Saturday, September 25, 2021

In the news, Friday, August 20, 2021


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AUG 19      INDEX      AUG 21
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from The Spokesman-Review
Newspaper in Spokane, Washington

A day after Washington agriculture officials held a training session with their cohorts from Oregon, the Oregon crew tracked an Asian giant hornet to the first nest of the invasive species found this year. The discovery Thursday follows the first sighting last week when a homeowner captured an image of an Asian giant hornet, also known as a murder hornet, attacking a paper wasp nest at a home near Blaine, Washington.

Memo to the freedom-loving patriots burning with rage about the tyranny of mask mandates in schools: I have some truly excellent news regarding your liberty. Your freedoms are intact. Your self-sovereignty is whole. You are simply facing a series of choices about whether to be a minimally good human being right now, and while no one would dream of constraining those choices, it’s true that they come paired with consequences. So, if you are dead set against your child wearing a mask to school to help control the spread of a deadly virus that is now filling hospitals, infecting more and more children, and killing the unvaccinated – new peaks achieved largely due to people burning with your selfsame rage – you will be thrilled to learn that among your choices is one that will allow you to educate your children, sort of, while not enduring the unbearable tragedy of mask coercion. Home school.

A man under suspicion for driving while impaired drove a dump truck into two buildings and several cars in east Spokane late Friday morning, injuring seven people. McGavin Medrain, 48, was identified by police on Friday afternoon as the driver of the truck. He was listed as booked into the Spokane County Jail, and police said they were pursuing charges of vehicular assault against Medrain, who is from Idaho. ... The crash at the intersection of Fourth Avenue and Freya Street was reported about 11:50 a.m. Spokane Fire Chief Brian Schaeffer said the crash involved six vehicles, and confirmed seven people were transported from the scene. Others involved, including the shop’s baristas, remained at the scene, dazed and some covered in fiberglass insulation pulverized by the impact.

A flash flood warning is in effect through Saturday for portions of Washington, posing concerns for containment of the Ford-Corkscrew fire in Stevens County. The Ford-Corkscrew fire slightly grew on Friday to 15,019 acres but showed signs of slowing, with the same 14% containment as Thursday. The fire showed moderate fire behavior Thursday due to the impacts of heavy smoke and increased cloudiness. Torching and spotting continued with active fire spread overnight, according to a news release from the team fighting the fire. Evacuations remained for the towns of Ford, Clayton, Tum Tum, and Springdale.

Close to 80% of voters in Spokane overwhelmingly approved a law to make the city’s multimillion-dollar contract negotiations with powerful labor unions open to public observation – an attempt to promote trust, honesty and transparency in our government. In response, labor unions threatened a “barroom brawl in the streets.” Now, a Spokane judge has sided with them. Last week, Spokane Superior Court Judge Tony Hazel threw out the popular voter-approved law.

After about three months of freedom from masks for vaccinated people, Gov. Jay Inslee announced Wednesday vaccinated people must join those unvaccinated in wearing masks when indoors. The mandate follows a surge in COVID-19 cases and hospitalizations across the state. Washington reached an all-time high for hospitalizations due to COVID-19 this week.

As Congress gears up to investigate how the Taliban swiftly took control of Afghanistan and caught the Biden administration off guard, Northwest lawmakers are set to play key oversight roles. Rep. Adam Smith, a Bellevue Democrat who chairs the House Armed Services Committee, said in an interview his panel will hold a classified briefing with Pentagon officials on Tuesday, when the House returns early from its summer recess to deal with pending legislation. Smith said he fundamentally agreed with President Joe Biden’s statement on Wednesday that there was no way for the United States to end its two-decade military presence in Afghanistan “without chaos ensuing,” but he said his committee will press the Department of Defense on what its intelligence told officials, what they missed and how they plan to move forward.

Reports of targeted killings in areas overrun by the Taliban mounted Friday, fueling fears that they will return Afghanistan to the repressive rule they imposed when they were last in power, even as they urged imams to push a message of unity at Friday’s prayers. Terrified that the new de facto rulers would commit such abuses and despairing for their country’s future, thousands have raced to Kabul’s airport and border crossings following the Taliban’s stunning blitz through Afghanistan. Others have taken to the streets to protest the takeover – acts of defiance that Taliban fighters have violently suppressed.

Tom T. Hall, the singer-songwriter who composed “Harper Valley PTA” and sang about life’s simple joys as country music’s consummate blue collar bard, has died. He was 85. His son, Dean Hall, confirmed the musician’s death Friday at his home in Franklin, Tennessee. Known as “The Storyteller” for his unadorned yet incisive lyrics, Hall composed hundreds of songs [including "Spokane Motel Blues"].


President Joe Biden pledged firmly on Friday to bring all Americans home from Afghanistan – and all Afghans who aided the war effort, too – as officials confirmed that U..S. military helicopters were flying into Taliban-held Kabul to scoop up would-be evacuees. But Biden’s promises, and the limited U.S. helicopter sorties beyond the concrete barriers ringing the Kabul airport, came as thousands more Americans and others seeking to escape the Taliban struggled to get past crushing crowds, Taliban airport checkpoints and sometimes-insurmountable U.S. bureaucracy.

People infected with COVID-19 were captured in a photo this week lying on the floor in pain while waiting for antibody infusions at a treatment site set up in a Jacksonville, Florida, library. The image has become a vivid illustration of the huge demand for the once-neglected COVID-19 drugs in the states hit hardest by a summer surge of infections in the unvaccinated being driven by the highly contagious delta variant.

While many large companies across the U.S. have announced that COVID-19 vaccines will be required for their employees to return to work in-person, there is one state where such requirements are banned: Montana. Under a new law passed by the state’s Republican-controlled Legislature earlier this year, requiring vaccines as a condition for employment is deemed “discrimination” and a violation of the state’s human rights laws.

The U.S. government on Friday extended a ban on nonessential travel along the borders with Canada and Mexico to slow the spread of COVID-19 despite increasing pressure to lift the restriction. U.S. border communities that are dependent on shoppers from Mexico and Canada and their political representatives have urged the Biden administration to lift the ban. In addition, Canada recently began letting fully vaccinated U.S. citizens enter the country. But the Department of Homeland Security said in a tweet Friday that the restrictions on nonessential travel were still needed to minimize the spread of COVID-19 and the delta variant. It extended the ban until at least Sept. 21.

President Joe Biden’s administration is sticking by the decision under former President Donald Trump to lift protections for gray wolves across most of the U.S. But a top federal wildlife official on Friday told The Associated Press there is growing concern over aggressive wolf hunting seasons adopted for the predators in the western Great Lakes and northern Rocky Mountains.

Washington Gov. Jay Inslee’s announcement of mandatory COVID-19 vaccinations for state workers comes at a time when the state ferry system is experiencing a severe staffing shortage. KUOW reports that in an Aug. 13 notice, Washington State Ferries Chief of Staff Nicole McIntosh said there were “an unprecedented 91 relief requests yesterday.”

