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from The Spokesman-Review
Newspaper in Spokane, Washington
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The U.S. secretaries of state and defense met Sunday night with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in the highest-level visit to the war-torn country’s capital by an American delegation since the start of Russia’s invasion. The meeting with U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken and U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin was confirmed by presidential adviser Oleksiy Arestovych in an interview on Ukrainian TV.
When a group of Spokane leaders went to Houston looking to make a short documentary about that city’s system for managing homelessness, they wanted to find an encampment to film. Encampments, after all, are the signals of our growing challenges with homelessness, from the so-called Camp Hope along Interstate 90 to all the camps in Seattle and Los Angeles and Portland and San Francisco … In Houston, though, a regional metro area with more than 6 million people, it’s a different picture.
In a little over a decade, the Houston metro area has seen a 64% reduction in homelessness and has moved more than 25,000 people into housing. More than 90% of those people have remained housed, according to the city’s homeless nonprofit. What’s working in Houston? According to people there, it boils down to having a truly coordinated, collaborative system. This may sound obvious or cliched, but the Houston model is based on deep, broad collaboration – it’s not regular meetings of a handful of elected officials, but deeply aligned efforts among more than 100 different players, from the worlds of government, business, religion, philanthropy and service providers.
French President Emmanuel Macron comfortably won re-election to a second term Sunday, according to polling agencies’ projections. In the midst of Russia’s war on Ukraine, the result offered the European Union the reassurance of stable leadership in the bloc’s only nuclear-armed power and was immediately hailed by France’s allies. A second five-year term for the 44-year-old centrist spared France and Europe from the seismic upheaval of a shift of power to firebrand populist Marine Le Pen, Macron’s presidential election challenger who quickly conceded defeat but still appeared on course for her best-ever showing.
Wind-driven wildfires sweeping through parts of Nebraska killed a retired fire chief and injured at least 11 firefighters, authorities said Sunday. The man who died Friday night was a retired Cambridge fire chief who was working with firefighters as a spotter in Red Willow County in the southwestern corner of the state. Alyssa Sanders, of the Nebraska Emergency Management Agency, said 66-year-old John P. Trumble, of Arapahoe, was overcome by smoke and fire after his vehicle left the road because of poor visibility from smoke and dust. His body was found early Saturday.
Is it OK for free-range chickens to not range freely? That’s a question free-range egg producers have been pondering lately as they try to be open about their product while also protecting chickens from a highly infectious bird flu that has resulted in the death of roughly 28 million poultry birds across the country. The U.S. Department of Agriculture recommends that chickens be moved indoors to protect against the disease, but while some are keeping their hens inside, not everyone agrees.
New Mexico Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham has signed emergency declarations as 20 wildfires continued to burn Sunday in nearly half of the state’s drought-stricken 33 counties. One wildfire in northern New Mexico that started April 6 merged with a newer fire Saturday to form the largest blaze in the state, leading to widespread evacuations in Mora and San Miguel counties. That fire was at 84 square miles Sunday and 12% contained.
When a woman gashed her leg in mountains inhabited by snakes and scorpions, she told Joel Úbeda to take her 5-year-old daughter. Úbeda refused to let the mother die, despite the advice of their smuggler and another migrant in a group of seven, and helped carry her to safety by shining a mirror in sunlight to flag a U.S. Customs and Border Protection helicopter near San Diego. The motorcycle mechanic, who used his house in Nicaragua as collateral for a $6,500 smuggling fee, says the worst day of his life was yet to come. Arrested after the encounter with U.S. agents, Úbeda learned two days later that he could not pursue asylum in the United States while living with a cousin in Miami. Instead, he would have to wait in the Mexican border city of Tijuana for hearings in U.S. immigration court under a Trump-era policy that will be argued Tuesday before the U.S. Supreme Court.
Volunteers and government workers in Shanghai erected metal barriers in multiple districts to block off small streets and entrances to apartment complexes, as China hardens its strict “zero-COVID” approach in its largest city despite growing complaints from residents.
COVID-19 vaccinations are at a critical juncture as companies test whether new approaches like combination shots or nasal drops can keep up with a mutating coronavirus – even though it’s not clear if changes are needed. Already there’s public confusion about who should get a second booster now and who can wait. There’s also debate about whether pretty much everyone might need an extra dose in the fall.
A green light blinks quietly on an office phone monitor. A volunteer named Mark McAllister quickly transfers the call to his direct line. A soft voice comes through his headset: “I’ve been feeling a little bit sad lately.” .... In less than 100 days, this place will add dozens of new staffers for the rollout of 988, a nationwide crisis phone line that’s set to debut in mid-July. The goal is to consolidate various hotlines and phone services for youth, veterans, people seeking substance use treatment and any caller who needs a kind listener or resources for their mental health.
If a drugmaker is offering copay assistance, you can assume the list price of the drug is high, but I wasn’t sure how high. Did this outwardly kind offer represent, essentially, a kind of bribe? This copay coupon scheme is both common and lucrative for pharmaceutical companies that sell expensive drugs. Here’s how it works: Drug manufacturers, directly or through nonprofit foundations, disburse money to subsidize patient copays as a form of what they seek to characterize as charity. They often deduct from their income taxes the billions they pay out.
An already historically cold April in Spokane has the potential to set a record, with balmy Sunday temperatures likely to fall throughout the week. The National Weather Service in Spokane reported that, through Friday, this month had the coolest average daily mean temperature since records started being kept in 1881. The 40.4-degree reading is the average of the high and low temperature each day, then averaged across the first 22 days of April.
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