Thursday, September 24, 2020
Pima County is implementing a new grant program to help local small business owners affected by the ongoing pandemic.
Qualifying small businesses and nonprofit organizations are eligible for up to $10,000 as a part of the Pima County CARES for Small Businesses Grant Program. Grant funds can be used to pay past mortgage payments, lease payments, rent costs and utility expenses. However, future and on-going expenses are excluded.
Grants are awarded on a first-come, first-serve basis and the application process is open to small businesses in unincorporated areas of towns and cities in Pima County. Businesses located in cities and towns—like Tucson—are encouraged to apply for their local jurisdiction’s business assistance grant program.
To qualify, businesses need to have 30 or fewer employees, finances were negatively impacted by COVID-19, the business was legally established before February 2020, the owner must be 18 years old with a valid employee identification number or social security number.
Companies not eligible for the grant include cannabis dispensaries, lending institutions, life insurance companies, businesses involved in political or lobbying activity.
Funding for the $1.7 million Pima County CARES for Small Business Grant Program is provided by the federal CARES Act.
The application process begins Friday, Sept. 25. To apply, click here.
For more information, contact pima.gov/backtobusiness
WASHINGTON – Arizona Sen. Kyrsten Sinema confronted the acting head of Homeland Security Wednesday over border wall construction she said has ignored the needs of local communities and bypassed environmental assessment reports.
The questions came during a Senate Homeland Security Committee confirmation hearing on the nomination of acting Secretary Chad Wolf – who has been serving in an acting capacity for close to a year.
“Construction began before mitigation plans were complete. I will note that my office received reports of dynamite blasting in Guadalupe Canyon yesterday related to wall construction,” said Sinema, a Democrat. “That will have a permanent impact on our land.”
But Wolf said his agency’s primary concern is national security, not environmental damage, to respond to the national emergency declared by the president.
“The president did issue a national emergency to build a new border wall system, so we’re appropriate. We are waiving regulations to make sure that that work does not slow down and is not delayed,” Wolf told Sinema.
The exchange came during a wide-ranging hearing that touched on everything from the actions of DHS officers during protests this summer in Portland, Oregon, to threats posed by states like Russia, China and Iran.
Republican lawmakers on the committee generally lauded the direction of the agency under Wolf. Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, spent most of his time praising Wolf and defending his choices as acting secretary while Sen. Ron Johnson, R-Wisc. and the committee chairman, ceded his time to let Wolf address scandals affecting DHS.
But most Democrats on the committee grilled Wolf on his decision to send DHS officers to cities like Portland and his focus on left-wing anarchists over white supremacists. They also questioned the legitimacy of decisions made by a secretary who has served in an acting capacity for so long.
The border wall was just one of the immigration issues that was touched on. Lawmakers also asked about the care of migrants in Immigration and Customs Enforcement custody and reports that trafficking victims have been returned to their home countries where they could face further danger.
Complaints about the wall are hardly new. After Congress refused to meet his demands for border wall funding, President Donald Trump in February 2019 declared a national emergency at the border that he said allowed him to shift funding from other departments and let DHS waive environment and other regulations as necessary.
That has led to repeated run-ins with local communities.
In February of this year, the Tohono O’Odham Nation said that “dynamiting these sacred sites and burial grounds” where the wall is going up “is the same as bulldozing Arlington National Cemetery or any other cemetery. Our history as a people is being obliterated and our ancestors’ remains are being desecrated.”
“The National Park Service has acknowledged these areas are sacred to the Nation,” the statement said. “Yet in the rush to build the wall, U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has waived cultural preservation and environmental laws.”
Earlier this month, Border Patrol agents assisted the National Park Service with the arrest of two O’odham women for “interfering with agency functions” and “violating a closure” by trying to block construction equipment at Quitobaquito Springs, an oasis near the border. Environmental groups have charged that DHS’ use of groundwater to make cement for the wall has caused the spring’s water level to fall in recent months.
Sinema criticized the agency for rushing to construct the southern border wall before environmental assessment reports could be done and provided to Congress. She also accused the department of failing to communicate with local tribal leaders whose sacred sites are imperiled by the project.
