by pairing residential single-phase inverters with DC optimizers, while Enphase manufactures microinverters.

SolarEdges rise has been complemented by significant market-share consolidation. Price pressure in the inverter landscape has led vendors to exit in recent years, and this has mostly benefited the top companies. Vendors other than SolarEdge and Enphase held over 67 percent of the market in 2013. As of Q3 2019, market share for this "other" group has fallen to just 20.3 percent.

It wasnt too long ago that Enphase was on the brink of financial collapse. But from 2015-2017, the company made a concerted effort to reduce its costs by 50 percent. The company managed not only to stay afloat but also grew its revenue.

Enphase has recovered some lost market share this year, and captured over 20 percent of residential installations in Q3 2019 a routine accomplishment for the company in prior years for the first time since Q1 2018.

Pivoting from pure-play inverter manufacturing to providing more holistic energy services is a strategy seen throughout the global PV inverter landscape, but SolarEdge and Enphase are definitive leaders in this regard.

Both companies continue to expand their product offerings, and both have launched home energy platforms in recent years. These platforms are able to connect electric vehicles, solar-plus-storage, smart meters and home appliances. Such grid edge technologies are all poised for expansion.

Since 2018, SolarEdge has been on a bit of an acquisition spree, acquiring an e-mobility and a battery storage company that will contribute to its home energy solution platform. Additionally, SolarEdge made a third acquisition, an uninterruptible power supply company a business not directly related to the inverter space, but still a growing market.

In line with SolarEdges forward-looking tactics, the company has built out a virtual power plant software offering that is compatible with all companies' inverter technology, not just its own. It also launched StorEdge, an EV inverter product.

Enphase on the other hand has made several strategic partnerships to build out its AC module business, which includes partnerships with SunPower, LG, Panasonic and Solaria. The company continues to develop its home energy solution.

SolarEdge and Enphase have grabbed the majority of the U.S. residential market as a result of innovative and forward-looking moves that position them to meet growing demand for holistic energy services.

According to Wood Mackenzies latest forecast, the U.S. residential solar market will reach 2.4 gigawatts in 2019 and grow to 3 gigawatts in 2020.

***

Wood Mackenzie's U.S. PV Leaderboard tracks both residential and commercial market shares for inverter suppliers, solar installers and module suppliers.

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SolarEdge and Enphase Now Control 80% of the US Residential Solar Inverter Market - Greentech Media News

Parents: Here’s how to talk to your kids about sex in the age of social media – NorthJersey.com

This the thirdin a series on teens, sex and social media. The series also looks at how social media has changed the way teens learn about, and engage in, sex, and the practice among young adults of choking during sex.

With smartphones tucked away in their pockets, young people now have easy access to the internet and all its dark corners, including pornographic images and videos showing a gamut of sexual behavior.

So, what should parents do about it?

First, they should realize that even with parental controls and filters that block pornography, tech-savvy teens may still be able to find and view sexually-explicit content on web pages and social media platforms.

Students also are unlikely to hear about online pornography, and the risks associated with it, at school, where sex education curriculum is limited if it is required at all. Thats why experts urge parents to talk to their children and make sure theyre getting the right information at home.

Young people are curious about sex and sexuality because they are not getting comprehensive sex education in school, said Dan Rice, interim executive director of Answer, a national sexual education organization based at Rutgers University. So, for young people, [the internet] is how a lot of them are seeking out their answers.

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Just 24 states, including New Jersey, make it mandatory for schools to teach sex education.

New Jersey became one of the first states to require comprehensive sex education in schools in 1981. Districts typically focus on basics like abstinence, contraception and sexually transmitted diseases.

Not until this year did New Jersey adopt a law that requires school districts to teach lessons on consentin grades 6 to 12. The law requires schools to teach that consent is required before physical contact or sexual activity, to teach about the right to say no, and to discuss respecting others' rightto say no.

