‘Kiln-like,’ record-setting heat as California fires rage, causing injuries

Creek Fire explodes in size, trapping and injuring campers

By Andrew Freedman Washington Post
September 6, 2020 at 1:17 p.m.

Sunday will be one of the hottest days in recent memory across much of California, the day after scorching temperatures set scores of records and intensified destructive wildfires erupting in the state.

Heat and red flag warnings are in effect statewide into the coming week as the heat will continue to fuel the fires already burning and could cause any new blazes to rapidly grow out of control.

The most serious wildfire situation has developed with the Creek Fire in the Sierra National Forest, about 290 miles north of Los Angeles, which was first detected Friday night and rapidly grew to at least 45,000 acres by Sunday morning.

That fire trapped about 1,000 people near Mammoth Pool reservoir as flames crossed the San Joaquin River, including about 150 people who became trapped at a boat launch, the AP reports.

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California wildfire traps campers in Sierra National Forest

An air tanker drops retardant as a wildfire burns at a hillside in Yucaipa, Calif., on Saturday.
An air tanker drops retardant as a wildfire burns on a hillside in Yucaipa, Calif., on Saturday. 
(AP)

By ASSOCIATED PRESS
SEP. 6, 202012:55 AM UPDATED 7:17 AM

SHAVER LAKE, Calif. —  Three fast-spreading California wildfires sent people fleeing Saturday, with one trapping campers at a reservoir in the Sierra National Forest, as a brutal heat wave pushed temperatures into triple digits in many parts of state.

The wildfire burning near Shaver Lake exploded to 56 square miles, jumped a river and compromised the only road into the Mammoth Pool Campground, national forest spokesman Dan Tune said. At least 2,000 structures were threatened in the area about 290 miles north of Los Angeles, where temperatures in the city’s San Fernando Valley reached 117 degrees.

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Penn State sees 174 new COVID-19 cases

By Sean Adams pennlive.com

A total of 174 students at Penn State’s University Park campus have tested positive for the coronavirus, according to a news release from the university.

Testing results from the campus for the week of Aug. 28 showed 115 positive COVID-19 tests from among the on-demand screenings, and 59 positive results from the random screenings done at the university.

The university is attempting to use contact tracing to notify any at-risk individuals. All of those impacted thus far are students, and are either isolating in their on-campus housing, at home or in single-occupancy off-campus residences. According to the university’s COVID-19 dashboard, 58 students are in on-campus isolation, and another 29 are in on-campus quarantine.

“We know the virus is here, and I am of course concerned by the numbers and trends we are seeing,” said Penn State President Eric J. Barron in a news release. “Our ability to manage transmission and rate of growth of positive cases is critically important. Next week, we will assess data following the holiday weekend, and determine whether we need to take mitigation steps at University Park including temporary or sustained remote learning.”

Barron reiterated the importance of social distancing, particularly in advance of the Labor Day holiday weekend, and discouraged “social gatherings, parties or barbecues” both on and off campus for students.

In the news release, epidemiologist and Penn State associate professor of biology Matt Ferrari said that “this is a very critical moment.”

“It’s vital that students, especially, socialize closely only with roommates, if possible,” Ferrari said. “This is not the time to have friends over, or visit other apartments. Don’t attend gatherings with folks outside your immediate household; wear a mask and maintain distance when you go out.”

Reports from colleges and universities across the state are showing similar outbreaks among the student body.

Earlier this week, students at Gettysburg College were quarantined to their rooms due to COVID-19 cases on campus, and both Temple University and Lock Haven University suspended in-person classes. Bloomsburg University also suspended in-person classes the previous week.

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In NJ today, 478 new COVID-19 cases, 7 more deaths, and transmission rate rising, as outbreak hits 6-month mark

By Brent Johnson | NJ Advance Media for NJ.com

Six months after it announced its first case, New Jersey — one of the nation’s earliest hard-hit areas — has now reported 15,978 confirmed and probable deaths attributed to the coronavirus and 193,422 known cases out of more than 2.96 million administered tests.

That’s after state officials on Friday reported seven more deaths and 478 new cases related to COVID-19.

In addition, the state’s rate of transmission increased to 1.03, jumping above the key mark of 1 for the first time in a week, indicating the outbreak is expanding again. It’s the seventh straight day the rate has risen.

But hospitalizations for the virus fell below 500 for the first time in three days.

Of the newly reported deaths, three occurred Sept. 2, one Aug. 29, and four in June that were just recently confirmed, officials said. Of the state’s total deaths, 14,195 are lab-confirmed and 1,783 are considered probable.

“Six months ago today — although it seems like 60 years ago — we received confirmation of our first case of coronavirus in New Jersey,” Gov. Phil Murphy said Friday during his latest coronavirus briefing in Trenton. “We’ve experienced a lot together over these past six months. And we still have a long road to travel.”

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Pentagon kills funding for military newspaper Stars and Stripes, orders it to shut down by the end of the month

“Trump has taken over VOA, Radio Free Europe, etc…planting loyalists, firing critical journalists. He can’t do that with Stripes so he’s just…zeroing out the budget.”

By LAURA HAZARD OWEN NiemanLab 
Sept. 4, 2020, 11:15 a.m. 