“It seems like there’s a cart before the horse situation, and I do want to note that residents of southern Arizona have expressed intense concern about this,” she said.
But Wolf insisted that DHS, Customs and Border Protection and the Army Corps of Engineers were doing their part to minimize and mitigate damage to cultural resources along the southwest border, but the main goal is to build the wall.
Wolf said the department plans to deliver an environmental assessment of its actions on the wall to Congress in October, but did not specify when.
“We’ll continue to abide by our responsibilities to make sure that we’re good stewards of the environment … but it’s been very clear that that is a national security issue and we’re going to continue to build that new border wall system,” Wolf said.
Tags: border , immigration , homeland security , Image
With 566 new cases reported today, the number of Arizona’s confirmed novel coronavirus cases closed in on 216,000 as of Thursday, Sept. 24, according to the Arizona Department of Health Services.
Pima County had seen 25,140 of the state’s 215,852 confirmed cases.
With 34 new deaths today, a total of 5,559 Arizonans had died after contracting COVID-19, including 617 deaths in Pima County, according to the Sept. 24 report.
The number of hospitalized COVID cases continues to decline from July peaks, although it has ticked upward over the last week. ADHS reported that as of Sept. 23, 565 COVID patients were hospitalized in the state. The number of hospitalized COVID patients peaked at 3,517 on July 13.
A total of 680 people visited emergency rooms on Sept. 23 with COVID symptoms, the lowest that number has been since June 3, when 638 people visited ERs. That number peaked at 2,008 on July 7.
A total of 122 COVID-19 patients were in intensive care unit beds on Sept. 23. 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 2,396 cases, according to a Sept. 17 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, 507 new cases were reported; for the week ending Sept. 5, a total of 667 cases were reported; for the week ending Sept. 12, 584 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 and three in the week ending Sept. 5. (As above, these numbers are subject to revision as recent deaths may not have been reported.)
Hospitalization peaked the week ending July 18 with 237 COVID patients admitted to Pima County hospitals. For the week ending Aug. 29, 38 COVID patients were admitted to Pima County hospitals; in the week ending Sept. 5, 24 patients were admitted to Pima County hospitals; and in the week ending Sept. 12, 16 patients were admitted. (Numbers are subject to revision.)
Campus cases push Pima County school benchmarks over the line
The increase in cases around the University of Arizona has pushed one of Pima County’s benchmarks for school reopening back into the red zone.
As of the week ending Sept. 6, Pima County no longer had fewer than 100 cases per 100,000 individuals or a decline in cases for two consecutive weeks.
Wednesday, September 23, 2020
The Tucson Humanities Festival, facilitated by the University of Arizona College of Humanities, will focus on justice and morality this year, with a wide range of events throughout October. Unsurprisingly, all of the events are virtual but are hosted on a variety of platforms and websites.
"We chose the theme out of a moral necessity and obligation. The college is committed to advancing the cause of justice, and the festival will demonstrate the various ways that the work of our faculty is action toward justice," said College of Humanities dean Alain-Philippe Durand. "The humanities are critical for creating the open-mindedness, understanding and shared perspective that can eradicate racism, prejudice and intolerance in our increasingly interconnected world."
Event schedule:
Thursday, Oct. 1, 4 p.m.
Everyday Justice: How Students Can Create Equality on Campus
College of Humanities Student Panel
Moderated by Marcus Hastings and Karina Rodríguez, College of Humanities
Live on Zoom
Monday, Oct. 5, 4 p.m.
Film Commentary: "Us"
Film commentary by Tani Sanchez, Africana Studies
View on the Tucson Humanities Festival website
Wednesday, Oct. 7, 4 p.m.
Freedom in Africa: A Documentary & Digital Humanities Archive
Introduction by Phyllis Taoua, French and Italian
View on the Tucson Humanities Festival website
Thursday, Oct. 8, 4 p.m.
Black Lives Matter: A Global Call for Justice and Liberation
Panelists: Bryan Carter, Africana Studies; Erika Gault, Africana Studies; Obenewaa Oduro-Opuni, German Studies; Praise Zenenga, Africana Studies
Moderated by Daisy Jenkins
Live on Zoom
Monday, Oct. 12, 4 p.m.
