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from The Spokesman-Review
Newspaper in Spokane, Washington
Apple released a critical software patch to fix a security vulnerability that researchers said could allow hackers to directly infect iPhones and other Apple devices without any user action. Researchers at the University of Toronto’s Citizen Lab said the security issue was exploited to plant spyware on a Saudi activist’s iPhone. They said they had high confidence that the world’s most infamous hacker-for-hire firm, Israel’s NSO Group, was behind that attack. The previously unknown vulnerability affected all major Apple devices – iPhones, Macs and Apple Watches, the researchers said. NSO Group responded with a one-sentence statement saying it will continue providing tools for fighting “terror and crime.”
A popular California ski resort whose name included a derogatory term for Native American women changed its name Monday to Palisades Tahoe. Resort officials had begun searching for a new name last year amid a reckoning over racial injustice. The renaming of Squaw Valley Ski Resort is one of many efforts nationally to address a history of colonialism and oppression against Native Americans and other people of color that includes removing statues of Christopher Columbus.
Environmental groups have filed notice they plan to sue Gov. Greg Gianforte’s administration after it dropped a legal claim against a mining executive over decades of pollution from several mines. Under Gianforte, the Department of Environmental Quality in July quit a 2018 lawsuit that sought to block Coeur d’Alene-based Hecla Mining Co. and its president, Phillips Baker Jr., from involvement in two proposed silver and copper mines. Baker was an executive with Pegasus Gold, which went bankrupt in 1998, leaving state and federal agencies with more than $50 million in cleanup costs at three mines.
A day after being spurned by Kansas City Southern, Canadian National Railway is facing additional pressure from a major investor who wants CN to abandon its effort to buy the U.S. railroad. The London-based investment firm TCI Fund – which owns about 5% of CN’s stock and about 8% of rival Canadian Pacific’s shares – said Monday it is calling for a special CN shareholder meeting where it plans to nominate four new directors. TCI has said it thinks CN should overhaul its board, get a new CEO and refocus its efforts on improving its own operations.
House Democrats unveiled a sweeping proposal Monday for tax increases on big corporations and the wealthy to fund President Joe Biden’s $3.5 trillion rebuilding plan, as Congress speeds ahead to shape the far-reaching package that touches almost all aspects of domestic life.
The eastbound Freya Street on-ramp to Interstate 90 has been closed since June 28, and it may never reopen. The Washington State Department of Transportation has proposed shuttering the ramp permanently as part of its broader effort to improve safety and flow along an increasingly congested stretch of highway that begins at U.S. 195 and ends at the bottom of Freya’s short ramp.
Many Jews thought these High Holidays would open the gates to normalcy. Last year, many congregations opted to host Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur services exclusively online or in small outdoor groups. For many Jewish people, it was the first time in their lives that they didn’t attend services.
A divided Coeur d’Alene School Board opted against requiring students to wear face coverings amid a spike of COVID-19 cases in North Idaho that is forcing hospitals to ration care. Members of the district’s Board of Trustees voted 3-2 Monday night for a COVID-19 reopening plan that “strongly recommends” – not requires – masks.
At Spokane Public Schools and other districts, teachers and administrators have promised to “meet students where they are” as they begin a new year with in-person learning. The big question: Where exactly are they During the COVID-19 pandemic, standardized tests have largely been dropped, making it difficult for educators to gauge how much learning was lost, especially at the kindergarten level and particularly in foundational literacy and language arts.
In the past month, hospitalizations for COVID-19 in Spokane County have nearly doubled, and the vast majority of those patients are residents of Washington. There are 242 people with the virus in Spokane’s four hospitals. Despite local frustrations and national reports regarding Spokane hospitals overwhelmed by COVID patients from Idaho, the data doesn’t show such a scenario.
Secretary of State Antony Blinken pushed back Monday against harsh Republican criticism of the handling of the military withdrawal from Afghanistan, saying the Biden administration inherited a deal with the Taliban to end the war, but no plan for carrying it out.
Kicking off his first official trip to the West as commander in chief, President Joe Biden landed in Boise on Monday to tout his $3.5 trillion spending plan as key to combating wildfires and slowing climate change. Biden visited the National Interagency Fire Center in Idaho’s capital. He’s on his way to California, where he planned to survey wildfire damage. Noting that 5.4 million acres have already burned across the country this year – an area bigger than New Jersey – the president connected the blazes to recent hurricanes and other extreme weather events scientists have linked to the changing climate.
Abortion providers urged the Supreme Court Monday to reject Mississippi’s 15-week prohibition on most abortions, saying a decision to uphold it would “invite states to ban abortion entirely.” The filing with the high court comes at a time of significant peril for abortion rights in the U.S., with a Supreme Court reshaped by three conservative justices appointed by former President Donald Trump. Mississippi already has told the court it should overrule its 1973 decision in Roe v. Wade that established a nationwide right to abortion.