The Pentagon has ordered the 159-year-old independent military newspaper Stars and Stripes to come up with a shutdown plan by September 15 and stop publishing by September 30. The news — and a bipartisan group of senators’ plea to save the paper — was reported on Wednesday. This morning, USA Today reported on the memo in which Colonel Paul R. Haverstick, Jr., director of the Defense Media Activity, issued the shutdown order.

The plan for dissolution, due by September 15, should include a “specific timeline for vacating government-owned/leased space worldwide,” he wrote, and “the last newspaper publication (in all forms) will be September 30, 2020.”

At Military.com, Oriana Pawlyk reported:

The Pentagon in February proposed cutting all of the newspaper’s funding — roughly $15.5 million annually — to reallocate those dollars toward other high-profile programs, such as space, nuclear and hypersonic systems, [Defense Secretary Mark Esper] said at the time. The Senate version of the fiscal 2021 National Defense Authorization Act does not contain funding for the paper; lawmakers will convene this fall to develop a joint version of the bill.

“We trimmed the support for Stars and Stripes because we need to invest that money, as we did with many, many other programs, into higher-priority issues,” he said during a news conference at NATO headquarters in Brussels, following DoD’s $740 billion budget submission to Congress. Stars and Stripes is published in print and online.

While the paper, which is distributed to U.S. troops stationed at bases worldwide, maintains editorial independence, it receives federal funding as part of the Pentagon’s Defense Media Agency. About $8.7 million of the subsidy comes through operations and maintenance (O&M) funding, and about $6.9 million from contingency operations funds, Stripes said. The remainder of the Stripes annual budget comes from advertising, subscriptions and sales.

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Today’s Philadelphia and Pa. COVID-19 stats

From BillyPenn – September 4, 2020

At a glance (vs. a week ago)
Pennsylvania: cases ↑, positivity rate ↔
Philadelphia: cases ↑, positivity rate ↑

  • Pennsylvania’s rolling average is 802 new cases/day, 23% higher than a week ago. The state has recorded 137k positives out of 1.70M tested. The average statewide positivity rate over the past week is 3.0%, one-tenth of a point higher than a week ago. [health.pa.gov]
     
  • Philadelphia is averaging 117 new cases/day (up 26% from a week ago) out of about 2,660 daily tests. The average positivity rate is 4.4%, more than a point up from a week ago. Philly has recorded 34.3k cases out of 325k residents tested. [phila.gov]
     
  • In the city, 1,759 people are known to have died of COVID-19, with a rolling average of 1 person lost each day. Statewide, there have been 7,712 related deaths. The average of 14 lives lost daily is the same as a week ago. [phila.gov]
     
  • Health Commissioner Farley said colleges probably account for rising case counts in Philadelphia and across the state. He recommended students move back to wherever they stayed over the summer, to decrease neighborhood density. [@billy_penn]
     
  • With 236 positives, Temple has canceled in-person teaching for the rest of the fall semester. Students can get a refund on housing + meal plan if they decide to leave by Sept. 13, per the university. [Billy Penn/Temple]
     
  • Weekly reports from the Pa. Dept. of Health are missing death data for up to 100 of the state’s 693 nursing homes. Officials say they’re working with care facilities to fix the reporting process. [Spotlight PA]

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Hoboken, ‘at the forefront of climate change,’ seeks damages from ExxonMobil and other fossil fuel giants

The city joined a long line of state and local litigants alleging Big Oil knew burning fossil fuels caused climate-related problems like sea level rise.

BY DAVID HASEMYER Inside Climate News

Dusk in Hoboken, New Jersey, across the Hudson River from the Empire State Building in Manhattan. Credit: Gary Hershorn/Getty

The city of Hoboken, New Jersey, filed a lawsuit Wednesday seeking damages from ExxonMobil and other major oil and gas companies for misleading the public about the harmful climate-related impacts such as sea level rise they knew would be caused by burning fossil fuels. 

The city cast itself as a prime example of an oceanside community “at the forefront of climate change,” as Mayor Ravi Bhalla said in announcing the lawsuit.  

Less than five miles from midtown Manhattan in New York City, Hoboken is uniquely vulnerable to sea level rise, according to the lawsuit filed in Hudson County Superior Court. It set forth nuisance, trespass and negligence claims, as well as violations of the New Jersey Consumer Fraud Act.

“As America’s fifth-densest city, its residents and infrastructure are integrally connected to its 1.5 miles of coastline,” the lawsuit said. “More than half of Hoboken’s residents, half of its schools and all of its hospitals, rail and ferry stations, and hazardous waste sites are within five feet of its high tide line.

“Sea level rise therefore threatens major sections of Hoboken with flooding at high tide.”

Global warming caused by greenhouse gas emissions from cars, trucks, electric utilities and other industrial processes has caused the sea level to rise by nearly a foot in and around Hoboken, which is considerably more than the average around the world, the lawsuit said, adding: “Multiple additional feet of sea level rise are projected in the coming decades as a result of fossil fuel use.”

The number of high tide flood days has already more than doubled since 2000, the lawsuit said, while climate change also threatens the city with more frequent and severe flooding from storm surge during coastal storms.

Other defendants named in the lawsuit include BP, Chevron, ConocoPhillips, Shell and the American Petroleum Institute, an oil and gas trade association.

“The climate harms masked by defendants’ half-century of deception have now slammed into the shores of Hoboken,” the lawsuit said. 

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