| From both sides, thoughts and prayers for Trump, some more heartfelt than others Posted: 03 Oct 2020 01:34 PM PDT  Americans from across the political spectrum are offering prayers to the president as he battles COVID-19. Sadly, the virus hasn't shown itself to be particularly susceptible to prayer.
|
| Thousands protest anti-coronavirus restrictions in Germany over weekend Posted: 04 Oct 2020 04:05 AM PDT  Thousands of demonstrators in southern Germany protested against coronavirus restrictions over the weekend, police said on Sunday, although organisers failed to mobilise enough people for a planned human chain around Lake Constance. Thousands of counter-demonstrators in Constance also turned out to show support for the government's measures to contain the coronavirus while also protesting against right-wing supporters in the other group, police said. Overall, police counted between 10,500 and 11,000 people taking part in the different demonstrations on Saturday and the two-day protests continued on Sunday with sunny weather likely to draw in further participants, a police spokesman said.
|
| Cunningham admits sending sexually suggestive texts Posted: 02 Oct 2020 10:56 PM PDT  The Democratic challenger in North Carolina's closely contested U.S. Senate campaign has acknowledged exchanging sexually suggestive text messages with a woman who's not his wife, but he said he will not drop out of the race. Cal Cunningham apologized late Friday for the text message exchanges in which he tells the woman he wants to kiss her and she says she wants to spend the night with him. Cunningham's admission regarding the text messages, along with his opponent U.S. Senate Thom Tillis announcing Friday night he has tested positive for COVID-19, could reshape the nation's most expensive Senate campaign, which is considered key to determining the power balance in the Senate.
|
| Margaret Ferrier faces being kicked out by her constituents if she refuses to resign, SNP warns her Posted: 04 Oct 2020 09:55 AM PDT  Margaret Ferrier faces being kicked out of her seat by her constituents, the SNP's Westminster leader has warned her as she continued to ignore Nicola Sturgeon's personal appeal to quit. Ian Blackford said the Rutherglen and Hamilton West MP, who travelled from Scotland to the Commons and back by train while suffering from coronavirus, should "do the honourable thing" and resign her seat. In a direct warning to Ms Ferrier, he told the Daily Telegraph that failing to resign "on her own terms" would mean she risks "having her fate taken out of her hands." SNP chiefs are understood to believe that she will be suspended from Parliament for at least 10 sitting days, or 14 consecutive days, the benchmark that could allow her constituents to recall her and force a by-election. But they are extremely worried that the longer Ms Ferrier clings on, the more damage will be inflicted to Ms Sturgeon's public health message to the Scottish people and her personal authority. The First Minister spoke on Friday morning to the MP, whom she described as a friend, urging her to resign but the 60-year-old defied her. She did not quit even when the Metropolitan Police launched an investigation on Friday evening.
|
| Sellouts to the Black community. Traitors to fellow officers. Black police chiefs are caught between 2 worlds after George Floyd's killing. Posted: 04 Oct 2020 02:58 AM PDT  Black police chiefs are sometimes brought on to act as a bridge between the police and the Black community, but they face challenges from both sides.
|
| SARS: Nigeria 'rogue' police unit banned from stop and search Posted: 04 Oct 2020 08:30 AM PDT  Videos allegedly showing SARS officers extorting money and shooting people cause public outrage.
|
| Suspected Russian hitman on trial over Berlin killing Posted: 03 Oct 2020 08:33 PM PDT  A Russian man goes on trial Wednesday accused of assassinating a former Chechen commander in a Berlin park on Moscow's orders, a case that has cast a pall over ties between Russia and Germany.
|
| Kellyanne Conway tests positive for COVID, with ‘mild’ symptoms, as epidemic spreads through Trump circle Posted: 02 Oct 2020 08:38 PM PDT  President Trump tested positive for COVID-19 earlier int he day. "As always, my heart is with everyone affected by this global pandemic," Kellyanne Conway tweeted.
|
| Search underway for murder hornet nest in Washington state Posted: 04 Oct 2020 11:57 AM PDT  Agricultural officials in Washington state said Friday they're trying to find and destroy a nest of Asian giant hornets — also known as murder hornets.