Film Commentary: "Purgatorio: A Journey into the Heart of the Border"
Film commentary by Chuck Tatum, Humanities Seminars Program
View on the Tucson Humanities Festival website
Thursday, Oct. 15, 4 p.m.
Religion, Race & Health: Solutions to Disparities in Care
Panelists: Jerome Dotson, Africana Studies; Kristy Slominski, Religious Studies and Classics; Johnathan Vaknin, Spanish and Portuguese; Dr. Francisco Garcia, Pima County
Moderated by Dr. David Beyda, College of Medicine-Phoenix
Live on Zoom
Part of the UA Foundation’s Wonder at Home Series
Friday, Oct. 16, 5 p.m.
The Criminal Song: Voicing Soviet Intelligentsia's Dissent
Guest DJ: Anastasiia Gordiienko, Russian and Slavic Studies
Live on KXCI
Monday, Oct. 19, 4 p.m.
Film Commentary: "Fire at Sea"
Film commentary by Francesco Rabissi, French and Italian
View on the Tucson Humanities Festival website
Wednesday, Oct. 21, 4 p.m.
Art for Justice: New Poems & Digital Humanities Archive
Introduction by Diana Delgado, Poetry Center
View on the Tucson Humanities Festival website
Thursday, Oct. 22, 5 p.m.
Justice Across Boundaries: Migration, Multilingualism & Exchange
Panelists: Carine Bourget, French and Italian; Wenhao Diao, East Asian Studies; David Gramling, German Studies; Anita Huizar-Hernández, Spanish and Portuguese
Moderated by Liudmila Klimanova, Russian and Slavic Studies
Live on Zoom
Friday, Oct. 23, 5 p.m.
Race and Religion in Contemporary Hip-Hop
Guest DJ: Alex Nava, Religious Studies and Classics
Live on KXCI
Monday, Oct. 26, 4 p.m.
Tuesday, Oct. 27, 4 p.m.
and Thursday, Oct. 28, 4 p.m.
Toward Justice for All: The Global Impact of Humanities Research
College of Humanities faculty will give PechaKucha presentations. PechaKucha is a storytelling format in which a presenter shows 20 slides for 20 seconds of commentary each, totaling six minutes, 40 seconds. Presentations are grouped together for a fast-paced, simple and engaging showcase of new topics and ideas.
View on the Tucson Humanities Festival website
Friday, Oct. 30, 5 p.m.
Makes Me Wanna Holler: The Minefield and Hopes of Being Black in America
Guest DJ: Ntare Gault, Africana Studies
Live on KXCI
For more information, visit humanitiesfestival.arizona.edu
The West will need “good fire” — controlled, managed fire that balances the ecosystem — to stave off deadly, out-of-control fire. We need to know what that looks like.
Over the past few weeks, the West erupted in flames. The lucky among us know this from the news: 3.2 million acres burned in California, 1 million acres burned in Oregon, more than 900,000 acres burned in Washington. Words often fail as those words just failed — to communicate what these fires are actually like up close. Photographs often do better at capturing the drama and emotion. But the pictures that run in news outlets represent a tiny subset of what happens during a wildfire. What we see, and don’t see, shapes what we think about fire. And what we think about fire shapes fire policy. And as the West Coast learned these past few weeks, our fire management policy has left us in a very dangerous place.
We talked to a handful of photojournalists, forest ecologists and firefighters about how fire images get made, and lightly edited parts of interviews are presented below.
The three key takeaways from our conversations are:
1. Fire photos often stir up fear and leave out “good fire,” which the public needs to see in order to understand and support managed burns.
2. Fire photos often make fire look like an enemy best attacked with something like a military campaign, an idea that is often wrong, a waste of money and ineffective.
3. Fire photos make fire look far more ubiquitous than it is, even in the midst of big blazes.
Noah Berger, a freelance photographer who covers wildfire for The Associated Press, took this image of a burning senior center sign that went viral. To some, the photo suggested the center itself was in flames, when it was actually not threatened.
