Authorities: Over 100 deaths may be tied to Northwest heat wave
VANCOUVER, British Columbia — The grim toll of the historic heat wave in the Pacific Northwest became more apparent as authorities in Canada, Washington state and Oregon said Wednesday that they were investigating more than 100 deaths likely caused by scorching temperatures that shattered records.
Oregon health officials said more than 60 deaths have been tied to the heat, with the state’s largest county, Multnomah, blaming the weather for 45 deaths since the heat wave began last week.
In Vancouver, police said they had responded to more than 65 sudden deaths since Friday.
Washington state authorities had linked more than a half-dozen deaths to the heat, but that number was likely to rise.
The heat wave was caused by what meteorologists described as a dome of high pressure over the Northwest and worsened by human-caused climate change, which is making such extreme weather events more likely and more intense.
Seattle, Portland and many other cities shattered records, with temperatures in some places topping 115 degrees.
Amid the dangerous heat and drought that are gripping the American West, crews were closely monitoring wildfires that can explode in the intense weather.
Federal firefighting pay: Wildfire The Biden administration said Wednesday it is hiring more federal firefighters — and immediately raising their pay — as officials ramp up response efforts in the face of a severe drought that is setting the stage for another destructive summer of intense wildfires across the West.
President Joe Biden announced the moves during a virtual meeting with governors from Western states and as a huge swath of the Pacific Northwest endures one of the worst heat waves in recent memory.
Biden’s plan would ensure that no one fighting wildland fires is making less than $15 per hour and would add or convert to full-time nearly 1,000 firefighters across a host of agencies.
NYC mayor race: Revised vote counts in New York City’s Democratic mayoral primary show Brooklyn Borough President Eric Adams maintaining a thin lead, a day after a first attempt to report results went disastrously wrong.
The mayor’s race, the first city election to use ranked choice voting, was thrown into disarray Tuesday after the city’s Board of Elections posted incorrect preliminary vote counts and then withdrew them hours later.
Corrected numbers released Wednesday showed Adams, a former police captain and state senator, leading former sanitation commissioner Kathryn Garcia by 14,755 votes. Civil rights lawyer Maya Wiley was practically tied with Garcia, falling just 347 votes behind in the ranked choice analysis.
Nearly 125,000 absentee ballots have yet to be counted. Adams’ thin lead means it is possible for Garcia or Wiley to catch up when absentee ballots are added to the mix starting July 6.
Walker’s big run: Former President Donald Trump said Georgia Bulldog football great Herschel Walker told him he was going to run for the U.S. Senate, a decision that would make him the top Republican in the race against Democratic incumbent Raphael Warnock.
Trump has long encouraged Walker to run for the seat, triggering an awkward waiting game for Republicans that’s partially frozen the race for one of the top GOP targets in 2022.
Still, even with Trump’s backing, Walker would have to clear a number of other obstacles, starting with a move from Texas to Georgia. He also must win over conservatives unfamiliar with his political leanings, hone policy stances, court donors and brace for scrutiny into a past that includes struggles with mental illness.
Putin’s shot at West: Russian President Vladimir Putin said Wednesday that an incident involving a British destroyer in the Black Sea couldn’t have triggered a global conflict even if Russia had sunk the warship because the West knows it can’t win such a war.
The tough statement appeared to indicate his resolve to raise the stakes should a similar incident happen again.
Speaking in a marathon call-in show in Moscow, Putin also revealed that he received the domestically produced Sputnik V coronavirus vaccine and urged Russians to get vaccinated as the country battles a surge of cases and deaths amid widespread hesitancy to get the shot.
Russia on Wednesday reported 21,042 new infections and 669 deaths, a daily record.
Putin was asked about the June 23 incident in the Black Sea, in which Russia said one of its warships fired warning shots and a warplane dropped bombs in the path of Britain’s HMS Defender to force it from an area near Crimea that Moscow claims as its territorial waters. He said a U.S. reconnaissance aircraft had joined what he described as a “provocation” to test Russia’s response.
Britain, which like most other nations didn’t recognize Russia’s 2014 annexation of Crimea, insisted the Defender wasn’t fired upon and said it was sailing in Ukrainian waters.
“HMS Defender was conducting innocent passage through Ukrainian territorial waters in accordance with international law,” Britain’s Defense Ministry said Wednesday.
Actor’s prison sentence: TV actor Allison Mack, who played a key role in the scandal-ridden, cult-like group NXIVM, was sentenced to three years in prison Wednesday on charges she manipulated women into becoming sex slaves for the group’s spiritual leader.
Mack, best known for her role as a young Superman’s close friend on the series “Smallville,” had previously pleaded guilty to the charges and was expected to receive credit for cooperating against NXIVM leader Keith Raniere and taking responsibility for helping him create a secret society of brainwashed women who were branded with his initials.
At her sentencing in Brooklyn federal court, Mack renounced the self-improvement guru.
“I made choices I will forever regret,” she said.
Mack, 38, was once part of the inner circle of Raniere, whose group attracted millionaires and actors among its adherents.
Prosecutors said she became a “master” for “slaves” she ordered “to perform labor, take nude photographs, and in some cases, to engage in sex acts with Raniere.”
Raniere was sentenced last year to 120 years in prison for his conviction on sex-trafficking charges.
Mack was told to surrender to prison Sept. 29.