It’s been more than two decades since a leaking gas pipeline in Whatcom Falls Park resulted in a deadly explosion. But the incident is still serving as a potent lesson for the federal government. Federal policymakers and regulators toured the site of the explosion on Thursday, Aug. 19, led by representatives from Bellingham’s Pipeline Safety Trust, which was formed in the aftermath of the 1999 disaster. The group included U.S. Rep. Rick Larsen, whose congressional district includes Bellingham, and Tristan Brown, acting administrator of the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration. ,,, On June 10, 1999, a series of human mistakes and mechanical errors led about 237,000 gallons of unleaded gasoline to leak out of an underground pipeline operated by Olympic Pipe Line Co., according to previous Bellingham Herald reporting. The gas seeped into Whatcom Creek and ignited around 5 p.m., turning the water body into a snaking channel of flames. The disaster killed two 10-year-old boys playing by the creek and an 18-year-old man. The fire burned for five days, scorching trees and killing any wildlife in its path. The disaster cost more than $187 million.

Gov. Jay Inslee’s rollout of a sweeping COVID-19 vaccine mandate is drawing fire from a major state employees union and leaving unanswered questions, including whether workers fired for noncompliance can collect unemployment benefits. Inslee last week ordered state employees and health care workers to get vaccinated by Oct. 18 or face termination. On Wednesday, he expanded the requirement to include K-12 and higher education employees. In imposing one of the nation’s strictest and most far-reaching mandates, Inslee said the state would bargain in good faith over the requirements with unions representing affected state employees. But the 45,000-member Washington Federation of State Employees (WFSE) is accusing the Inslee administration of breaking that commitment – and failing to provide needed details about how the mandate will affect the state workforce.

What appeared to be around 1,000 protesters gathered in downtown Spokane on Friday to protest Gov. Jay Inslee’s COVID-19 vaccine mandates for state health care and education workers. ... The protesters gathered outside of the Spokane Regional Health District before marching across the Monroe Street Bridge. They eventually ended up at Spokane City Hall, as chants of “freedom, not coercion” rang through the streets of downtown.

A major state employees union is criticizing Gov. Jay Inslee’s implementation of a broad COVID-19 vaccine mandate. Inslee last week ordered state employees and health care workers to get vaccinated by Oct. 18 or face termination. On Wednesday, he expanded the requirement to include K-12 and higher education employees. The Seattle Times reported Inslee said the state would bargain in good faith over the requirements with unions representing affected state employees. But the 45,000-member Washington Federation of State Employees (WFSE) says the Inslee administration is breaking that commitment – and failing to provide needed details about how the mandate will affect the state workforce.

Seattle Mayor Jenny Durkan’s office said this spring that 10 months of her missing text messages could be attributed to an “unknown technology issue.” However, internal emails appear to show officials had already known for months why the texts were gone and when they disappeared, the Seattle Times reported. And City Attorney Pete Holmes says the initial explanation from Durkan’s office was misleading.

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In the news, Thursday, August 19, 2021


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AUG 18      INDEX      AUG 20
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from The Spokesman-Review
Newspaper in Spokane, Washington

The Boston Tea Party was not about tea. It was a political protest against perceived overreach by an out-of-touch monarch into the affairs of individuals without their consent. A small group decided they had been pushed one step too far and tangibly registered their objections by brewing a shipload’s worth of tea in Boston Harbor. Likewise the pushback on COVID-driven mandates is not primarily about mRNA vaccines. It’s a Boston Tea Party moment when an overbearing executive branch of government has pushed a significant number of public employees and health care professionals one step too far.

The Ford-Corkscrew Fire in Stevens County grew to 15,000 acres by Thursday morning with 14% containment, but some relief may be in sight from lighter winds, rain and lower temperatures. The fire “has experienced extreme fire behavior since its start, including intense spotting and high rates of spread,” fire officials said. It’s also been threatening critical infrastructure, including cell phone towers.


In the midst of a brutal month for school administrators, Kyle Rydell has maintained his sense of perspective. Rydell, superintendent of the West Valley School District, is dealing with the same challenges as his colleagues around the state. On top of concerns over critical race theory and sex education, superintendents are getting squeezed from every side over mask and vaccine mandates issued by Gov. Jay Inslee.

There are more people hospitalized for COVID-19 in Spokane County – and Washington state – than ever before in the pandemic. The majority of those people are unvaccinated. In Spokane , more than 90% of patients hospitalized with the virus are unvaccinated, according to hospitals and the health district. The delta variant has led to a statewide surge in COVID-19 hospitalizations. Hospitals were already quite full, however, and most facilities were also experiencing staff shortages and clogs in the state health care system before the surge began in late July.

Through a $14.6 million National Institute on Aging grant, a Washington State University-led project will work to battle disparities associated with Alzheimer’s disease and dementia in Native populations. The outreach in the next five years will involve American Indian, Alaska Native, Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islander groups across the U.S., including Washington state-based tribes and populations such as the Marshallese. Although culturally and geographically diverse, Native populations share “an unequal burden of conditions such as hypertension, Type 2 diabetes and low socioeconomic status that make dementia more likely,” a WSU news release said. Life expectancy within Native groups is increasing, raising concerns that Alzheimer’s and dementias might become a public health crisis.

A proposed energy project in south-central Idaho would more than double the amount of wind energy produced in the state, and U.S. officials said Thursday that they are taking comments on the plan. The U.S. Bureau of Land Management is taking comments on the 1,000-megawatt project proposed by Magic Valley Energy that would include 400 wind turbines up to 740 feet high, taller than any in the state. The Lava Ridge Wind Project would be built in parts of Jerome, Lincoln and Minidoka counties and power upward of 300,000 homes.

On July 8, President Joe Biden stood in the East Room of the White House and delivered a clear message to the Afghans who served the U.S. government as interpreters and in other roles critical to the United States’ 20-year military presence in their country. “There is a home for you in the United States if you so choose,” Biden said, “and we will stand with you just as you stood with us.” But after the Taliban’s swift takeover of Afghanistan ended with the fall of Kabul on Sunday, the U.S. government’s promises to the Afghans who supported its two-decade experiment in nation building appear increasingly hard to keep and reflect a government that hasn’t reckoned with the full impact of its hasty withdrawal.

The fight over redrawing political maps is just ramping up in state legislatures and nonpartisan commissions around the country. But both Republicans and Democrats already are planning for major showdowns in the courts. For months, Democrats and Republicans have been laying the groundwork for a complex, 50-state legal battle over the once-a-decade process of redistricting. Both parties are preparing for a changed legal climate – where federal courts are newly hostile to claims of unconstitutional partisan gerrymandering and state courts could create a patchwork of rulings. And it will all play out in a tightened timeframe, thanks to pandemic-related delays.

U.S. officials launched a review Thursday of climate damage and other impacts from coal mining on public lands as the Biden administration expands its scrutiny of government fossil fuel sales that contribute to greenhouse gas emissions. The review also will consider if companies are paying fair value for coal extracted from public reserves in Wyoming, Montana, Colorado, Utah and other states, according to a federal register notice outlining the administration’s intents. Coal combustion for electricity remains one of the top sources of U.S. greenhouse gas emissions, even after many power plants shut down over the past decade because of concerns over pollution.

Dry and windy weather dogged firefighters’ efforts to contain destructive fires that are devouring the bone-dry forests of drought-stricken Northern California on Thursday. An estimated 11,000 firefighters were on the lines of more than a dozen large wildfires that have destroyed hundreds of homes and other buildings, forced thousands of people to flee communities and filled skies with smoke.