“So another photographer and I had been at this little complex of apartments. This was right when the LNU Fire really burned — within the first, like, two or three hours of it really getting angry. So we were at this little cul de sac, this little complex of like bungalows, and we were kind of waiting for them to burn. And then some residents came up and put out the flames, which is awesome. And then firefighters came up, and they saved this whole complex. And then, just as I was walking out, I saw this sign across the street. And actually, I shot it more, because there was another sign that said ‘Healdsburg This Way’ and I was kind [of] looking for a place-setter image. And then I saw that senior center sign next to it. ...”
More from Berger, whose work for the AP on 2018 California fires was a finalist for a Pulitzer in photojournalism:
“On these fires you read 300,000 acres, and you think, Oh, you just go there and there’s this wall of flame everywhere. But really, even on these big fires, especially after the first day, it’s often hard to get yourself in position to get the fire photos. From the headlines, it’s like the whole world is burning up. But in reality, your flame fronts are, you know — you have to work to find them.”
“It’s not like, Meet me at the corner of Elm and 5th Street. ... It’s stressful because you’re not coming up with anything a lot of the time. Like on these fires, not even massive ones, to drive the perimeter can take you four hours on [a] dirt trail. And you’re stressed. You want to come up with a photo. ... The other thing that makes it harder is that the fire behavior doesn’t usually kick up until like 1 in the afternoon, so you can’t get up early and get your fire shot and be OK.”
On images of good fire: “I think that’s more of a job for writers. I don’t think that’s something that you can possibly convey visually. ... I don’t see what kind of imagery conveys that fire is good.”
Josh Edelson, freelance photojournalist:
“I’ll drive up a dirt road for miles and miles and miles and I think there’s just gonna be nothing up there. Then all of a sudden, there’s like a whole neighborhood of ranch-style homes or ranches, and these people have homes out in the middle of the forest, essentially, or a dried forest. Granted, the LMU Fire Complex was an exceptional fire — as was the Camp Fire and Santa Rosa fires in that. With those they burned directly into residential areas. And that was partially, like, wind driven and partially climate driven and also partially terrain driven because a lot of the terrain is a lot drier now than it used to be. But so in some instances, you may see a story about a fire with a house on fire. And that house might be out, to most people, in the middle of nowhere. It may have taken a lot of off-roading to get to that house. It might even be the only house. ...”
“So if there’s one fire where there’s, like, two structures burned, and I, as a photojournalist, I’m lucky enough to have captured one of them. ... Then the story might show as like, Oh my God, there are houses on fire, everything’s burning. But it might just be one house.”
Tim Ingalsbee, former firefighter who is a certified wildland fire ecologist and has a doctorate in environmental sociology:
“Those dramatic images where you see a bunch of firefighters and there’s a big flame and there’s a truck on the side? That’s usually someone lighting a backfire. ... To get a clean frame of a firefighter with a flaming edge [you usually have to shoot] when they have a drip torch in hand. ... That’s where they’re actually creating the new fire that’s with their burnout, the backfire operation. It drives me crazy.”
“Overwhelmingly in the media you see a raging crown fire. They’re dramatic but they’re the minority. They’re the rarest kind of fire. The majority of fires are surface fires. They burn on the ground. I mean, they torch up small trees and they do burn into crowns in certain areas if there’s a steep slope or strong or if it’s a really hot fire. But most of the time it’s creeping on the ground with smaller flames at just kind of a walking pace.”
Air tanker drops are like “showing the public, ‘Hey, the cavalry’s here.’ ... It’s just a show. I mean, you know what we used to call them? CNN drops.”
Mike Beasley, mostly retired firefighter but currently consulting on the August Complex Fire:
“The ‘geared up’ firefighter you see in the West is off-putting and makes it seem like something the layman could never do. ... Especially when we burn with private folks or tribal members ... all the ‘tactical gear’ is not necessary. ... If we self-identify as a hero primarily engaged in private property protection, then we don’t need to understand how fire is beneficial to the land.”
