Wednesday, September 30, 2020
Pima County Parks and Rec continues to reopen outdoor areas in the wake of this summer's Bighorn Fire, which burned more than 100,000 acres in the Catalina mountains north of Tucson. The trails are open to the burn scar from the fire, so hikers should be aware that hazards still exist. The trailheads that feed into the Santa Catalina Mountains in the Coronado National Forest that are now open are:
- Iris Dewhirst Pima Canyon, 1598 E. Magee Road
- Richard McKee Finger Rock, 7119 N. Alvernon Way
- Ventana Canyon, 6601 N. Resort Drive
- Bear Canyon, 5150 N. Bear Canyon Road
This announcement comes days after Pima County reopened access to Sabino Canyon Recreation Area, however, the tram and facilities there remain closed.
A ban from Facebook has apparently done little to slow Brian Kolfage, charged last month for defrauding thousands in a “build the wall” effort, and who regularly uses personal attacks and misinformation to sic his online following on perceived detractors.
This article is co-published with The Texas Tribune, a nonprofit, nonpartisan local newsroom that informs and engages with Texans. Sign up for The Brief weekly to get up to speed on their essential coverage of Texas issues.
War hero. Veterans advocate. Family man.
It was an image years in the making. Brian Kolfage had lost three limbs in an Iraq bomb blast in 2004, making him the most badly wounded airman to survive the war. He had become a motivational speaker, was the subject of sympathetic news profiles and was even a guest at former President Barack Obama’s State of the Union address in 2012.
Tags: proud boys , trump , biden , debate , white supremacists , Image
WASHINGTON – The National Park Service cited public safety concerns for its decision this week to prohibit access to a sacred Tohono O’odham site, a move that comes amid rising tensions between border wall protestors and federal agents.
Park service officials said the decision to shut down roads to the Quitobaquito Springs, posted Monday on a website for nearby Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument, was made at the request of Customs and Border Protection, and referred questions to the border agency.
In an emailed statement Tuesday, CBP said it is working closely with the Interior Department’s land management agencies to “mitigate recent risks to public safety concerns associated with ongoing border wall construction.”
With 323 new cases reported today, the number of Arizona’s confirmed novel coronaviru s cases reached 218,507 as of Wednesday, Sept. 30, according to the Arizona Department of Health Services.
Pima County had seen 25,628 confirmed cases.
With 18 new deaths today, a total of 5,650 Arizonans had died after contracting COVID-19, including 620 deaths in Pima County, according to the Sept. 29 report.
The number of hospitalized COVID cases continues to decline from July peaks. ADHS reported that as of Sept. 29, 560 COVID patients were hospitalized in the state. The number of hospitalized COVID patients peaked at 3,517 on July 13.
A total of 725 people visited emergency rooms on Sept. 29 with COVID symptoms. That number peaked at 2,008 on July 7.
A total of 115 COVID-19 patients were in intensive care unit beds on Sept. 28. The number of COVID patients in ICUs peaked at 970 on July 13.
On a week-by-week basis in Pima County, the number of positive COVID tests peaked the week ending July 4 with 2,453 cases, according to a Sept. 25 report from the Pima County Health Department. While a vocal minority continues to insist that masks do no good, the spread of the virus began to decline within weeks of Pima County’s mask mandate, as more people began wearing them in public, although the level of new cases has creeped back up in recent weeks with the return of UA students. For the week ending Aug. 29, 569 new cases were reported; for the week ending Sept. 5, a total of 861 cases were reported; for the week ending Sept. 12, 1,103 cases were reported; for the week ending Sept. 19, 1,203 cases were reported. (Recent weeks are subject to revision.)
Deaths in Pima County are down from a peak of 55 in the week ending July 4 to 19 for the week ending Aug. 15, 13 in the week ending Aug. 22, 10 in the week ending Aug. 29, zero in the week ending Sept. 5, and two in the week ending Sept. 12. (Recent weeks are subject to revision.)
Hospitalization peaked the week ending July 18 with 234 COVID patients admitted to Pima County hospitals. In the week ending Aug. 29, 37 COVID patients were admitted to Pima County hospitals; in the week ending Sept. 5, 25 patients were admitted to Pima County hospitals; in the week ending Sept. 12, 19 patients were admitted; and in the week ending Sept. 19, 14 patients were admitted. (Numbers are subject to revision.)
Get a Flu Shot
WASHINGTON – Pima County Sheriff Mark Napier pushed back against claims that white supremacists have infiltrated law enforcement agencies, telling a House committee Tuesday that he has “simply not been exposed” to any evidence of that.
Napier said that while “bad actors” may slip through, police share community outrage at the actions of what he insisted are “a very, very few members of law enforcement.” But the perpetuation of the narrative of racist police agencies, meanwhile, has made it difficult to attract the minority officers who could diversify the force, Napier said.
His comments came during the latest in a series of House Oversight Committee hearings titled “Confronting Violent White Supremacy” – a problem Democrats on the committee said can be seen in the spate of police violence against Black and Latino victims.
Tuesday, September 29, 2020
PHOENIX – Many high school seniors competing in fall sports have aspirations to play in college. For those in states where sports are on pause because of the COVID-19 pandemic, that goal might be difficult to reach if they don’t already have offers.
But for high school athletes in Arizona, those dreams remain attainable.
“We’ve had three guys that have committed already and 24 guys (on our team) that have Power Five, (lower) Division I, Division II, (and) Division III offers,” Chandler High School coach Rick Garretson said. “Being able to play and show what they can do as a senior (is important) because I think your senior year is without question your best year. You’re the biggest and the strongest and the most experienced that you’ve (ever been).
This story was co-published with The Arizona Republic, a member of the ProPublica Local Reporting Network.
Aubrie Sloan expected to start sixth grade in a virtual classroom where she would learn from her teacher each day and engage with classmates for the first time since the coronavirus forced her school to close in March.
Instead, she marks her attendance at Kaibeto Boarding School, on the western side of the Navajo Nation, by texting or calling her teacher each morning. Then she dives into paper packets the school delivers to her home, breezing through assignments that her mother says aren’t a challenge because she already knows the material.
Aside from two phone calls from her teacher, the 11-year-old has received little instruction from the federally-operated school since classes started nearly two weeks ago.
Tags: native american , Image