The day before he was supposed to start fourth grade, Francisco Rosales was admitted to a Dallas hospital with COVID-19, struggling to breathe, with dangerously low oxygen levels and an uncertain outcome. It wasn’t supposed to be like this, thought his frightened mother, Yessica Gonzalez. Francisco was normally healthy and rambunctious. At 9, he was too young to get vaccinated, but most of the family had their shots. She had heard kids rarely got sick from the coronavirus.

Tourists and servers alike dance atop tables and in the aisles at one restaurant on the “Redneck Riviera,” a beloved stretch of towns along the northern Gulf Coast where beaches, bars and stores are packed. Yet just a few miles away, a hospital is running out of critical care beds, its rooms full of unvaccinated people fighting for their lives.

Educated young women, former U.S. military translators and other Afghans most at-risk from the Taliban appealed to the Biden administration to get them on evacuation flights as the United States struggled to bring order to the continuing chaos at the Kabul airport. President Joe Biden and his top officials said the U.S. was working to speed up the evacuation, but made no promises how long it would last or how many desperate people it would fly to safety. “We don’t have the capability to go out and collect large numbers of people,” Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin told reporters Wednesday, adding that evacuations would continue “until the clock runs out or we run out of capability.”

As President Donald Trump’s administration signed a peace deal with the Taliban in February 2020, he optimistically proclaimed that “we think we’ll be successful in the end.” His secretary of state, Mike Pompeo, asserted that the administration was “seizing the best opportunity for peace in a generation.” Eighteen months later, President Joe Biden is pointing to the agreement signed in Doha, Qatar, as he tries to deflect blame for the Taliban overrunning Afghanistan in a blitz. He says it bound him to withdraw U.S. troops, setting the stage for the chaos engulfing the country. But Biden can go only so far in claiming the agreement boxed him in. It had an escape clause: The U.S. could have withdrawn from the accord if Afghan peace talks failed. They did, but Biden chose to stay in it, although he delayed the complete pullout from May to September.

If you are immunocompromised, you should get your third dose of a COVID-19 vaccine when you can, doctors say. Last week, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention authorized third doses of the Moderna and Pfizer vaccines for those who are moderately to severely immunocompromised. This includes people being treated for cancer, organ and stem cell transplant recipients, those taking high-dose corticosteroids, HIV patients and patients with moderate to severe immunodeficiency. ,,, The third dose is different from a booster dose, according to the CDC, which might become available later this fall to all fully vaccinated people when vaccines have potentially waned in effectiveness.

Amtrak is resuming Coast Starlight service between Los Angeles and Seattle on Aug. 23. Service on the Coast Starlight route was suspended for several weeks due to wildfire damage in Northern California, according to the company. Coast Starlight is widely regarded as one of the most spectacular of all train routes with scenery that includes peaks of the Cascade Range and Mount Shasta, lush forests and long stretches of the Pacific Ocean, Amtrak said in a release.

Micron Technology (Nasdaq: MU) is one of the leading manufacturers of DRAM (dynamic random access memory) products used in consumer PCs and mobile devices, and its products are increasingly being used in cloud server, industrial and other enterprise markets. DRAM makes up nearly three-quarters of Micron’s total revenue. Micron is also a leading supplier of the NAND flash storage devices used in solid-state drives (SSDs), which make up 24% of its business.

 It’s early, but fisheries managers are concerned. The 2021 summer steelhead run on the Columbia and Snake rivers started July 1 and is one of the worst on record. Through Monday, 21,892 steelhead had been counted at Bonneville Dam on the Columbia River and just 494 at Lower Granite Dam on the Snake River. The count on the Columbia is second worst only to 1943 when 20,293 had been recorded passing the dam as of Aug. 16. “Back then they harvested a large percentage of the steelhead before they hit the dams. One could argue at least for this date, this is the worst steelhead run past the Bonneville area ever,” said Joe DuPont, regional fisheries manager for the Idaho Department of Fish and Game at Lewiston.

More than 100 people gathered outside of Spokane Fall Community College Friday to honor the change of George Wright Drive to Whistalks Way. The street was named in honor of the U.S. Army general George Wright who committed genocide against the Yakama, Spokane, Palouse and Coeur D’Alene tribes throughout the fall of 1858. The Spokane City Council unanimously voted to change the name last December.

Washington state agriculture workers have discovered their first Asian giant hornet nest. It was found Thursday morning north of Seattle near the Canadian border not far from where a resident saw a live Asian giant hornet on Aug. 11, The Bellingham Herald reported. State agriculture staff then netted, tagged with a tracker and released three hornets, according to a news release from the Washington State Department of Agriculture. One slipped out of the tracking device, another hornet was never located and one eventually led the team to the nest, officials said. ... Officials hope to destroy any nests by mid-September, before the colony would start creating new reproducing queens.

Two viral and drought-related diseases have killed 38 whitetail deer in Eastern Washington. Two whitetail deer near Davenport, Wash., tested positive for bluetongue and epizootic hemorrhagic disease (EHD) this week. Meanwhile, 36 deer near Colfax  are believed to have died from EHD.

As a result of human action, over the past half-century the Atlantic Ocean has been relentlessly consuming Atafona, part of the Sao Joao da Barra municipality that is 155 miles from Rio de Janeiro’s capital and home to 36,000 people. Due to climate change, there is little hope for a solution. Instead, Atafona will slip into the sea. The Paraiba do Sul River, which originates in neighboring Sao Paulo state, brings sediment and sand to Atafona where it empties into the Atlantic Ocean. Its flow was mostly diverted in the 1950s to provide water to the growing capital, which weakened Atafona’s natural barrier to the ocean, said Pedro de Araújo, materials technology professor at the Fluminense Federal Institute.

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In the news, Wednesday, August 18, 2021


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AUG 17      INDEX      AUG 19
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from The Spokesman-Review
Newspaper in Spokane, Washington

Jon Swett, the principal at Shaw Middle School, has a bold idea for the first day of school. On the morning of Sept. 2, Swett and his teachers will open the doors of their shiny new building, greet their students and walk them to class. Inside, they will share the bright walls, open spaces and big windows that look out to a world of new possibilities. If that sounds bit idealistic, so be it. But if education is about relationships, Spokane Public Schools has made one of the biggest investments in its history – more than $70 million – to show it by connecting with the young people of northeast Spokane. “We want them to be proud of it,” Swett said Tuesday. “We want them to be excited about it, to set goals, to support each other but to be able to be in a safe, highly relational kind of environment – that’s the big idea.” The big idea also ties the new Shaw Middle School to a new Hillyard Community Campus, which also will include the On Track Academy, a shared library and a community outreach center.

Employees of the Washington Supreme Court - the state’s highest court - must receive vaccination against COVID-19 by Nov. 1, according to an order entered Wednesday. Those seeking continued employment at the courts or the state’s Law Library will need to get their shots in order to keep their jobs. The requirement includes exemptions for religious or disability-related reasons. The order, signed by Chief Justice Steven C. Gonzalez, also includes a recommendation that other entities in the state’s judicial branch, including the Washington State Bar Association, the Office of Public Defense and appellate and trial courts adopt similar vaccination requirements. Such orders would need to come from the presiding judge in each jurisdiction. Spokane County Superior Court Presiding Judge Harold Clarke has not issued such an order, said Ashley Callan, superior court administrator for the county, but she noted the order was just handed down by the state court Wednesday.

