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from The Spokesman-Review
Newspaper in Spokane, Washington
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‘These fires are no longer rare’: Washington fire officials ask Sen. Patty Murray for more resources
Democratic U.S. Sen. Patty Murray got a clear message from regional fire officials in a virtual roundtable discussion Wednesday: The federal government needs to make it easier for fire departments to battle the wildfires that are increasingly ravaging the West. “These fires are no longer rare occurrences in our state,” Twisp Mayor Soo Ing-Moody said during the discussion.
Regional wildfires, as well as fires in California and Southern Oregon, pushed a smoky haze into the Spokane area Wednesday, and Thursday is expected to be similar. Wednesday’s air quality topped out in the “moderate,” range according to Lisa Woodard, communications/outreach manager at the Spokane Regional Clean Air Agency. Thursday is expected to stay mostly the same, with a slight break in the afternoon expected and air quality possibly reaching the “unhealthy for sensitive groups” range.
The Spokane Police Department plans to temporarily eliminate its traffic unit later this month due to staffing shortages. Eliminating the traffic unit doesn’t mean officers will forego traffic stops, Chief Craig Meidl said. Patrol officers will continue stopping and citing people for traffic infractions. The change also won’t impact the department’s ability to investigate crimes such as vehicular assault or homicide, Meidl said. Traffic investigators at SPD are members of the investigative unit and won’t be affected.
The school year has just begun, but COVID-19 is back, especially in Coeur d’Alene and Mead. As of Wednesday – the second day of classes at Coeur d’Alene Schools – the district reported 66 cumulative cases dating back to Aug. 16.
Johnson & Johnson’s coronavirus vaccine cuts the risk of getting infected with the disease by about half, according to the latest results of a trial involving almost half a million health workers in South Africa. The vast majority of the breakthrough infections were mild, Glenda Gray, co-leader of the study known as Sisonke, said in an interview, citing unpublished data from the trial, which had earlier shown the shot’s effectiveness against severe illness. Like all coronavirus vaccines, J&J’s was intended and tested for its ability to prevent COVID-19 hospitalizations and deaths. Even so, the frequency of breakthrough infections in vaccinated people highlights the challenge governments face in halting the virus’s spread, which threatens to lead to the proliferation of new variants that might be even more contagious. Coupled with vaccine hesitancy, the limited efficacy of shots in stopping mild infections will mean “we will continue to see a flow of infections,” said Bruce Mellado, a professor at the University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg, South Africa, who uses modeling to predict the trajectory of infections. Still, he said, the effectiveness against death and severe disease could prevent a “human catastrophe.”
While Washington state hospitals are faring slightly better than those in North Idaho, capacity is at its tightest point yet during the pandemic. According to a Sept. 7 count, there are 1,743 COVID-19 patients hospitalized statewide, which is more than hospital census figures recorded in previous COVID waves.
Exhausted hospital staff at Kootenai Health got some relief from the COVID-19 surge this week from the federal government. Just as the daily census of COVID hospitalizations reached a new record high on Wednesday, a highly skilled 20-person Department of Defense team began a 30-day rotation in the hospital, adding to the health care teams there.
A statue of Gen. Robert E. Lee that towered over Richmond for generations was taken down, cut into pieces and hauled away Wednesday, as the former capital of the Confederacy erased the last of the Civil War figures that once defined its most prominent thoroughfare. Hundreds of onlookers erupted in cheers and song as the 21-foot-tall bronze figure was lifted off a pedestal and lowered to the ground. The removal marked a major victory for civil rights activists, whose previous calls to dismantle the statues had been steadfastly rebuked by city and state officials alike.
The Biden administration on Wednesday removed 18 appointees named to U.S. military academy boards by Donald Trump in the final months of the Republican president’s term in office, according to the White House. Cathy Russell, director of the White House Presidential Personnel Office, sent letters to 18 people named to the boards of visitors for the Air Force Academy, Military Academy and Naval Academy calling on them to resign by close of business on Wednesday or face termination. Among those Biden ousted are some high-profile Trump administration officials, including White House counselor Kellyanne Conway (Air Force Academy), press secretary Sean Spicer (Naval Academy), national security adviser H.R. McMaster (Military Academy) and Office of Management and Budget director Russell Vought (Naval Academy).
Foes of the new Texas law that bans most abortions have been looking to the Democratic-run federal government to swoop in and knock down the most restrictive abortion law in effect in the country. But it’s nowhere near that simple. President Joe Biden , who denounces the law as “almost un-American,” has directed the Justice Department to try to find a way to block its enforcement. And Attorney General Merrick Garland says his prosecutors are exploring all possible options. But legal experts warn that while the law may ultimately be found unconstitutional, the way it’s written means it’ll be an uphill legal battle.
The death toll in Louisiana from Hurricane Ida rose to 26 Wednesday, after health officials reported 11 additional deaths in New Orleans, mostly older people who perished from the heat. The announcement was grim news amid signs the city was returning to normal with almost fully restored power and a lifted nighttime curfew. While New Orleans was generally rebounding from the storm, hundreds of thousands of people outside the city remained without electricity and some of the hardest-hit areas still had no water. Across southeastern Louisiana, 250,000 students were unable to return to classrooms 10 days after Ida roared ashore with 150 mph winds.
Solar energy has the potential to supply up to 40% of the nation’s electricity within 15 years — a 10-fold increase over current solar output, but one that would require massive changes in U.S. policy and billions of dollars in federal investment to modernize the nation’s electric grid, a new federal report says. The report by the Energy Department’s Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy says the United States would need to quadruple its annual solar capacity — and continue to increase it year by year — as it shifts to a renewable-dominant grid in order to address the existential threat posed by climate change.
A Florida judge ruled Wednesday that the state cannot enforce a ban on public schools mandating the use of masks to guard against the coronavirus, while an appeals court sorts out whether the ban is ultimately legal. Leon County Circuit Judge John C. Cooper lifted an automatic stay of his decision last week that Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis and state education officials exceeded their authority by imposing the blanket ban through executive order and tagging defiant pro-mask local school boards with financial penalties.
Ethel Kennedy, the wife of the late Robert F. Kennedy, says assassin Sirhan Sirhan should not be released from prison, further roiling a family divide over whether the man convicted of killing her husband in California in 1968 should be freed on parole.
The summer that was supposed to mark America’s independence from COVID-19 is instead drawing to a close with the U.S. more firmly under the tyranny of the virus, with deaths per day back up to where they were in March. The delta variant is filling hospitals, sickening alarming numbers of children and driving coronavirus deaths in some places to the highest levels of the entire pandemic. School systems that reopened their classrooms are abruptly switching back to remote learning because of outbreaks. Legal disputes, threats and violence have erupted over mask and vaccine requirements. The U.S. death toll stands at more than 650,000, with one major forecast model projecting it will top 750,000 by Dec. 1.
Researchers who estimate how much of the world’s coal, oil and natural gas reserves should be left unburned to slow the increase in climate-changing gases in the atmosphere say even more of these fossil fuels should be left in the ground. The researchers, from University College London, say earlier estimates, published in 2015, had to be updated. They now calculate that nearly 60% of the world’s oil and gas reserves and 90% of the coal reserves need to stay in the ground by 2050 to meet climate goals of the Paris Climate Agreement.
The rural town of Malden didn’t have much to offer when it came to amenities, but it had decades of history and a quiet sense of community. ,,, When most of the town burned to the ground last September, much of that history was charred, the quiet town turned into an emergency zone and the lack of resources at the town level became a significant problem.
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