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from The Inlander
Media/News Company in Spokane, WA
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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