Fire crews made “great progress” Tuesday night on the Ford-Corkscrew fire that already destroyed 18 homes and burned more than 14,000 acres, Stevens County Fire District 1 said. David Shell, information officer with the Southwest Area Incident Management Team 5 that took command of the fire early Wednesday, said the wind direction shifted enough to slow the spread of the blaze, which started Sunday and torched thousands of acres in just a few days. ... The Ford-Corkscrew fire started Sunday and quickly spread causing Level 3 evacuations for almost the entire area between Springdale, Loon Lake, Tum Tum, Clayton and Ford. Over 300 families are affected by evacuations, said the fire’s public information officer, Isabelle Hoygaard. The fire district said those evacuations likely will be in place for a few more days. 

Washington State University wants its insurance provider to pay $63 million more to cover its costs responding to the COVID-19 pandemic. The university’s lawsuit against Factory Mutual, originally filed in Whitman County in July, has been moved to federal court in Spokane. In it, the school argues that Factory Mutual is interpreting its policy too narrowly and denying additional payments.

Only a few weeks ago, families and educators were looking forward to some semblance of normalcy in the upcoming school year. Masks were off, the coronavirus was in retreat and people were getting vaccinated. But by Wednesday, circumstances had changed so much that Gov. Jay Inslee issued a mandate requiring vaccinations for most school employees, and announced the state would also be requiring masks again in many public settings starting next week. Several dozen people rallied in response outside the Central Valley School District offices, chanting “no more masks” and asking for choice.

The 2020 census finds Spokane is more diverse than ever, with an uptick in Hispanic and Latino populations as the driving force. Spokane County’s diversifying racial makeup still lags behind the national data. The Hispanic or Latino racial groups consists of 18.7% of the U.S. population and only 13.7% of Washington’s state population. In Spokane County, Latinos and Hispanics make up only 6.6% of the population, but the trend line is moving upward: From 2010 to 2020, 14,090 people of Latino ancestry moved to Spokane County, for an increase of 66%, the largest increase of any single racial category.

For eight long months, the Panhandle Health District’s record for hospitalizations due to COVID-19 was 95 people. On Tuesday, the record set Dec. 23 fell when the district saw 101 people hospitalized due to COVID-19. On Wednesday, the number fell to 92 hospitalizations. Such a grim record would be alarming to health care leaders on its own, but there’s a far more unsettling statistic underneath those totals: The hospitalizations are coming faster.

Longtime American foreign correspondent Joseph L. Galloway, best known for his book recounting a pivotal battle in the Vietnam War that was made into a Hollywood movie, has died. He was 79. A native of Refugio, Texas, Galloway spent 22 years as a war correspondent and bureau chief for United Press International, including serving four tours in Vietnam. He then worked for U.S. News & World Report magazine and Knight Ridder newspapers in a series of overseas roles, including reporting from the Persian Gulf War in 1991. ... With co-author retired U.S. Army Lt. Gen. Hal Moore, Galloway wrote “We Were Soldiers Once … And Young,” which recounted his and Moore’s experience during a bloody 1965 battle with the North Vietnamese in the Ia Drang Valley. The book became a national bestseller and was made into the 2002 movie “We Were Soldiers,” starring Mel Gibson as Moore and Barry Pepper as Galloway. ... Galloway was decorated with a Bronze Star Medal with V in 1998 for rescuing wounded soldiers under fire during the la Drang battle. He is the only civilian awarded a medal of valor by the U.S. Army for actions in combat during the Vietnam War.

On Aug. 15, the Taliban took control of Kabul, putting an end to the Afghanistan War as U.S. troops began a more frenzied effort to evacuate Americans and those who aided U.S. efforts. But many Afghans were being left behind. Chaos had ensued at the Kabul airport, as video footage captured Afghans dangerously running down the tarmac in hopes of catching a flight to a new world. New York Times reporter Farnaz Fassihi wrote an obituary about Zaki Anwari, the Afghan soccer player who died falling from a departing U.S. plane. He was 17. What the Afghans experienced, some remembered. The Afghan evacuation is similar to the final evacuation of the Vietnam War, Operation Frequent Wind, in 1975. As the Viet Cong moved into Saigon, over 7,000 American soldiers, Vietnamese citizens and American allies were frantically removed from Vietnam. Both Michael Nguyen and Bill Pelo, current Spokane residents, were in Saigon the day it fell.

Jimmy Carter is sometimes called a better former president than he was president. Nodding to Carter’s decades of work as a globe-trotting humanitarian but with a glaring reminder of his landslide defeat in 1980, the backhanded compliment rankles Carter allies and, they say, the former president himself. Yet now, 40 years removed from the White House, the most famous resident of Plains, Georgia, is riding a new wave of attention as biographers, filmmakers, climate activists and Carter’s fellow Democrats push to recast his presidential legacy, even as Republicans sometimes try to remind voters of the volatile economy and international affairs that doomed Carter to one term.

In an escalating battle with Republican governors, President Joe Biden on Wednesday ordered his Education secretary to explore possible legal action against states that have blocked school mask mandates and other public health measures meant to protect students against COVID-19. In response, the Education Department raised the possibility of using its civil rights arm to fight policies in Florida, Texas, Iowa and other Republican-led states that have barred public schools from requiring masks in the classroom.

Many overwhelmed hospitals, with no beds to offer, are putting critically ill COVID-19 patients on planes, helicopters and ambulances and sending them hundreds of miles to far-flung states for treatment. The surge in the delta variant of the virus, combined with low vaccination rates, has pushed hospitals to the brink in many states and resulted in a desperate scramble to find beds for patients.

President Joe Biden said Wednesday that he is committed to keeping U.S. troops in Afghanistan until every American is evacuated, even if that means maintaining a military presence there beyond his Aug. 31 deadline for withdrawal. He also pushed back against criticism that the U.S. should have done more to plan for the evacuation and withdrawal, which has been marked by scenes of violence and chaos as thousands attempted to flee while the Taliban advanced.

Pressure for a coordinated response to Haiti’s deadly weekend earthquake mounted Wednesday as more bodies were pulled from the rubble and the injured continued to arrive from remote areas in search of medical care. Aid was slowly trickling in to help the thousands who were left homeless. International aid workers on the ground said hospitals in the areas worst hit by Saturday’s quake are mostly incapacitated and that there is a desperate need for medical equipment. But the government told at least one foreign organization that has been operating in the country for nearly three decades that it did not need assistance from hundreds of its medical volunteers.

Educated young women, former U.S. military translators and other Afghans most at-risk from the Taliban appealed to the Biden administration to get them on evacuation flights as the United States struggled on Wednesday to bring order to the continuing chaos at the Kabul airport.

The Biden administration on Wednesday proposed changing how asylum claims are handled, aiming to reduce a huge backlog of cases from the U.S.-Mexico border that has left people waiting years to find out whether they will be allowed to stay in America. Under the proposal, routine asylum cases no longer would automatically be referred to the overwhelmed immigration court system managed by the Justice Department but would be overseen by asylum officers from U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, part of the Homeland Security Department.

The sound of the helicopter propeller thundered across the horizon as it dipped down toward mustangs dotting the golden brown plain. The horses burst into a gallop at the machine’s approach, their high-pitched whinnies rising into the dry air. That helicopter roundup in the mountains of western Utah removed hundreds of free-roaming wild horses, shortly before the Biden administration announced it would sharply increase the number of mustangs removed across the region. It’s an emergency step land managers say is essential to preserving the ecosystem and the horses as a megadrought worsened by climate change grips the region.

