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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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