Local Special Olympians traveled to Pittsburg Tuesday for a bowling tournament. The students are, front row from left, Kaden Pirddy and Dakota Knowles; second row, Mary Crites, Ty Johnson and Ian Webber. COURTESY PHOTOS
Mary Crites gets a hug from a law enforcement office.
A group of volunteers assists Dakota Knowles during his attempt.
LOS ANGELES (AP) A new large wildfire broke out today in Southern California amid gusty winds, forcing the evacuation of the Ronald Regain Presidential Library and nearby homes.
The brush fire started just before dawn in the Simi Valley area north of Los Angeles, Ventura County officials said.
They tweeted that the fire was large without providing details on its size and said it was burning between the cities of Simi Valley and Moorpark. Officials did not immediately say how many people were subject to evacuation orders.
Meanwhile, frustration and anger mounted across Northern California as Pacific Gas & Electric Co., the states largest utility, began the third round of sweeping blackouts in a week aimed at preventing its electrical equipment from being fouled by wind-whipped branches or toppling and sparking wildfires.
PG&E said Tuesdays blackouts would affect about 1.5 million people in some 30 counties including the Sierra foothills, wine country and San Francisco Bay Area. They included 1 million still without power from a shut-off over the weekend.
With no electricity for the fourth straight day, chef and caterer Jane Sykes realized she would have to throw out $1,000 worth of food, including trays of brownies, cupcakes and puff pastry.
She also had little hope of getting a good nights sleep there was no way to run the machine she relies on to counter her apnea.
I dont think PG&E really thought this through, she lamented.
PG&E officials said they understood the hardships caused by the safety blackouts but continued to insist they were necessary.
In wine country north of San Francisco, firefighters coped gusts while tackling a wildfire that has burned 86 homes and charred an area more than twice the size of San Francisco. About 90,000 buildings remained threatened. More than 150,000 people were under evacuation orders.
Winds topped out at 70 mph (112 kph) north of San Francisco Bay and began to ease early Wednesday, but forecasters said fire danger would remain because of continuing breezes and very dry air.
In Southern California, Santa Ana winds developed more slowly Wednesday than expected but were topping 50 mph (80 kph) in some areas before dawn.
The National Weather Service said the strongest winds were to the west of the section of Los Angeles where a wildfire destroyed a dozen homes on Monday.
About 9,000 people, including Arnold Schwarzenegger and LeBron James, remained under evacuation orders.
That fire was caused when a dry branch from a eucalyptus tree was flung 30 feet (9 meters) by high winds into a city Department of Water and Power line, which short-circuited and sparked, the utility and Fire Department announced Tuesday.
The power line had been operating safely and the DWP had cut away brush and trees from around the line, officials said.
Mayor Eric Garcetti called it an act of God.
The National Weather Service called an extreme red flag warning for much of Southern California through Thursday evening, with some wind gusts reaching 80 mph (128.74 kph). It could be the strongest wind event in years.
Coupled with tinder-dry brush and low humidity, they could blow the smoldering fire back to life and spread embers to start new blazes, authorities warned.
Southern California Edison, which had previously made safety shutoffs and then restored power, cut power to 38,000 customers and warned that it could black out more than 300,000 customers, or some 600,000 people.
Also Tuesday, Edison announced in a quarterly earnings report that it was likely its equipment caused last years Woolsey Fire, which killed three people and destroyed hundreds of homes in a swatch stretching from north of Los Angeles south through Malibu to the sea.
No deaths were reported from the current fires but weekend gusts may have claimed three lives. A 55-year-old homeless woman was crushed by a falling tree during high winds Sunday at a Santa Cruz campsite and a couple was killed the same day in a remote area of Madera County when a tree fell on their Jeep, which then crashed.
Across Northern California, people who werent facing another day as fire refugees were worried about charging cellphones and electric vehicles, finding gasoline and cash, staying warm and keeping their food from spoiling.
Some ended up at centers set up by PG&E where people could go to power their electronics and get free water, snacks, flashlights and solar lanterns.
In Placer County, Angel Smith relied on baby wipes and blankets to keep her 13-month-old son Liam warm and clean. The family has been without power since Saturday night and cannot draw well water without electricity.
She ran a cord from her neighbors generator to keep her phone and tablet charged so the two could watch movies. Temperatures were expected to drop below freezing overnight in parts of Northern California.
The hardest part about this for me has been making sure I keep my son warm as it gets cold here, Smith said.
PG&E, which is in bankruptcy after its equipment was blamed for a string of disastrous fires over the past three years, including a blaze that all but destroyed the town of Paradise and killed 85 people, has said its foremost concern is public safety.
But Gov. Gavin Newsom and top utility regulators have accused the company of mismanaging its power system and failing for decades to make the investments needed to ensure its more durable. He and others have also complained that the utility has botched the outages by not keeping the public adequately informed.