In a packed, emotional session of Parliament, British Prime Minister Boris Johnson faced accusations Wednesday from lawmakers across the political spectrum of needlessly abandoning Afghanistan to the whims of the Taliban and of undermining Britain’s position in the world. The members of Parliament were recalled from their summer break to attend the emergency session in London. Many, including a large number from Johnson’s Conservative Party, voiced strong regrets and fears at the chaotic turn of events in Afghanistan, where the Taliban have seized control 20 years after being driven from power by a U.S.-led international force following the 9/11 attacks. Johnson said he had little choice but to follow the decision of U.S. President Joe Biden to take American troops out of Afghanistan by the end of August.

The Taliban’s top political leader, who made a triumphal return to Afghanistan this week, battled the U.S. and its allies for decades but then signed a landmark peace agreement with the Trump administration. Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar is now expected to play a key role in negotiations between the Taliban and officials from the Afghan government that the militant group deposed in its blitz across the country. The Taliban say they seek an “inclusive, Islamic” government and claim they have become more moderate since they last held power. But many remain skeptical, and all eyes are now on Baradar, who has said little about how the group will govern but has proven pragmatic in the past.

U.S. Census Bureau computer servers uninvolved with the 2020 census were exploited last year during a cybersecurity attack, but hackers’ attempts to keep access to the system were unsuccessful, according to a watchdog report released Wednesday. The attack took place in January 2020 on the bureau’s remote access servers. According to the Office of Inspector General, the Census Bureau missed opportunities to limit its vulnerability to the attack and didn’t discover and report the attack in a timely manner. The statistical agency also failed to keep sufficient system logs, which hindered the investigation, and was using operating system no longer supported by the vendor, the watchdog report said.

With COVID-19 cases and hospitalizations surging statewide, state Secretary of Health Dr. Umair Shah reinstated his indoor mask mandate in all public settings, including restaurants, grocery stores, gyms, retail locations and any public-facing office. Beginning Monday, everyone – regardless of vaccination status – will be required to wear a mask in most indoor settings.

From the pandemic’s earliest days, scientists have counted on COVID-19 vaccines to lead us out of the international health emergency. But they’ve also been aware that the immunity provided by vaccines might not last long. The surmise that vaccine-induced immunity would wane quickly was based on previous experience with other coronaviruses – especially four species of seasonal coronavirus that have circulated for as long as modern medicine has been paying attention. Those four members of the coronavirus family differ in many ways from the SARS-CoV-2 virus that causes COVID-19, not least because they lead to nothing worse than a common cold. But scientists assumed their family resemblances would be revealing.

Just 41 intensive care unit beds were available in Oregon on Wednesday as COVID-19 cases continue to climb and hospitals near capacity in a state that was once viewed as a pandemic success story. Oregon, which earlier had among the lowest cases per capita, is now shattering its COVID-19 hospitalization records day after day. Oregon – like Florida, Arkansas and Louisiana – has had more people in the hospital with COVID-19 than at any other point in the pandemic.

Patrick Carnahan and Charlie Hamilton, co-executive directors of All Aboard Washington, have spent the past week traveling the state to drum up support for expanded passenger rail service. On Thursday, they will stop in Spokane. And on Friday, they’ll be in Cheney. Carnahan said the focus of their so-called “train trek” will be on the potential for new daytime service to Seattle, the possibility of a more robust regional rail network and the way passenger rail can help enhance economic development, environmental stewardship and equity.

As thousands of unmasked motorcyclists carouse in the streets of Sturgis, S.D.; as protesters greet vaccine and mask mandates with comparisons to Hitler; as vaccination rates lag and COVID caseloads climb, we’re also seeing — paradoxically — a wave of sympathy for those who have failed to behave responsibly. “Don’t be mean” is the new mantra. Blame, we’re told, is not an effective public health strategy. Those people who won’t wear masks or who refuse to be vaccinated — they’re just misinformed. “Many unvaccinated people are scared just like us, and … with the right help and information, they would sit down next to nurses and pull up their sleeves,” said one recent op-ed piece in the New York Times. Can this be the correct advice? Is it possible that those of us who have behaved responsibly, followed the rules and made enormous sacrifices for the last year and a half should not be outraged at the millions of Americans who refuse to take the most simple, science-backed steps? I ask because I’m sensing a lot of anger.

All employees in K-12 schools, most child care and early learning centers, and higher education must get vaccinated for COVID-19 by Oct. 18 or they may lose their jobs, Gov. Jay Inslee announced Wednesday. 

Researchers at the Indiana University are offering to foot the water testing bill for private well owners near the site of chemical contamination at Fairchild Air Force Base. The study, backed by a grant from the Environmental Protection Agency, is intended to give chemists and government officials a better idea of how per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, known by the acronym PFAS, compounds found in firefighting foam used on the base for decades, can infiltrate groundwater.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Wednesday backed a peaceful resolution for the Tigray conflict in Ethiopia that has displaced tens of thousands and left millions hungry. He also said Turkey was willing to mediate between Ethiopia and Sudan to resolve a separate border dispute. Erdogan spoke during a joint news conference with visiting Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed. The visit comes amid a broadening of the conflict in Tigray, which began in November after a political fallout between Abiy and the leaders of the Tigray region who had dominated Ethiopia’s government for nearly three decades.

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In the news, Tuesday, August 17, 2021


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AUG 16      INDEX      AUG 18
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from The Inlander
Media/News Company in Spokane, WA

The latest smoky Spokane weekend turned the sky a dystopic shade of gray and pushed the air quality well above the “unhealthy” category. The smoke wasn’t enough to stop Primus from performing, but it did halt the Northwest Cup soccer tournament and a number of other activities. It wasn’t always this bad. Jamie Bowman, a family medicine physician and Clinical Education Director at WSU, started practicing medicine in Eastern Washington 16 years ago. Back then, she says the smoke wasn’t as much of an issue, but in recent years an increasing number of patients have come to her with concerns about the health impacts of the smoke. “Not only are people experiencing more awareness and symptoms related to it, they’re also thinking strategically about what they can do to protect themselves, what they can do to take care of the more vulnerable folks in their life,” Bowman says, “whether that’s people who have underlying conditions, children or elderly.” When the air quality passes 150 AQI, it gets categorized as unhealthy for the general population. On Friday, the air quality passed 200 AQI and veered into “very unhealthy” territory. When the AQI passes 150, even healthy young people can start experiencing symptoms. That includes things like watering eyes, sneezing, coughing and shortness of breath, Bowman says.

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from Rolling Stone

Texas Governor Greg Abbott has tested positive for Covid-19, his office announced in a statement on Tuesday. “Governor Greg Abbott today tested positive for the COVID-19 virus,” wrote Communications Director Mark Miner. “The Governor has been testing daily, and today was the first positive test result. Governor Abbott is in constant communication with his staff, agency heads, and government officials to ensure that state government continues to operate smoothly and efficiently. The Governor will isolate in the Governor’s Mansion and continue to test daily. Governor Abbott is receiving Regeneron’s monoclonal antibody treatment.” Regeneron’s monoclonal antibody treatment is the same treatment former President Trump received after contracting the virus last October. “Governor Abbott is fully vaccinated against COVID-19, in good health, and currently experiencing no symptoms,” the statement continued. “Everyone that the Governor has been in close contact with today has been notified. Texas First Lady Cecilia Abbott tested negative.” Abbott, 63, has been aggressive in ensuring preventative measures like masks and vaccines are not mandated in Texas. He signed an executive order last month holding that no government entity receiving state funds can require masks or vaccinations, while declaring that there will be “no Covid-19-related operating limits for any business or other establishment.”