|
| Fears for foreign exchange trips as peers urge Government to scrap plans to force all children from Europe to carry passports Posted: 04 Oct 2020 01:39 PM PDT  Fears have been expressed for foreign exchange trips as peers urge the Government to scrap plans that would force all children from Europe to carry passports after Brexit is completed. The Government plans to end the use of European ID cards as proof of identity for travel when the transition period ends on December 31. Promised by the Conservative Party in December last year before Boris Johnson's landslide general election win, the plan is now set to be codified as part of the Immigration and Social Security Co-ordination Bill. The restriction on ID cards was first floated by Priti Patel, the Home Secretary, with the intention of improving border security of the UK after it leaves the European Union. Monday (October 5) will see the Bill debated in the House of Lords at its report stage amid warnings from peers that it could "devastate" the UK's English language schooling sector. Writing in Monday's Telegraph, peers including Lord Blunkett, the former Home Secretary, and the crossbench peer Lord Alton warn that the industry "may not survive" the double blow of Brexit and Covid-19.
|
| Judge halts new North Carolina absentee witness info rule Posted: 03 Oct 2020 07:43 AM PDT  A federal judge has halted new North Carolina absentee voting rules that gave voters more leeway to fix witness problems and extended the period when elections boards could accept mailed-in ballots. The rules, issued last week in a settlement with voting rights advocates, were blocked by a temporary restraining order issued Saturday by U.S. District Judge James Dever, who raised concerns about changing rules after numerous ballots have already been cast. Saturday's decision comes amid a tangle of litigation in state and federal court over absentee ballots in the key presidential battleground.
|
| India's federal police to probe alleged gang rape of woman who died of injuries: statement Posted: 03 Oct 2020 11:05 AM PDT  India's federal police will investigate the alleged gang rape of a young woman in northern Uttar Pradesh state whose death sparked nationwide protests, the local government said in a statement on Saturday. The 19-year-old Dalit woman died of her injuries earlier this week, triggering protests by both opposition political parties and the public in New Delhi and elsewhere against atrocities against a community often ostracized under India's centuries-old caste system. India is one of the world's most dangerous places for women, with a rape occurring on average every 15 minutes based on federal data.
|
| Mom outwits stranger who offers $1,500 for her 2-year-old child, Washington cops say Posted: 04 Oct 2020 08:02 AM PDT  The mother got his email and phone number "in case she changed her mind."
|
| New York City police officers who don't wear a mask while on duty will face 'disciplinary action' Posted: 03 Oct 2020 08:21 AM PDT  The decision came after numerous complaints from members of the public and lawmakers accusing NYPD officers of not wearing masks while on duty.
|
| Investigators probe 'possible ecological catastrophe' in Russia's far east Posted: 04 Oct 2020 09:04 AM PDT  "We need to understand what will happen to our health, to the health of animals," said surfer Anton Morozov.
|
| Twitter warned it will suspend users who wish for President Trump's death and then received a backlash claiming double standards Posted: 03 Oct 2020 04:55 AM PDT  Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Rep. Rashida Tlaib said they frequently faced death threats on Twitter.
|
| Latino Voters May Defy the GOP’s Conventional Wisdom Posted: 03 Oct 2020 03:30 AM PDT  For Latino voters across the country, the issue of lax border policy versus Trump's hawkish stance on illegal immigration isn't settled. Rather, it is possible that the rise of the Latino Republican will defy the conventional wisdom of many GOP strategists and pundits: that restrictionist border policy, or anything deviating from the status quo before Trump — what amounts to de facto open borders — could alienate Latino voters. It is possible that Latinos in border states such as California and Texas are getting behind Trump because of his hardline stance on this issue, which is directly related to GOP's messaging on law and order.Historically, there has never been any consensus among Latinos on the issue of illegal immigration. In fact, for many Latinos, especially workers in the agricultural industry, hardline stances were quite common. Caesar Chavez is one of the most admired populist figures in American history, and he had no tolerance for illegal immigration. The leader of the United Farm Workers union, Chavez described illegal immigrants as "wetbacks" who threatened unionized workers. "As long as we have a poor country bordering California," he said in 1972, "it's going to be very difficult to win strikes." Chavez believed that illegal immigrants would drive down wages and weaken union negotiating power. How did Chavez respond when U.S. government failed to secure the border in the late '70s? Armed with bats, chains, and barbed wire, Chavez and his fellow union members (all of whom were Latino) set up tents along the border of California and Mexico and proceeded to attack Mexican nationals who tried to make a run for it. The line was a hundred miles long. The effort was a success, according