The Biden administration is expanding its effort to find and reunite migrant families who were separated at the U.S.-Mexico border under President Donald Trump as part of a zero-tolerance policy on illegal crossings. A federal task force is launching a new program Monday that officials say will expand efforts to find parents, many of whom are in remote Central American communities, and help them return to the United States, where they will get at least three years of legal residency and other assistance.
Russian President Vladimir Putin has observed military exercises being conducted in coordination with Belarus that have raised concerns in bordering countries. Putin on Monday attended exercises at a training ground in the Nizhny Novgorod region, 450 kilometers (275 miles) east of Moscow. The exercises included what the Defense Ministry said was the first use in a combat environment of two new robotic fighting vehicles that are equipped with machine guns and grenade launchers. The Zapad (West)-2021 exercises being conducted at several sites in Russia and Belarus involve about 200,000 soldiers in total, including troops from Armenia, India, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Mongolia.
Fearing his parents wouldn’t approve of his decision to get a COVID-19 vaccine but needing their signature, Andrew signed up for the appointment in secret, and then sprang it on them at the last minute. They said no. Andrew cursed at his mother and father and called them idiots. Andrew’s dad grabbed him by the shirt collar. ... In most states, minors need the consent of their parents in order to be vaccinated against COVID-19. Navigating family politics in cases of differing views has been a challenge for students and organizers of outreach campaigns, who have faced blowback for directly targeting young people.
New car buyers are forced to act fast in today’s market, but the wheels of government turn slowly. Amid a fiercely competitive car market, fueled in part by an international shortage of microchips, Spokane city officials have struggled to win City Council approval to buy new vehicles before they’re sold to another buyer. It’s not that council members aren’t supportive of the purchases. Rather, the problem is that the process of presenting a proposal to purchase vehicles and securing final council approval takes weeks. In the meantime, new cars are often bought up by someone else.
A Louisiana man who is the oldest living World War II veteran in the United States has marked his 112th birthday. Lawrence Brooks celebrated Sunday with a drive-by party at his New Orleans home hosted by the National World War II Museum, The Times-Picayune/The New Orleans Advocate reported. He also received greetings from Louisiana Gov. John Bel Edwards, who tweeted, “Mr. Brooks, the entire state of Louisiana thanks you for your service and we all wish you a joyous birthday.” The museum has previously hosted parties for Brooks, although the coronavirus pandemic has caused those events to shift to drive-by celebrations for the past two years.
Up to half of the $14 trillion spent by the Pentagon since 9/11 went to for-profit defense contractors, a study released Monday found. While much of this money went to weapons suppliers, the research is the latest to point to the dependence on contractors for war-zone duties as contributing to mission failures in Afghanistan in particular. In the post-9/11 wars, U.S. corporations contracted by the Defense Department not only handled war-zone logistics like running fuel convoys and staffing chow lines but performed mission-crucial work like training and equipping Afghan security forces — security forces that collapsed last month as the Taliban swept the country.
Spokane County has $22 million in transportation construction projects planned for next year and $182 million planned through 2027. County engineer Chad Coles presented the six-year transportation plan to the county commissioners in recent meetings. The county will only have to pay $6 million of the $22 million cost for 2022’s construction projects. Federal dollars will cover $9.7 million and state dollars will pay for $6 million. Coles said construction on Bigelow Gulch Road will be the most impactful project next year.
Spokane is a small, predominately white city of only about a quarter-million people. Kenya is an African nation of 54 million people on the other side of the world. Though labels and cultural practices may differ, groups from the two countries found common ground during a meeting Tuesday on their respective quests for equality.
With hundreds expected to arrive in the coming months, the Spokane City Council will vote on a resolution Monday expressing support for the relocation of Afghan refugees here. Though nonbinding, the resolution would formally state elected officials’ support for taking in those fleeing Afghanistan as the United States withdrew its military and the Taliban gained control last month.
There’s a new proposal for one day helping to revitalize abandoned properties in the city of Spokane into affordable housing, but making it a reality would be complex. The city has existing programs to deal with dilapidated properties, but a new report suggests that a land bank could eventually help ensure they become affordable housing, according to a presentation heard by the City Council on Thursday. There are more than 250 active land banks in the United States, and their portfolios typically include vacant properties that were delinquent on property taxes, loaded with liens and unwanted by private buyers. A land bank is a quasi-public entity with the ultimate purpose of either rebuilding or cleaning up abandoned and rundown properties.
As local leaders allowed an isolation center at a Spokane Valley hotel to close last month, some people with COVID-19 were forced to shuffle between shelters while they waited out the disease.
Robert E. Lee has retreated from Richmond. Again. The first time, you will recall, was in April of 1865, when he and his tattered army abandoned the city, fleeing east before finally surrendering at Appomattox Courthouse to federal forces commanded by General Ulysses S. Grant. This latest – and, one hopes, last – retreat was similarly ignoble. Last week, a 12-ton, 21-foot tall statue of the Confederate icon was lowered by crane from a graffiti-scarred pedestal, cut into two pieces and carted away on a flatbed truck.
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