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from The Spokesman-Review
Newspaper in Spokane, Washington


Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell said Tuesday that the U.S. economy has been permanently changed by the COVID pandemic and it is important that the central bank adapt to those changes. “We’re not simply going back to the economy that we had before the pandemic,” Powell said at a Fed virtual town hall for educators and students. “We need to watch carefully as the economy continues to get through the pandemic and try to understand the ways that the economy has changed and what the implications are for our policy.”

Members of the family that owns OxyContin maker Purdue Pharma won’t contribute billions of dollars to a legal settlement unless they get off the hook for all current and future lawsuits over the company’s activities, one of them told a court Tuesday in a rare public appearance. David Sackler, grandson of one of the brothers who nearly 70 years ago bought the company that later became Purdue, testified at a hearing in federal bankruptcy court in White Plains, New York, that unless the settlement is approved with those protections included, as they currently are, “I believe we would litigate the claims to their final outcomes.”

The raging Ford-Corkscrew fire took eight homes and ballooned on Monday night, more than doubling in size from 6,000 acres to more than 15,000 acres by Tuesday afternoon. Firefighters worked to bulldoze fire lines and kill ignitions to prevent the fire from reaching any more structures . As of Tuesday night, firefighters had not reached any containment on the fire, which is burning in a heavily wooded area east of Ford in Stevens County. ... Level 3 evacuations were in place for almost the entire area between Springdale, Loon Lake, Tum Tum, Clayton and Ford.

As the Taliban seize control of Kabul and indeed all of Afghanistan, it is worth pondering the less obvious lessons of this 20-year episode. It is a reminder of why I cannot bring myself to be a foreign policy hawk, even though I largely accept the hawks’ worldview and underlying values.

After an outbreak earlier this month, residents of the Spokane Veterans Home who tested positive for coronavirus are being moved back in, and some will be getting their third doses of the COVID-19 vaccines. The latest outbreak led to 12 residents and six staff members testing positive for the virus. Ten residents were transferred to Mann-Grandstaff VA Medical Center, and one resident died. All residents who were treated at Mann-Grandstaff started returning to the long-term care facility Friday. Those who have been exposed or tested positive for the virus are being cared for in an isolated area of the Spokane Veterans Home.

The Taliban have agreed to allow “safe passage” from Afghanistan for civilians struggling to join a U.S.-directed airlift from the capital, President Joe Biden’s national security adviser said Tuesday, although a timetable for completing the evacuation of Americans, Afghan allies and others has yet to be worked out with the country’s new rulers.

George W. Bush, who ordered the 2001 invasion of Afghanistan to dislodge the Taliban and hunt down al-Qaida terrorists behind the Sept. 11 attacks, has watched the religious fundamentalists’ abrupt return to power with “deep sadness.” And with the Taliban back in control, he wistfully lauded a generation of U.S. troops for a hard won achievement that unraveled in the span of weeks: “You took out a brutal enemy and denied al Qaeda a safe haven.” The former president warned last month that a U.S. withdrawal would be a “mistake.” The “unbelievably bad” consequences he foresaw are playing out this week after successor Joe Biden pressed ahead with a decision to end the 20-year combat mission – the longest war in American history. “I’m afraid Afghan women and girls are going to suffer unspeakable harm,” Bush told German broadcaster Deutsche Welle last month, voicing concern also about the fate of Afghan interpreters and others who worked with U.S. forces.

Top Democrats plan House votes next week on a budget resolution that could clear a path for future passage of a $3.5 trillion, 10-year social and environment package, suggesting a showdown ahead with rebellious party moderates. Nine centrists have threatened to vote against their own party’s budget blueprint, enough to defeat it in the closely divided House. They want the chamber to first approve a separate $1 trillion bill financing highway, water supply and other infrastructure projects, their top priority. House leaders made clear Tuesday that’s not their plan.

Firefighters faced dangerously windy weather Tuesday as they struggled to keep the nation’s largest wildfire from moving toward a Northern California city and other small mountain communities. Forecasters issued red flag warnings of critical fire weather conditions including gusts up to 40 mph from late morning to near midnight. The warnings came after the Dixie fire grew explosively from winds spawned by a new weather system that arrived Monday afternoon. It was about 8 miles from Susanville, population about 18,000, early Tuesday, said fire spokesman Doug Ulibarri. Numerous resources were put into the Susanville area, where residents were warned to be ready to evacuate, said Mark Brunton, an operations section chief.

After struggling for months to persuade Americans to get the COVID-19 vaccine, U.S. health officials could soon face a fresh challenge: talking vaccinated people into getting booster shots to gain longer-lasting protection as the delta variant sends infections soaring again. As early as this week, U.S. health authorities are expected to recommend an extra dose of the vaccine for all Americans eight months after they get their second shot, according to two people who spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity to discuss internal deliberations.

The Taliban vowed Tuesday to respect women’s rights, forgive those who fought them and ensure Afghanistan does not become a haven for terrorists as part of a publicity blitz aimed at reassuring world powers and a fearful population. Following a lightning offensive across Afghanistan that saw many cities fall to the insurgents without a fight, the Taliban have sought to portray themselves as more moderate than when they imposed a strict form of Islamic rule in the late 1990s. But many Afghans remain skeptical — and thousands have raced to the airport, desperate to flee the country. Older generations remember the Taliban’s previous rule, when they largely confined women to their homes, banned television and music, and held public executions. A U.S.-led invasion drove them from power months after the 9/11 attacks, which al-Qaida had orchestrated from Afghanistan while being sheltered by the Taliban.

When President Joe Biden announced he would stick to his predecessor’s plan to withdraw U.S. troops from Afghanistan, Republican reaction was mixed and largely muted. Foreign policy had become so contentious that the party’s own leaders had no single position on the end of the nation’s longest war. But the fall of the Afghan government and the Taliban’s swift return to power have, at least for now, reunited Republicans in criticism of Biden. Longtime opponents of a withdrawal argued Monday that the president should have seen the disaster coming. Even those who cheered his decision to pull out troops turned to slamming him for doing it badly.

A Monday security breach at the airport in Kabul led to a deadly encounter between desperate people seeking to flee the Taliban and a C-17 aircraft from Joint Base Lewis-McChord in Washington state, according to an Air Force statement released Tuesday. The C-17 had just landed with a load of equipment at the Hamid Karzai International Airport when it was suddenly surrounded by hundreds of Afghan civilians. Before cargo could be offloaded, the crew was “faced with a rapidly deteriorating situation, the crew decided to depart the airfield as quickly as possible,” according to the statement from Ann Stefanek, chief of media operations for the Air Force. Stefanek cited online video that depicted people falling from the aircraft after it departed, and said that human remains also were found in the wheel well of the aircraft after it landed at Al Udeid Air Base in Qatar. It is currently impounded to provide time to collect the remains and inspect the aircraft.

