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from The Spokesman-Review
Newspaper in Spokane, Washington
Canadian National’s $33.6 billion deal to acquire Kansas City Southern railroad is in jeopardy after federal regulators on Tuesday rejected a key part of the plan and opened the door for a competing $31 billion offer from Canadian Pacific Railway. The Surface Transportation Board said Canadian National won’t be able to use a voting trust to acquire Kansas City Southern and hold the railroad while the board reviews the overall deal.
Competition is the key that has made the American economy the world’s greatest. That’s why President Biden’s latest executive order calling for greater competition in various industries such as health care, transportation, and others makes sense. Increasing competition is the smartest way to lower prices, increase wages, and promote economic growth. This has been the case in electricity markets as well, where the Western Energy Imbalance Market has created $1.28 billion in benefits since 2014. There’s an opportunity to expand access to competitive electricity markets in most of the Western Interconnection – including Washington State – and it’s something officials in Olympia should seriously consider.
COVID hospitalizations are still leading to deaths, even if the reporting of those deaths may have been delayed. The Panhandle Health District reported 15 additional deaths on Tuesday. Those new deaths may be due to the backlog of cases in the district. In Spokane County, 18 COVID-related deaths were reported in the last week alone. The delta variant has led to a massive surge in hospitalizations in the Inland Northwest and subsequent deaths. In both Washington and Idaho, the vast majority of hospitalized COVID patients and those who die from the virus are unvaccinated. In Washington state from February through July, 92.4% of COVID deaths were in people who had not been vaccinated against the virus.
The COVID-19 surge is stretching oxygen supplies and sending hospitals scrambling for more ventilators, even as there are signs of hope that the spread of the virus is slowing down in pockets of the U.S.
The United States is promising up to $60 million in military aid to Ukraine in advance of a White House meeting on Wednesday between President Joe Biden and his Kyiv counterpart, Volodymyr Zelenskyy. The Biden administration said in a notification to Congress that the aid package for Ukraine was necessary because of a “major increase in Russian military activity along its border” and because of mortar attacks, cease-fire violations and other provocations.
Addressing the nation, a defensive President Joe Biden on Tuesday called the U.S. military airlift to extract more than 120,000 Afghans, Americans and other allies to end a 20 year war an “extraordinary success,” though more than 100 Americans and thousands of Afghans looking to leave remain. Twenty-four hours after the departure of the last American C-17 cargo plane from Kabul, Biden vigorously defended his decision to end America’s longest war and withdraw all U.S. troops ahead of an Aug. 31 deadline. “I was not going to extend this forever war,” Biden said in an address from the White House State Dining Room. “And I was not going to extend a forever exit.”
After more than a year of attending church virtually, Monique Allen has struggled to explain to her asthmatic daughter why people from their congregation of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints don’t wear masks. Allen said she’s taught her daughter that wearing a mask is Christlike, but now she worries her child feels like an outcast. Church leaders recently issued their strongest statement yet urging people to “limit the spread” by getting COVID-19 vaccines and wearing masks, but Allen said she fears it’s still not enough to convince the many families in her congregation who refuse to wear masks and have succumbed to anti-vaccine misinformation. Members of the faith widely known as the Mormon church remain deeply divided on vaccines and mask-wearing despite consistent guidance from church leaders as the highly contagious delta variant of the coronavirus spreads.
A day after an explosive wildfire emptied a resort city at the southern tip of Lake Tahoe, a huge firefighting force braced for strong winds Tuesday as some residents in neighboring Nevada were ordered to evacuate. The city of South Lake Tahoe, usually bustling with summer tourists, was eerily empty and the air thick and hazy with smoke from the Caldor Fire, one of two major fires burning in the same area. On Monday, roughly 22,000 residents jammed the city’s main artery for hours as they sought to leave after they were ordered to evacuate as the fire advanced, blazing through drought-stricken vegetation.