to Chavez. He didn't hesitate in declaring it so.In 1994, 30 percent of California Latinos voted in favor of Proposition 187, also known as the "Save Our State" Initiative. Prop 187 was ultimately ruled unconstitutional. Its provisions would have banned illegal immigrants from California's public-school system and required providers of non-emergency health care to verify the legal status of a person seeking assistance. There was backlash against the proposition, especially among Latinos. Over 70,000 Latino immigrants protested in Los Angeles. But that 30 percent was not at all insignificant. Several academic studies, which investigated why Latinos would vote for the proposition, were published years later.Even today, there is still no consensus among Latinos. In 2018, for example, 58.5 percent of Latino voters said they supported Trump's immigration policies even though they disliked the president. Over 50 percent of respondents want stronger immigration laws, while only 18.3 percent said that current immigration law was too strict. Furthermore, in a recent Washington Post survey, 69 percent of Latinos favored shutting down almost all immigration amid the coronavirus pandemic. There is also the issue of law and order, which is high among Latinos' concerns in the aftermath of this summer's riots. In an early-June poll conducted by ABC News/Ipsos, 54 percent of Latino Democrats supported sending in the military to restore order in cities, and 60 percent of all Latino voters were amenable to military presence. What do these figures have to do with Trump's immigration policies? Upholding law and order in cities is not entirely different from upholding law and order on the border, and Latinos who support law-enforcement agencies and the military intervening in cities might prefer that the border be secured and that immigrants enter the country legally. As stated earlier, historically, this was the case in California.The idea that all immigrants, Latinos, and blacks are guaranteed to vote for Democrats in the long term is a delusion, as is the idea that all Latino voters are driven away from the GOP because of Trump's immigration policy and his "xenophobic" rhetoric. Now more than ever, citizens are privy to the media's hysteria about white supremacy, and Trump's past comments about illegal immigrants seem completely irrelevant during a pandemic, recession, and season of rioting. If Republicans want to be the party of law and order that broadly appeals to all demographics, then perhaps they shouldn't be equivocal on the issue of illegal immigration.
|
| Chilling details revealed in JJ Vallow and Tylee Ryan deaths Posted: 03 Oct 2020 08:09 PM PDT  The discovery of the Idaho siblings in backyard graves was the result of a complicated six-month investigation that unraveled a sordid tale of murder, greed and religious fanaticism
|
| Experts believe the White House relied too heavily on testing for coronavirus mitigation Posted: 04 Oct 2020 11:33 AM PDT  The White House likely relied too heavily on testing as a coronavirus mitigation tool, experts said Sunday.Boston University's Dr. Nahid Bhadelia appeared on NBC's Meet the Press and told host Chuck Todd that when it comes to this pandemic, "no one thing is a silver bullet," even a "pillar" like testing, which is a "diagnostic" tool. "You need to follow that up by having all those additional measures" like mask-wearing and social distancing — which reports have indicated were not taken as seriously as testing in the White House — so that "if someone does turn out to be positive, the others who may have been exposed to that person don't get sick," Bhadelia said.> Dr. @BhadeliaMD says White House's reliance on regular testing reveals the importance of other measures. MTP> > Testing is "diagnostic ... The dose of virus that you get exposed to may decide your severity and not wearing a mask exposes you to a larger dose of the virus." pic.twitter.com/now3F2w9TD> > — Meet the Press (@MeetThePress) October 4, 2020Former Food and Drug Administration Commissioner Scott Gottlieb, appearing on CBS News' Face the Nation, agreed with that sentiment, telling host Margaret Brennan that the White House was "relying almost solely on testing as a way to protect" President Trump, who eventually contracted the virus. "They weren't taking any precautions beyond testing people who were going to be in contact with the president," Gottlieb said, adding that while the rapid test used by the White House "is a very good test when used appropriately," it, by nature, is likely to miss asymptomatic cases.Bhadelia did say, however, that routine testing still proved to be helpful for the White House since infections were seemingly detected early.More stories from theweek.com 7 insanely funny cartoons about the chaotic first debate The Good Lord Bird perfectly captures the great tragicomedy of America Biden campaign stands by decision to ax negative ads despite calls for reversal
|
| Over 100,000 march in Belarus against authoritarian leader Posted: 04 Oct 2020 10:39 AM PDT  More than 100,000 people marched in Belarus' capital on Sunday to protest against the country's authoritarian leader, who won his sixth term in office in an election widely seen as rigged. The demonstrators demanded the resignation of President Alexander Lukashenko, and freedom for political prisoners. Police used water cannons in an attempt to disperse the crowds, but the protesters remained undeterred.