PG&E Corp. President Bill Johnson says he talked to Newsom Tuesday and told him he agreed with his suggestion that the company give credits to customers whove been hit by pre-emptive power shut-offs. Newsom had suggested $100 per household, or $250 per business.
Johnson said the utility has agreed to provide a one-time bill credit for people impacted by an Oct. 9 power cutoff that affected some 2 million people. But he didnt confirm a figure, saying the mechanics had yet to be worked out.
We have agreed to move forward with a one-time bill credit for customers impacted by that event.
HOUSTON (AP) This is Max Scherzers shot.
Hurting so much over the weekend that it seemed his season might be over, Mad Max instead gets the ball for a final time in Game 7 of the World Series.
Thats what you live for, the Washington Nationals ace said.
Baseball fans, same thing.
A matchup devoid of late-inning drama thats threatening to set a record low for television ratings has suddenly turned into must-see TV.
Maybe not how we drew it up in terms of how we got there, but it doesnt take away the opportunity we have to win the World Series, Houston Astros manager AJ Hinch said.
Zack Greinke, acquired by Houston in late July for exactly these situations, starts Wednesday night for the Astros.
A little excited about it at the moment, but well see, Greinke said.
The wild-card Nationals, trying to rewrite franchise history with their first championship. The 107-win Astros, aiming to build a legacy by taking their second crown in three years.
A pair of teams that began spring training under sunny skies in February, working out side-by-side in the complex they share in Florida, now meeting in late October under the retractable roof at Minute Maid Park for the biggest prize of all.
So what to expect from Scherzer?
Unable to pitch Game 5 on Sunday night because of nerve irritation near his neck that required an injection, the three-time Cy Young Award winner is set to start this all-or-nothing showdown.
The cortisone shot worked. That relieved the pressure on the nerve, Scherzer said.
Everybody has the belief in me and the doctors that I could get right and be ready, he said.
Scherzer tossed in the outfield before Game 6 a 7-2 win by the Nationals and even loosened up in the bullpen in the seventh inning Tuesday night.
Max is starting tomorrow, manager Dave Martinez said. We got him up knowing that if the game is tied or we were up a run we might have to use him. He wanted to go down there and just throw and get loose. We scored some more runs and I immediately shut him down.
Whether the Game 1 winner, known for his incredible intensity, will be able to cut loose at full force, well soon see.
We dont know if hes healthy or not. Were going to find out in the first inning, Astros star Carlos Correa said.
If Scherzer returns and wins, it might well go down in sports lore, along with Curt Schillings bloody sock, Kirk Gibson hobbling around the bases and the night Willis Reed limped back on the court at Madison Square Garden.
Theyd probably make a movie about it. I bet, if he could, he could come back from the dead, teammate Adam Eaton said.
The Nationals rallied to extend the only World Series where the road team has taken the six first games. So much for the home-field advantage.
Doesnt look like there is one right now, but I hope theres one tomorrow. Were waiting until the last game to have it on our side, Hinch said.
Everyone available, probably.
Astros ace Gerrit Cole, certainly. And maybe Justin Verlander after going five innings Tuesday night.
Its a Game 7, all hands on deck. If AJ asks, Im sure Ill figure out a way, Verlander said.
Houston played in the previous Game 7 of the World Series, when George Springer and crew hammered Los Angeles at Dodger Stadium in 2017.
Road teams took the two prior Game 7s, too Joe Maddons Cubs at Cleveland in 2016 and Madison Bumgarner and the Giants at Kansas City in 2014.
Greinke gave up one run over 4 2/3 innings in his first World Series start when the Astros took Game 3. Acquired from Arizona at the trade deadline, the six-time All-Star is 0-2 with a 5.30 ERA in four starts this postseason.
Scherzer is 3-0 with a 2.16 ERA this postseason in four starts and one relief appearance.
For the people that followed this team the whole season, it had to be this way, Nationals reliever Sean Doolittle said. It was going to be this way. Weve had a knack for kind of making things a little tougher than we needed to at times and drawing things out. We got off to the slow start but it just feels like its the most 2019 Nats thing for this to come down to Game 7 in the World Series.
COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) Buster Douglas is marking the 30th anniversary of his upset boxing victory over Mike Tyson with a campaign aimed at inspiring others who face long odds.
The 59-year-old Douglas plans to announce his 42 to 1 initiative at the Ohio Statehouse Wednesday, alongside city and state leaders and two-time Heisman Trophy winner Archie Griffin.
The effort will include workforce development, diversity and self-help components. Columbus Franklin University and programs serving at-risk youth, former prison inmates and other vulnerable populations are participating.