It was Nov. 13 , 2001. The sun had just begun to rise over the Hindu Kush Mountains when the Taliban disappeared from Kabul, the battered capital of Afghanistan. The bodies of foreign Arabs who had stayed behind were mutilated and bloodied. They had been found and killed by advancing Afghans of another faction who were brought to the city by a blistering U.S.-led campaign that drove the Taliban from power. America was still reeling from the horrific terrorist attacks of two months earlier, when planes flown by al-Qaida terrorists crashed into three iconic buildings and a Pennsylvania field, killing nearly 3,000 people. The perpetrators and their leader, Osama bin Laden, were somewhere in Afghanistan, sheltered by the Taliban. The mission: Find him. Bring him to justice.
Hundreds of Afghan refugees likely to arrive in Spokane in coming months, World Relief director says
Hundreds of Afghan refugees who fled their home country in the mass evacuation that ended Monday are likely to arrive in Spokane in the coming months. Mark Finney, director of World Relief Spokane, a Christian group that helps refugees settle into their new homes, said his organization expects between 200 and 300 Afghans to arrive in Spokane . An exact number and timeline is not yet clear. Finney said he based his estimate on Afghans who already live in the Spokane area and hope to reunite with loved ones who were able to board evacuation flights.
U.S. home prices jumped by a record amount in June as homebuyers competed for a limited supply of available houses, the latest evidence that the housing market remains red-hot. The S&P CoreLogic Case-Shiller 20-city home price index soared 19.1% in June compared with a year earlier, the largest increase on records dating back to 2000.
The deadline for many Washington employees to get a COVID-19 vaccine or face job termination is growing near, and so is the fight over how it will happen. Unions for affected employees are in the process of bargaining over issues like time off for vaccines, exemptions and help from the state on vaccinating its employees. But for the largest union representing state employees, the question about their ability to bargain the vaccine mandate in contract talks with the governor’s office may be decided in court.
Hanford nuclear reservation workers who do not provide proof of COVID-19 vaccination will be required to be tested at least weekly to be allowed on site. The policy announced Monday will cover about 11,000 Department of Energy, contractor and subcontractor workers, The Tri-City Herald reported.
With moratorium on utility shut-offs ending soon, Washington officials urge customers to make a plan
Washington officials are urging people who are behind on water and energy bills to check in with their utility companies before the state’s temporary moratorium on service shut-offs ends next month. The moratorium has been in place since April 2020, when Gov. Jay Inslee ordered a halt to disconnections as the state restricted commerce and social activities to curb the spread of COVID-19. The moratorium on disconnections for electricity, water and natural gas services is scheduled to end Sept. 30, which is also the same day a temporary ban on evictions for unpaid rent in Washington is set to lift.
Another health system in Tacoma on Monday said it’s having to turn to redeployed staff and tents to accommodate patients in a devastating COVID-19 surge that is putting the state and Pierce County to the test. Virginia Mason Franciscan Health, which operates St. Joseph Medical Center in Tacoma, St. Anthony Hospital in Gig Harbor, St. Clare Hospital in Lakewood and St. Elizabeth Hospital in Enumclaw, among others, told The News Tribune in response to questions Monday it was facing the strain of the latest wave. Earlier Monday, MultiCare noted it was using tents at its busiest locations, including Tacoma General and Good Samaritan in Puyallup.
Forty-six years ago, after Saigon fell and the Vietnam War ended, Washington, more than any other state, opened its arms. Washington, in 1975, was the only state in the country to develop a state-run resettlement program to welcome arriving refugees. Now, as the two-decade war in Afghanistan concludes, with chaos and bloodshed, Washington is no longer alone, but is once again welcoming refugees fleeing war and oppression.
The summer of 2021 included Spokane’s second-warmest June, hottest July, highest minimum temperature, highest temperature, the most 90-degree-plus days, a tie for the most 100-degree-plus days, and the hottest summer (June, July, August) recorded. “What’s worrying is that that’s expected to be more and more common as we move through the century,” said Professor Brian G. Henning, director of the Gonzaga Center for Climate, Society and the Environment. “It’s expected that summers like this, rather than being exceptional, will be fairly typical by the time we reach the middle of the century.”
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