|
| Father-son duo charged for chasing, shooting at Black teens riding ATVs in Mississippi Posted: 04 Oct 2020 08:00 AM PDT  Two white males in rural Mississippi have been arrested and charged with assault after chasing and shooting at two Black teenagers who were riding ATVs on their property, according to local news reports. Forty-eight-year-old Wade Oscar Twiner and his 22-year-old son Lane Twiner were arrested in late September and each charged with three counts of aggravated assault. Deputies from the Yazoo County Sheriff's Office responded to calls of the father and son chasing the teens in a white Chevrolet pickup truck and shooting at them as they were riding ATVs near their home.
|
| ‘Camel’s nose under the tent’: Activists fear Homestead Base deal could lead to new airport Posted: 04 Oct 2020 05:00 AM PDT  Could a new county plan for Homestead Air Base become an airport?
|
| India's new paper Covid-19 test could be a ‘game changer’ Posted: 04 Oct 2020 04:01 PM PDT  The test, named after a famous Indian fictional detective, is based on gene-editing technology called Crispr.
|
| Trump's Hollywood star vandalized with a pickaxe hours after he tests positive for COVID-19 Posted: 03 Oct 2020 08:07 AM PDT  A person dressed in a Hulk costume smashed President Trump's Hollywood Walk of Fame star with a pickaxe on Friday.
|
| Police searching for suspect after deadly stabbing on subway platform Posted: 04 Oct 2020 05:31 AM PDT  Police are searching for a suspect after a deadly stabbing at a subway station in Lower Manhattan.
|
| Cambodia confirms US-funded defence facility has been razed Posted: 03 Oct 2020 11:55 PM PDT  Cambodia has razed a US-funded defence facility on its southern coast, the deputy prime minister confirmed Sunday, the latest move in the ongoing controversial expansion of a strategically crucial naval base being developed with Chinese aid.
|
| Op-Ed: Exide's latest bid to avoid additional liability for poisoning L.A. County communities Posted: 04 Oct 2020 03:51 PM PDT  Bankruptcy laws are stacked in favor of corporate polluters, and the federal DOJ has made clear it intends to allow Exide to abandon its toxic Vernon facility.
|
| Vatican: Pope Benedict XVI approved bishop accord with China Posted: 03 Oct 2020 02:44 AM PDT  The Vatican doubled down Saturday on its intent to pursue continued dialogue with China over bishop nominations, defending a deal it did with the Chinese government in 2018 as necessary to the life of the Catholic Church there, over strong U.S. objections. The Vatican secretary of state, Cardinal Pietro Parolin, gave the Holy See's most authoritative and comprehensive response to critics of the extended accord during a speech marking the 150th anniversary of the arrival in China of Catholic missionaries from an Italian religious order. Parolin insisted that popes as far back as Pius XII had tried to reopen a path of dialogue with Beijing after the communists came to power and expelled foreign missionaries.
|
| Schools and mosques closed in Tehran as COVID-19 infections rise Posted: 03 Oct 2020 05:06 AM PDT  The closure plan, which will also affect universities, seminaries, libraries, museums, theatres, gyms, cafes and hair salons in the Iranian capital, came after Alireza Zali, head of the Tehran Coronavirus Taskforce, called for the shutdown to help control the epidemic. Zali warned in an interview on state television that if the spread of the epidemic continues at the current rate in Tehran, there would be a three- to five-fold increase in cases and a rise in the fatality rate to between 1.5% and 3%. Iranian President Hassan Rouhani said anyone concealing a COVID-19 infection should face a severe penalty.
|
| ‘I can’t wait to vote.’ Miami immigrants become U.S. citizens in time to pick a president Posted: 04 Oct 2020 11:00 AM PDT  As Carlos Aybar stood inside the Miami immigration office last Friday, holding up his right hand and reciting the words of the citizenship oath through a face mask, the Dominican native felt a big wave of relief.