States do not require discussions about online sexual content except for New Jersey and California, which require lessons specifically about sexting, or the practice of sending sexually explicit photos, messages, or videos via electronic device.

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Otherwise, its unlikely that the topic will be discussed at all in the classroom.

There are not many teachers who will bring up sexually explicit content in the classroom because of fear for their job, Rice said. If they dont have a curriculum or policy [that covers it], theyre not going to talk about it.

In recent interviews, college students said their high school sex education classes fell short of answering their questions.

My sex education was a list of vocabulary words with terms like gonorrhea and definitions like a type of STD' not what it does, how you can contract it or the fact that it goes away, said Tori DAmico, a 19-year-old college student.

Her high school focused on teaching kids about abstinence, and she said she did not get lessons on safe sex or consent. She described the environment as fear-mongering, comparing it to the scenein the movie Mean Girls where the gym teacher tells students, Don't have sex, because you will get pregnant and die.

The story continues below the video.

When sex education is provided in schools, it tends to focus on topics like anatomy, the physiology of how people get pregnant, and abstinence, said EmilyRothman, a professor at Boston Universitys School of Public Health who has conducted several studieson porn use by adolescents.

Teachers dont necessarily focus on the dynamics of how people communicate or sexual orientation or what you might enjoy sexually that isnt part of sex education in school, she said.

Just over half ofsurveyed students reported their sex education classes to be useful, according toNew Jerseys Sex Ed Report Card, a report released in December by the Thrive NJ Coalition, a group of parents, community members and advocates. More than 60 percent of surveyed parents gave sex education at their kids' schools as a C.

In the report, the coalitionrecommendedthat New Jersey schools remove the requirement that teachers stress abstinence and failure rates of contraceptives, andexpand teacher training.

The report also notedthat the quality of sex education varies widely among districts and called for the state to createa database of sex education materials and to monitor and assess what's taught in classrooms.

Young people may seek out sexual content online because they are curious, or they may find it by accident, Rice said. As a marketing ploy, some companies will even buy domain names with words that young people may use as search terms.

Parents who find out that a child has seen explicit material should not panic, he said, noting that the young person may also feel anxious about what he or she has seen.

Dont yell at them, he said. Dont freak out, because you dont want to send the message that they cant come to you with questions, because there are going to be other important things they want to talk to you about. You dont want to shut the door.

Parents can start the conversation by asking questions such as:

Parents should explain to their children that what they are seeing is edited adult entertainment that often does not reflect reality, Rice added.

They dont realize the bodies they are seeing and the behaviors they are seeing are not typical," he said. "So, the impact can be poor self-esteem, poor body esteem and unrealistic expectations of what a sexual relationship might look like."

Some parents may find it difficult to talk to their children about sex and consent. Rothmans advice is for parents to open a conversation in a non-judgemental way focused on consent, respect and healthy relationships.

I think itsgood if parents can learn to do it, to coach kids that they should be able to communicate about what they want, tocommunicatethat good sex involves a lot of trust and respect in being comfortable enough to tell somebody what you like and dont like, she said.

Parents may worry that talking about sex and sexuality will encourage young people to have sex. But studies have shown that teens who report talking with their parents about sex are more likely to delay having sex and to use condoms when they do have sex, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Parents should also keep in mind that when teens seek outinformation online, it may not be reliable or a complete picture. Theyshould also find outwhere their child is getting information and whether it's factually and medically accurate, the CDC recommends.

Experts say it's key that conversations about sex and sexuality begin at an early age and that they are nota one-time occasion. Parents can start bygiving correct names for body parts and talking about consent, Rice explained.

There is no such thing as 'the talk,' Rice said. You cant have one conversation and expect that will be it. As they grow and develop, they are going to have different questions in their lives.

If we normalize talking about those things at an early age," he said, "it will be more likely that young people will feel comfortable going to parents when they do have questions.

Staff writers Lindy Washburn,CatherineCarrera, Jessie Gomez and Anthony Zurita contributed to this story.

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