James Buster Douglas is a Columbus native who faced 42-1 odds against Tyson, the reigning undisputed world heavyweight champion when the two fought Feb. 11, 1990, in Tokyo. Douglas prevailed in a stunning upset.
The contest gained renewed attention with the release of an ESPN documentary in December.
WASHINGTON (AP) The Trump administration has unveiled a website aimed at helping millions of Americans with substance abuse issues learn about and locate treatment options.
FindTreatment.gov is the latest development in the administrations effort to address the nations opioid crisis. The White House said it believes the site, which went up Wednesday, will enable the tens of millions of Americans with a variety of substance abuse and mental health issues to better access the care they need.
Kellyanne Conway, the counselor to President Donald Trump who is leading the White House response to the drug crisis, said the site is designed to provide connectivity between treatment providers and those who need help.
FindTreatment.gov modernizes an obscure directory of 13,000 licensed treatment providers maintained by the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, adding user-friendly search criteria and tools. For instance, it will now allow users to search based on the type of treatment sought such as inpatient, detox or telemedicine by payment option and whether the treatment is medication-assisted.
Users also will be able to select between options that focus on youth, veterans and LGBT Americans.
The website also is meant to be an educational resource for those needing care and their loved ones with information on how to pay for treatment.
We know that the drug crisis is indiscriminate, so we want the response to be indiscriminate, Conway said.
The website was built in-house by government coders and is managed by the White House. The administration is calling FindTreatment.gov an example of American-First design that offers easy access to information without breaking the federal budget.
We designed it with human-centered principles in mind, Conway said. We used real words for real people.
The effort included employing a language expert for help with providing destigmatizing explanations for treatment options to make them more acceptable to those in need.
The sites design was informed by more than 300 user feedback responses and 60 detailed interviews with those who have sought treatment, their family members and providers, the White House said.
The website builds on other efforts by the White House to address the drug crisis, including law enforcement efforts, securing billions of dollars from Congress for treatment and working with the private sector on promoting drug take back days.
More than 70,000 Americans died in 2017 from drug overdoses, the bulk of them involving opioids.
Future developments include plans to more closely integrate the site with the Department of Veterans Affairs to provide more targeted resources to the community of former service members.
WASHINGTON (AP) The Federal Reserve is set to cut its benchmark interest rate today for a third time this year to help sustain the U.S. economic expansion in the face of widespread trade tensions and slower global growth.
But the Feds policymakers will likely frustrate anyone who is hoping for a clear signal about what they may do next. The central bank may prefer instead to keep its options open, economists say.
Analysts have forecast that the Fed will reduce the short-term rate it controls which influences a broad range of consumer and business loans by one-quarter percentage point year to a range of 1.5% to 1.75%. A third cut would nearly reverse the four rate hikes that the Fed made last year in response to a strengthening economy.
That was before rising global risks led the Fed to change course and begin easing credit. Lower rates are intended to encourage more borrowing and spending.
Chairman Jerome Powell has said that the central banks rate reductions are intended as a kind of insurance against threats to the economy, notably from President Donald Trumps trade war with China and weaker growth in Europe and Asia. Powell has pointed to similar rate cuts in 1995 and 1998 as precedents; in both cases, the Fed cut rates three times.
The key issue at this weeks meeting is whether the Fed has taken out enough insurance. Powell and most other Fed officials credit their rate cuts with lowering mortgage rates, boosting home sales and generally keeping the economy on track.
The Fed will also consider the consequences of a decline in expectations for inflation. Lower inflation expectations can be self-fulfilling. That represents a problem for the Fed because its preferred inflation gauge has been stuck below its 2% target for most of the past seven years.
In the meantime, Trump, via Twitter, has renewed his attacks on the Fed for not lowering its benchmark rate closer to zero. Trump has contrasted the Feds actions unfavorably with central banks in Europe and Japan, which have slashed their rates into negative territory.
Though Trump has suggested that this puts the United States at a competitive disadvantage, most economists regard negative interest rates as a sign of weakness.
Some international tensions have eased since the Feds last meeting in mid-September, which might suggest that further rate cuts are less necessary. The U.S. and China reached a temporary trade truce earlier this month and are working on a preliminary agreement that could be signed by Trump and President Xi Jinping in November.
Its not clear, though, how meaningful any such agreement might be, and Trump hasnt dropped his threat to impose new tariffs on Chinese goods on Dec. 15.
Another source of international tension has been Brexit, which has also eased. The European Union agreed Tuesday to delay the deadline for Britains exit from the trade bloc to Jan. 31 from Oct. 31. That postpones what could have been a disruptive exit, right after the Fed meeting concluded, that would likely have damaged the U.K. and European economies.
The U.S. economy is still growing, and hiring remains steady, though there have been signs of a slowdown in recent data.