|
| AT&T shelving DSL may leave hundreds of thousands hanging by a phone line Posted: 03 Oct 2020 08:53 AM PDT  AT&T; stopped selling DSL Oct. 1, stranding many existing subscribers on low-speed links and residents of DSL-only areas without any wired broadband.
|
| Trump mocked for signing apparently blank paper in ‘staged’ photos at Walter Reed Posted: 04 Oct 2020 09:35 AM PDT  Twitter users decry 'reality TV presidency'
|
| ICE put up billboards with the mugshots of immigrants who were released from police custody Posted: 03 Oct 2020 09:02 AM PDT  The immigrants featured on the billboards in Pennsylvania had been released from jails either by serving their sentences or paying their bond.
|
| Karabakh cathedral repurposed as bomb shelter Posted: 04 Oct 2020 01:00 PM PDT  A candle lights the strained faces of civilians huddled in the basement of Holy Mother of God cathedral in Nagorno-Karabakh's main city Stepanakert, where they have sought refuge from fighting that erupted a week ago over the disputed region.
|
| Chris Wallace: 'What is the truth about our president's condition?' Posted: 03 Oct 2020 10:39 AM PDT  'Fox News Sunday' anchor reacts to conflicting reports over President Trump's illness
|
| Poland's total number of coronavirus cases exceeds 100,000 Posted: 04 Oct 2020 02:07 AM PDT  Poland's total number of coronavirus cases passed the 100,000 mark on Sunday, according to the health ministry's Twitter account, as infection rates surge in the country which has reported daily records three times in the past week. While Poland's total number of cases remains well below that in many western European virus hotspots, reaching 100,000 illustrates how the spread of COVID-19 has accelerated in a country which avoided the worst of the first wave and where in July the prime minister played down risks ahead of an election. The country of 38 million has now reported a total of 100,074 cases of the coronavirus and 2,630 deaths.
|
| Recordings reveal confusion behind Breonna Taylor's death Posted: 02 Oct 2020 09:00 PM PDT  The police officer who fatally shot Breonna Taylor described seeing only "shadowy mass" and said he didn't recall firing the 16 bullets later matched to his gun. As she lay bleeding, Taylor's boyfriend called his mother before dialing 911.
|
| 10 things you need to know about Trump’s tax returns Posted: 03 Oct 2020 04:31 PM PDT  Did Trump break the law? Almost surely.
|
| A student says test proctoring AI flagged her as cheating when she read a question out loud. Others say the software could have more dire consequences. Posted: 04 Oct 2020 06:30 AM PDT  The distraught college student said that her scholarships could have been affected by the software's determination.
|
| Dexamethasone, remdesivir and more: 5 takeaways from Dr. Sean Conley's Sunday update on Donald Trump's COVID-19 health Posted: 04 Oct 2020 05:14 PM PDT  Although Trump and his doctors claim the president will be discharged from Walter Reed as early as tomorrow, some health experts are troubled.
|
| 'Human-sized' spider web found in Missouri forest Posted: 04 Oct 2020 12:39 PM PDT  A giant spider web was discovered by the Missouri Department of Conservation's Francis Skalicky off a trail near Springfield
|
| India's Modi opens tunnel route to tense China border Posted: 03 Oct 2020 03:16 AM PDT  India's Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Saturday opened a Himalayan tunnel that will drastically reduce the time needed to rush troops to the country's remote Chinese border as tensions grow between the Asian neighbours.