As the Cedar Creek fire burns through the wilderness just west of this heavily touristed north-central Washington town, firefighters have used a kaleidoscope of sensors mounted on satellites, aircraft and drones to keep tabs on the blaze. Mapping wildfires – which can be notoriously unpredictable – and predicting their paths are key tasks for keeping people, property and the ecosystem safe. But no single tool is perfect for the job, officials say, and creating accurate fire maps via aircraft can take hours. Now, an experiment is underway that could speed up wildfire tracking, spread that information more widely and ultimately reshape how blazes are fought.

As Oregon’s health system continues to be clobbered by the state’s worst COVID-19 surge, officials reported on Tuesday that 93% of the state’s hospital beds for adults and 90% of the intensive care unit beds are full. There are 838 people people hospitalized with COVID-19 in Oregon – surpassing the state’s record, which was set the previous day, by 86 patients. Before this month, the hospitalization record was 622 in November, during a winter surge and when vaccines were not available.

As the new school year draws near, it’s time for kids to get caught up on childhood immunizations — especially since new state data shows many fell behind in 2020. Preteens were the most concerning age group, with 11- and 12-year-olds statewide seeing an 11% decrease in uptake of the Tdap (tetanus, diphtheria and whooping cough) vaccine from 2019 to 2020, as well as an 8.4% decrease in the meningococcal vaccine, data showed. While Yakima County maintained a higher rate of immunization among this age group compared to the state average — with 52.4% receiving their Tdap vaccine compared to 49.2% statewide, for example — it saw a larger decline in uptake from 2019 to 2020. There were 16.1% fewer 11- and 12-year-olds with Tdap vaccinations and 14% fewer with meningococcal vaccines in the county in 2020 than the year prior. Several immunizations are required for children in the state to attend child care or school. Washington immunization rules tightened two years ago, eliminating personal belief exemptions to the measles, mumps and rubella vaccination in response to a state outbreak of measles in 2019 that contributed to the greatest number of cases of the virus nationally since 1992, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The highly contagious airborne virus had been declared eliminated in the U.S. in 2000, but pockets of low immunization rates allowed it to resurface. Yakima County continues to be among counties with the highest childhood immunization rates in the state, but still falls below the state and national goals that 80% of individuals complete all vaccines recommended for their age group.

Earmarks are back and Washington’s congressional delegation is all in. The spending-bill line items, which allow members of Congress to direct dollars to specific projects back home, have been revived after a decadelong abolishment spurred by a series of scandals. While conservative Republicans lawmakers in some states have refused to participate, Washington’s three GOP U.S. House members are united with Democrats in lining up for the spending buffet.


The Grant County Fair was set to open its gates this morning, and on Monday morning, people were getting ready.

Heavy smoke from wildfires drifted into Spokane on Tuesday afternoon after a cloudy day and cooler temperatures. After a week of hot weather, forecasters at the National Weather Service said the cold front that moved in should keep high temperatures in 70s and 80s this week. Temperatures in Spokane dropped 23 degrees during one 24-hour span since Monday, the most significant drop in the state of Washington, according to forecasters. But the windy conditions returned smoke to the city. On Monday evening, the Air Quality Index was worsening. By 6:50 p.m., the AQI was 189, or unhealthy, though it had slightly improved to 169 by 8:50 p.m.

Hong Kong will tighten entry restrictions for travelers arriving from the United States and 15 other countries beginning Friday, extending the quarantine period to 21 days. Previously, the 15 countries, which also include Malaysia, Thailand, France and the Netherlands, were classified as medium-risk, with travelers able to stay only seven days of quarantine if they were fully vaccinated and tested positive for antibodies prior to leaving for the city.

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In the news, Monday, August 16, 2021


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AUG 15      INDEX      AUG 17
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from The Inlander
Media/News Company in Spokane, WA

Despite its outdoor setting, and some hopeful optimism earlier this year that big, annual events slated for the last half of the year might go off without a pandemic-caused hitch, organizers of Pig Out in the Park announced this afternoon that the 2021 event won't be happening after all. The quickly spreading delta variant of COVID-19 is to blame. This year's run, set be the fair-style food fest's 41st iteration, was set for Sept. 1-6 at Riverfront Park. Each year, Pig Out hosts more than 50 food vendors, both local and not, along with adult beverage gardens and free, live music and entertainment offered each day.  Pig Out in the Park was also canceled in 2020. Pig Out hopes to return in 2022 over its usual Labor Day Weekend slot, from Aug. 31 through Sept. 5.

President Joe Biden offered a defiant defense on Monday of his decision to withdraw troops from Afghanistan, returning to the White House from a weekend at Camp David amid chaotic scenes at the Kabul airport following the collapse of the Afghanistan government to the Taliban. Speaking to the American people from the ornate East Room, Biden stood by his decision to end the longest war in United States history and rejected criticism from allies and adversaries about the events of the weekend that left hundreds of Afghans desperately running after military planes as they ferried Americans to safety out of the country’s capital. “The choice I had to make as your president was either to follow through on the agreement to drawdown our forces,” Biden said, “or escalating the conflict and sending thousands more American troops back into combat and lurching into the third decade of conflict.” He added: “I stand squarely behind my decision.” Biden acknowledged the truth told by dramatic images over the past 72 hours: a frantic scramble to evacuate the U.S. Embassy in Kabul in the face of advancing Taliban fighters, which has drawn grim comparisons to the country’s defeated retreat from Saigon at the end of the Vietnam War.

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from The New Yorker
LEFT BIAS, HIGH, magazine in New York

The real challenge isn’t being right but knowing how wrong you might be.

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from The Spokesman-Review
Newspaper in Spokane, Washington

A defiant President Joe Biden rejected blame Monday for chaotic scenes of Afghans clinging to U.S. military planes in Kabul in a desperate bid to flee their home country after the Taliban’s easy victory over an Afghan military that America and NATO allies had spent two decades trying to build.  

A food assistance program used by more than 42 million needy Americans will substantially and permanently increase benefits starting next month, a record boost, just as the pandemic emergency expansion expires. The Biden administration on Monday announced it had approved the change that will boost the average food stamp benefits by more than 25% above pre-pandemic levels. The average monthly benefit that participants in the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program received before the pandemic was $121 per person, per month. Starting Oct. 1, participants on average will receive an additional $36 per person, per month.

The U.S. Bureau of Reclamation, an agency of the Interior Department, on Monday declared the first-ever water shortage from a river that serves 40 million people in the West, triggering cuts to some Arizona farmers next year amid a gripping drought. Water levels at the largest reservoir on the Colorado River – Lake Mead – have fallen to record lows. Along its perimeter, a white “bathtub ring” of minerals outlines where the high water line once stood, underscoring the acute water challenges for a region facing a growing population and a drought that is being worsened by hotter, drier weather brought on by climate change.

At just short of 20 years, the now-ending U.S. combat mission in Afghanistan was America’s longest war. Ordinary Americans tended to forget about it, and it received measurably less oversight from Congress than the Vietnam War did. But its death toll is in the many tens of thousands. And because the U.S. borrowed most of the money to pay for it, generations of Americans will be burdened by the cost of paying it off.

Cardinal Raymond Burke, one of the Catholic Church’s most outspoken conservatives and a vaccine skeptic, said he has COVID-19 and his staff said he is breathing through a ventilator. Burke tweeted Aug. 10 that he had caught the virus, was resting comfortably and was receiving excellent medical care.