Eric Knapp, research ecologist, U.S. Forest Service; amateur photographer:
“A lot of what we read in the media we use terms like, The fire destroyed 200,000 acres. And I look at pictures like this and I don’t see fire having destroyed those acres. Maybe rejuvenated? In all likelihood, this is going to be spectacular next spring. You want to go see great wildflowers? Go next spring.”
“I often take my camera out on fires, and when I look at the images afterwards I kind of shake my head and go, Wow, I didn’t really capture the reality here because I mostly took pictures when things got exciting. When there were bursts of flame, or when a tree was torching. If you really want to capture what fires are doing in the system, you have to capture all of that fire, even when it’s not as exciting.”
On burning shrubs (which make great photos): “There’s nothing bad about it necessarily, unless your house is there. Shrubs tend to burn hot, but shrub ecosystems are well-adapted to fire. And maybe the lesson there is: You don’t want these shrubs to be growing next to your house.”
On representative fire photos: “The ones that would never be filed to Getty, [a photo agency] look, I’m making air quotes, boring. ... [Most of what happens in fires] looks totally unremarkable. ... Showing photos of that just never make the cut.”
Stacy Drury, research fire ecologist, U.S. Forest Service; Sonoma resident:
“I just was driving the other day near Healdsburg, and one hillside is still burning there. It’s just a little bit of smoke coming out. You can’t really even see flames from the road. So that’s not dramatic enough to get on the news, right? But you’re standing right there and you go, How pretty this looks. Granted, you’re talking to a person that thinks fire can be a very unique and useful source and part of the natural system. I don’t see it as being ugly. ... But my youngest daughter is going: Whoa, Jesus that looks so ugly. Everything’s dead.
“Sometimes you’ll see 60-foot-tall trees with 30-foot shrubs, lots of fuel, very dry. ... You’re going to get big flame, like, and dramatic pictures. And I think that’s appropriate because we don’t want people to get complacent and sit at home. And then the firefighters can’t get in to do their job or the sheriffs are risking their lives to try and get people out. We don’t need that. I mean, our big issue is, in lots of ways, we want to live in nature but we also don’t want to have the negative consequences of living in nature in a fire-prone ecosystem. Right. But, you know, I talked a nice game here but, I’ll tell you what, I was sweating bullets about three weeks ago thinking, Do I have enough insurance? I’m out with a chain saw cutting down the oak tree that I should have trimmed back two years ago.”
Jonathan Pangburn, forester, San Benito-Monterey Unit of Cal Fire; currently working on North Complex Fire, West Zone:
“Sometimes there are some good photos of flames and whatnot and, and sometimes they are showing the firefighters and their actions. ... What folks miss most of the time are the, just, the heroic efforts to protect lives during mass evacuations, trying to get people out. ... So I happen to be on the Bear Fire right now. There’s fire on both sides of the Feather River, and the Feather River is just a very steep gorge in many places. And firefighters are having to cut line while rappelling down just to try to make sure the fire stays out of different communities. ... I’m not taking anything away from the amazing photojournalists out there, but that’s just too remote. They’re not out there. They’re not going to get photos of that.”
PHOENIX – Nationally and in Arizona, as Nov. 3 approaches, many Arizonans still have concerns about getting their mail-in ballots returned on time – and counted.
Voting by mail has become polarized, and some experts have warned that results may be delayed for weeks in presidential and local elections. Arizona is a national example: For six days in 2018, the Senate seat that Kyrsten Sinema eventually captured teetered between Sinema and her Republican opponent, Marthy McSally. (McSally later was appointed to a vacant Senate seat and is battling Democrat Mark Kelly this year.)
Arizona, for years considered solidly Republican, also is in play this year as a battleground state, which make every vote important.
PHOENIX – A years-old movement to reform police departments, which reentered the national debate last spring when a Minneapolis police officer dug his knee into George Floyd’s back until he couldn’t breathe, has taken root in Arizona.
“No justice, no peace, defund the police!”
The chant is a nationwide call to action, voiced by millions at protests, on social media and at city halls across the U.S. and in Arizona, where some police departments claim a quarter of a city’s annual budget.