|
| ‘We just had to get home’: the Californians who rebuild despite the danger of wildfires Posted: 04 Oct 2020 03:00 AM PDT  Three families find the resilience to return to the homes destroyed by fire and start over with the threat of new blazes loomingLegend has it that enough wildfires have blown through the foothills of California's Sierra Nevada mountains over the centuries, that patrons of the Iron Door Saloon in Groveland would just shut the bar's giant namesake whenever the flames came close, and continue drinking.In a state shaped by catastrophe, devastation is as much a part of its folklore as its natural beauty. Resilience is a character in these stories, not just a trait. Every year as the hillsides burn, locals recall how California's native people once painted with flames and used smoke to cool the heat.But as the climate crisis and decades of bad environmental policies give way to more massive and destructive fires than ever before, the tales of grit at times feel more grim than endearing. Californians who lost properties in past fires spoke to the Guardian about their decision to stay and rebuild. They talked about the meaning of home and community, of trauma and the challenges of having to start over. "There was never any doubt in our mind," said Jill Richardson, 65, who lost her family's Santa Rosa home in the 2017 Tubbs fire. "We just knew we had to get home."Many acknowledged the circumstances that allowed them to rebuild: the insurance companies willing to work with them, the accumulated savings, the societal safeguards in place for them where they may not be for others.As Californians up and down a state ravaged by wildfires these past weeks contemplate their next steps, here are three of those stories. 'It was our little slice of heaven'When Richardson and her family were allowed back into their Santa Rosa neighborhood two weeks after the Tubbs fire ripped through, she found her cement bird bath still standing, and not much else.With the world around her in ashes, Richardson would fill up water bottles wherever her family was sheltering that night and lug them back to the bird bath the next day. "It's home," she said simply, for why she did this. "I had a little bit of lawn that didn't burn, and every day I would see the little deer tracks where the deer would come in and drink water and eat my lawn. Half my vegetable bed survived, so I started planting vegetables and sunflowers."She hadn't heard of this neighborhood of Hidden Valley before she and her then fiance came to look at a house nearly 30 years earlier. But as a lifelong north bay resident, she knew when she found her home. "We drove up and I thought, I just have to live here," Richardson said. "There were wooded hillsides on either side. It had this fabulous microclimate for a vegetable garden. It was quiet, it was peaceful. It was our little slice of heaven."Back in 2017, nobody believed populated, non-rural places like Santa Rosa could burn during wildfire seasons. The Tubbs fire changed everything, wiping out entire neighborhoods and killing 22. Homeowners are still rebuilding in Santa Rosa after that fire, stuck in a limbo between home and almost home. Richardson still has neighbors who are living out of temporary units.Richardson and her husband threw themselves into rebuilding their house, predicting correctly how competitive it would get in the region for contractors, architects and materials. Even if they would have considered leaving Santa Rosa at the time, they have a 23-year-old son with neurological disabilities. "Getting the infrastructure in place for someone with special needs to live as full a life as they possibly can is a lot," Richardson explained. "His day program, his social group, that's all here. That would be really hard to set that all up again, finding those resources and those social connections for him."They officially moved into their new home in June 2019. Four months later, the Kincade fire struck, cloaking the region in an all-too familiar smoky haze and prompting widespread evacuations. This year, the neighborhood was ordered to evacuate again as the nearby LNU Lightning Complex fire grew into the fourth-largest fire in state history. "We refused to leave," Richardson said. "We had everything staged and packed at the door so if we had to bug out we could do so quickly, but we just stuck it out.""Where are we going to go?" Richardson continued. "We ended up in Berkeley the first time. With the Kincade fire, they evacuated half the county and there was no lodging. My husband just said, 'I'm not going to go. I'm going to stay and defend this house we just built.'"Richardson and her husband have decided that if the house burns again, they won't rebuild. "But where are we going to go?" she asked. "Go to tornado alley? Go where there are hurricanes? Global warming is affecting every community in the world, some greater, some lesser. We're both over 65 and we have a special-needs kid. We can't just pick up and go."More than anything else, she'd be hard-pressed to find somewhere that spoke to her as only a home could. "It's home. It's our community. It's that connection with the place and the land," she said. "I need the green of the hills and trees in my soul." 