Four presidents share responsibility for the missteps in Afghanistan that accumulated over two decades. But only President Joe Biden will be the face of the war’s chaotic, violent conclusion. The president fought that reality Monday as he spread blame for the Taliban’s swift and complete recapture of Afghanistan. He pointed to a previous agreement brokered by then-President Donald Trump, expressed frustration with Afghan President Ashraf Ghani and lamented the performance of Afghan national security forces. Republicans overwhelmingly criticized Biden and he found few vocal backers among fellow Democrats. The collapse of the Afghan government is the biggest foreign policy crisis of Biden’s young presidency, recalling setbacks for past presidents such as the withdrawal from Vietnam and the botched Bay of Pigs invasion in Cuba. The reverberations of the Taliban’s success were startling, endangering Afghan women and girls, posing new security threats and threatening to undercut global views of America’s reliability.

Across the nation’s deeply religious Bible Belt, a region beset by soaring infection rates from the fast-spreading delta variant of the virus, churches and pastors are both helping and hurting in the campaign to get people vaccinated against COVID-19. Some are hosting vaccination clinics and praying for more inoculations, while others are issuing fiery anti-vaccine sermons from their pulpits. Most are staying mum on the issue, something experts see as a missed opportunity in a swath of the country where church is the biggest spiritual and social influence for many communities.

Thousands of Afghans rushed into Kabul’s main airport Monday, some so desperate to escape the Taliban that they held onto a military jet as it took off and plunged to their deaths. At least seven people died in the chaos, U.S. officials said, as America’s longest war ended with its enemy the victor. The crowds came while the Taliban enforced their rule over the capital of 5 million people after a lightning advance across the country that took just over a week to dethrone the country’s Western-backed government. There were no major reports of abuses or fighting, but many residents stayed home and remained fearful after the insurgents’ takeover saw prisons emptied and armories looted.

Firefighters battling flames in Northern California forests girded Monday for new bouts of windy weather, and a utility warned thousands of customers it might cut their electricity to prevent new fires from igniting if gusts damage power lines. Conditions that suppressed the huge Dixie Fire overnight were expected to give way late in the day to winds that could push flames toward mountain communities in a region where drought and summer heat have turned vegetation to tinder.

U.S. experts are expected to recommend COVID-19 vaccine boosters for all Americans, regardless of age, eight months after they received their second dose of the shot to ensure lasting protection against the coronavirus as the delta variant spreads across the country.

A wildfire raced through more than 6,000 acres Monday east of Ford and filled the horizon north of Spokane with a wall of smoke. Fire officials called for the immediate evacuations of Ford and several communities as fire threatened hundreds of buildings. Residents gathered their animals, belongings and farming equipment to avoid what they feared could be a worst-case scenario as strong steady winds and gusts of 30 miles per hour pushed what started as a brush fire Sunday afternoon.





In the early 1990s, trail advocates began to eye a pair of old railbeds in Idaho. The first was a 15-mile stretch of right of way over St. Paul Pass on the Montana-Idaho border. The Milwaukee Road was one of three transcontinental rail lines to cross the northern tier of the country, but it was constructed about 25 years after its competitors and struggled to attract freight. What it lacked in freight traffic, though, it gained in scenery, which it used to lure passengers aboard its trains, including the most famous, the Olympian Hiawatha. The passenger train stopped running in 1961, and the rail line was abandoned 20 years later. Parts of the railroad were acquired by the U.S. Forest Service, which opened the section between Taft Tunnel and Pearson as the Route of the Hiawatha in 1992. The other abandoned rail line was a branch of the Union Pacific Railroad that crossed the northern panhandle to serve mines there. When the railroad stopped running in 1993, state and federal agencies discovered the right of way was contaminated because it had been built using hazardous mining tailings. A cleanup was ordered, but because the route was so long, only some of the most toxic materials were removed, and the rest was capped in place with asphalt – perfect for a trail. The 73-mile-long Trail of the Coeur d’Alenes was opened in 2004. Both trails became instant favorites, and in 2010, they were inducted together into the Rails-to-Trails Conservancy’s Rail-Trail Hall of Fame.

After more than 35 years in downtown Spokane, the Crosswalk Youth Shelter is planning to move east. Volunteers of America unveiled plans and launched a fundraising campaign this week in support of a new 45,000-square-foot shelter near Spokane Community College. And while the location is new, the goal is the same – prevent homeless kids from becoming homeless adults. With a projected opening in 2023, the new Crosswalk shelter will have double the capacity and an array of amenities not available in its current space on Second Avenue. ... Planned for an empty lot at 3024 East Mission Avenue, the shelter will be easily accessible from Spokane Transit Authority’s upcoming City Line, which will provide rapid bus service between downtown and Spokane Community College.

Spokane shelter providers are imploring elected leaders to maintain a COVID-19 isolation facility as outbreaks are on the rise among people who are homeless. The agreement allowing the Spokane Regional Health District to operate an isolation facility at the My Place Hotel in Spokane Valley, which first opened last year, is set to expire at the end of the month. The hotel will not be an option moving forward, and health district leaders have not revealed where new isolation facilities will be after August.

They told them they had bad blood. What they actually had was syphilis, but the U.S. Public Health Service never shared that diagnosis with the almost 400 African American men, most of them poor and undereducated sharecroppers, they recruited for a secret study at Tuskegee Institute in 1932. Indeed, health officials did little for those men for 40 years, except watch the progression of the disease. ... People often point to the so-called Tuskegee Experiment to explain why African Americans tend to mistrust the medical establishment, but while what happened in Alabama was obscene, it was hardly unique. To the contrary, from experimental procedures on the vaginas of enslaved women to grave robbers stealing Black bodies for use in medical schools, to forced sterilization in the name of eugenics, to studies revealing that white doctors think Black people feel less pain, to new mother Serena Williams having to battle doctors and nurses who ignored her as she suffered a life-threatening medical emergency, Black people have been routinely betrayed by this profession whose prime directive is, “First, do no harm.” So the mistrust is grounded in hard experience. I can speak to this at first hand. In recent years, I’ve lost a brother-in-law and a cousin after they declined to follow medical advice. Another brother-in-law has heart issues – and trusts his doctors about like he would a $4 bill. I also have two sons and a grandson who refuse to take the COVID vaccine. I am scared to death for them. Most of the public discussion of vaccine hesitancy is dominated by Republicans behaving badly, the clownish people who think vaccines will magnetize them or let Bill Gates track their movements. But beyond political party, race (along with age) has emerged as a major predictor of skepticism. A recent Economist/YouGov poll found that less than half of Black and Hispanic adults have been fully vaccinated, compared with well over 60% of white ones. And mistrust is a major reason, though not the only reason, for that disparity. ... My boys and I, we do this dance. They give me their reasons for not getting the shot, I give them rebuttals. ... And while we dance, 616,000 Americans lie dead, a disproportionate number of them people of color. There’s nothing wrong with skepticism. Skepticism can be healthy, can even save your life. But skepticism can also make you blind. So this is me begging my sons and all our sons and daughters: Just take the damn shot. Look around. People who’ve done that are not dying. People who haven’t are. That’s a fact. Please don’t be so skeptical that you can’t see what might save your life. I’m not asking you to trust your doctor. I am asking you to trust your eyes.






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