Americans cut back on spending at retailers and restaurants last month, a worrisome sign because consumer spending is the leading source of economic growth. Still, consumer confidence remains high, and shoppers could easily rebound in the coming months.
And businesses have reduced their spending on industrial machinery and other equipment, mostly because the U.S.-China trade war has made them reluctant to commit to big purchases. The tit-for-tat tariffs between the U.S. and China, the worlds two largest economies, have also reduced U.S. exports.
Earlier Wednesday, the government will issue its first estimate of how the economy fared in the July-September quarter, and most economists have forecast that it will be relatively weak. The Atlanta Federal Reserve Bank projects that the economy expanded at just a 1.7% annual rate in the July-September quarter, which would be the second-slowest quarterly growth in nearly four years.
The job market remains sturdy, with the unemployment rate at just 3.5%, the lowest in 50 years. Steady hiring and decent wage increases should help underpin consumer spending in the coming months, keeping the economy expanding. That could keep the Fed on the sidelines in future meetings.
The housing market has also improved, after slumping in 2018, thanks in part to the Feds rate cuts. Mortgage rates have fallen more than a full percentage point from a year ago, on average, for a 30-year fixed rate loan.
Thats helped boost sales of existing homes while sales of new homes have soared. Auto purchases, another interest rate-sensitive industry, have also picked up.
60 Years Ago
October 1959
Dale R. Wichman, Kansas City, reported this morning that he will open a new Ford agency in Iola next week, occupying the building vacated by Stotler Motors in September. A young man, Wichman has been a department head for the Ford Motor Co. since 1952. Mr. and Mrs. Wichman and their three children will move to Iola as soon as they secure suitable quarters.
*****
Go-Kart fans interested in securing a track are invited to a meeting, according to Mitchell Bushey, president of Durite, Inc. The little cars, powered by lawn mower engines, are becoming increasingly popular throughout the nation, Bushey said. Durite is manufacturing its version, known as the Du-Kar. The Iola Jaycees have purchased several and are renting them for trial spins on the tennis courts in Riverside Park.
TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) Topeka Zoo officials say a 30-year-old Malayan sun bear was euthanized after suffering from several age-related medical conditions.
The female bear, called Cup Cake, was euthanized Monday. She and a bear called Ho Ho came to the zoo in 2017 after their exhibit at a previous zoo was closed for construction.
Zoo Director Brendan Wiley said both bears were elderly when they arrived in Topeka and zoo officials anticipated they would not live long. He says they were kept in an area with keepers who specialized in working with geriatric animals.
Cup Cake began limping on Saturday and her hind legs were useless by Sunday.
The Topeka Capital-Journal reports the decision was made to euthanize Cup Cake when she developed head tremors Monday morning.
Dear editor,
We are writing to recommend and endorse Vicki Curry for a position on the Board of Trustees of Allen Community College.
Vicki is a native of Allen County, as well as a graduate of then Allen County Community College. She later became an employee of the college for 27 years. Vickis children also attended ACC.
I first met Vicki when she was a student in my class at ACCC. I also came to know her during the years of her employment. In addition, she and her husband are neighbors of ours in rural Allen County.
We believe Vicki has a unique knowledge of the college, its inner workings, and its long record of service to this community, county and state. Vicki also is a visionary with many ideas that will absolutely benefit the growth and continued service to Iola and Allen County.
Please support Vicki Curry in this goal that she is pursuing. That goal is a continued growth and service to the citizens of Iola, Allen County and beyond.
Van Thompson and
Ellen Thompson,
Iola, Kan.
Dear editor,
I would be willing to serve as a city council member in Ward 2. If you would like to have another option for a write-in candidate, write in Carl Slaugh.
We have a great community and I would be happy to work towards preserving our infrastructure and making improvements as we have the financial means and public will.
Thanks,
Carl Slaugh,
Iola, Kan
Dear editor,
The election for Allen Community College trustees is Tuesday, Nov. 5.
There is one candidate who has 27 years of experience working at Allen that makes her the best choice. That candidate is Vicki Curry.
Those 27 years of experience have provided Vicki with the knowledge of the policies and procedures at Allen, in addition to the everyday operations of the college.
Over the course of her employment, she saw immense growth of the college through not only on-campus students, but the addition of online and branch campus enrollment.
Having witnessed what worked and what didnt work as the college grew, she would be an asset to the board when future issues may arise.
Please put your faith in Vicki Curry as an Allen Community College Board of Trustees member when you go to the polls next Tuesday.
Deborah Taiclet,
Iola, Kan.
All girls basketball teams at Iola Middle School took to the hardwood Monday evening. The seventh-grade B team was unable to earn a victory, while the A team came out on top 24-17. The eighth-grade girls let an early 4-1 first quarter lead slip away en route to a 19-10 loss.