'I'm a crazy fire person'Lisa Frazee, 54, never thought she'd be among the ones staying to rebuild. Yet amid the haze of the Glass fire choking the air, she found herself watching the contractors finally pour the foundation of her family's new home outside Santa Rosa, three full years after the Tubbs fire destroyed it."I always thought about those crazy river people, why do they keep rebuilding when their houses get flooded all the time?" she laughed. "And now here I am. I'm a crazy fire person."Had it just been up to her, she would have preferred to just walk away. The past three years have been a prolonged fight with the insurance company, with Pacific Gas and Electric – the utility settled for an undisclosed amount with a group of victims of the Tubbs fire. But the fire had taken more from her family than just a house.The night the flames swept through their community of Wikiup, she and her husband looked into each other's eyes and made one of those snap agreements that don't need to be said aloud among couples that have been together as long as Frazee and her husband have been together."We just looked at each other and thought, there is so much history in that house but is any of it worth it without any of us?" she said.They packed up their cars, grabbed their teenage son and dogs and got out, watching as deer and rabbits ran alongside their vehicles in the smoky haze. Neighbors that evacuated after them told them that their house went up in flames just 15 minutes after they left.The night of the fire was their 25th wedding anniversary, Frazee said – they've been together for 38 years – but she didn't realize until later how deeply that night affected her husband."There are these gender roles that are more fluid for the younger generation, but my husband grew up with a mom who stayed home and a father who worked. For him, the father's job was to take care of the family," Frazee said. "I didn't get it until he said it, but he felt a sense of failure that he should have stayed to save our home."Long after the ash had washed away and the charred landscapes grew back green, trauma remained. But in the process of rebuilding, Frazee and her family have been able to find purpose. They're building large enough so that her mother, who also lost her home in Calistoga in the fire, can move in with them. Frazee has been very deliberate in the construction plans, making sure everything is not just fire-resistant but eco-friendly.As the fires blew through once again last week, forcing mass evacuations, Frazee found herself looking at new windows. "It's surreal," she said. "I'm sitting here, going through a window order for my new house that's almost in an evacuation zone."Even if her family wanted to leave now, they couldn't, with their house half-rebuilt."One of the things you can't stop facing as a fire survivor, whatever you want to call us, is the powerlessness," Frazee said. "As adults, we fight mightily for that not to happen to us. We want to be the ones to make our own decisions. And that is one of the hardest lessons as a fire victim because throughout this process, that feeling will keep coming back to you. I'm powerless in this situation. So what is the best decision I can make? Right now, the best decision I can makeis to make sure I have the right window order. Which is stupid." 'We have this thing we can attach to'Chris Loh has lost count of the number of wildfires he's lived through in the foothills of the Sierra Nevada. Growing up in Oakland, he still remembers the plumes of smoke from the 1991 Oakland Hills fire that killed 25, the third deadliest wildfire in state history. Now as the co-owner of the Iron Door Saloon in Groveland, with every fire season comes the legends from the days of the gold rush and 49ers.Before August's lightning siege and megafires, the cloud of smoke so monstrous that it blocked the sun on the east coast, there was the Rim fire in 2013. The ninth largest fire in state history, it burned 10% of Yosemite national park and was not declared officially out until more than a year later in 2014.The fire engines rolling through Groveland's main street became a familiar sight that year, with the community's children posting bright signs along the stretch to thank them for their service. Loh knew many of the frontline firefighters personally, so when his wife's family property at Spinning Wheel Yosemite burned, "a lot of our friends ended up calling us, crying, because they couldn't save our property", he said."It was like, what are you talking about? Save yourselves," he said. When the family got to the destroyed property, they found left-behind hoses and backpacks, strewn everywhere. "You could tell, they had to run," Loh said. "They had to drop everything and get out of there. What a horrific thought."The family mourned the loss of a place with significant meaning that had been with them for more than three decades. Spinning Wheel began as a family retreat before expanding into a bed-and-breakfast, with creative flourishes from Loh's in-laws, Peter and Bettike Barsotti. Peter was the creative director for legendary rock concert promoter Bill Graham, and had died from cancer the year before the Rim fire.But without the destruction, they never would have been able to see the beauty that came afterwards."The ferns were poking through the ashes two days later," Loh said. "There's always lupine in the valley, but then the harlequin lupine started poking out, more pink than purple. And then seeing the foliage that doesn't grow unless you have a big fire. The resilience of how Mother Nature bounces back. That was really cool to witness."Loh considers the concept of resilience more than he'd like these days, as the smoke and firefighting aircrafts roll overhead and his community is called upon once again to be strong and come together. He thinks there's something about places like Groveland that fuel that resilience, that encourage the attitude to just shut the iron doors when a wildfire comes through, and keep drinking."There's still that pioneering spirit in Americans, especially when we're on the outskirts a little bit," Loh said. "There's still this thought and feel of the wild west, that old school pioneering feeling, that I'm out here trying to create my own destiny. When fire comes through, that spirit almost gets rekindled in people to a certain extent."He paused. "Now that I've been through so many fires and we've been sitting in smoke for so long, thoughts of why we're living here have come and gone But before, those thoughts weren't really that strong for me. It was always rebuild, rebuild. We have a spot. We have our spot. We have our place, this thing we can attach on to and attach our own identity to."
|
