Home brothel; don't dress as clowns, cops warn; walrus arrive
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Odd and interesting news from the West.
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PHOENIX (AP) — A 23-year-old therapy horse is recovering from injuries suffered after a fall into an irrigation ditch in Avondale.
Neighbors in the community say the horse named Mister got his front legs stuck in a concrete tube that channels water beneath the roadway Friday afternoon in Avondale.
They called for help and Avondale firefighters and Maricopa County sheriff's deputies worked to pull Mister out of the watery entrapment.
A neighbor lent a forklift to help remove the animal from the ditch.
A veterinarian gave Mister a tranquilizer and began administering IV fluids because the horse was in shock.
Mister is expected to recover.
The Arizona Republic reports that the horse has worked with handicapped individuals who want to learn to ride and also worked with police in California for six years.
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LAS VEGAS (AP) — Just under half of Nevada students are considered proficient in reading on tests aligned to the Common Core standards, while about one-third hit that mark in math.
The Nevada Department of Education released results (http://bit.ly/2dTl2B5 ) Friday on the 2016 Smarter Balanced Assessments. The computerized tests are administered to children in third through eighth grades.
State superintendent Steve Canavero says the reading proficiency rate is still too low, but is ahead of states such as California and Montana.
Education officials also say the results show that new investments in English Language Learners are paying off. Less than 20 percent of English language learners showed proficiency, but they scored higher in reading and math than their counterparts in Connecticut and California.
Nevada is among 15 states that uses the Smarter Balanced Assessments.
- By ELLIOT SPAGAT Associated Press
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SAN DIEGO (AP) — Hundreds of thousands of people have sought asylum along the U.S.-Mexico border in the last two years, a dramatic increase that shows how migrants have changed from mostly Mexican men trying to evade capture to more Central American families who often turn themselves in, a report for the federal government shows.
Asylum seekers, many of them fleeing drug-fueled violence south of the border, peaked in 2014 at 170,000, nearly triple the 63,000 who arrived the previous year. Before 2012, there were fewer than 30,000 a year.
In the 2015 fiscal year, the number declined to 140,000 people, according to the report by the Institute for Defense Analyses, a federally funded research organization that was tapped to help develop new measures of border security. The Associated Press obtained a copy of the report from a government official involved in border issues who acted on condition of anonymity because it has not been made public.
"The dramatic increase in asylum seekers since 2011 may represent a structural change in illegal entry behavior at the southern border," the report said. "This trend is driving significant changes in how to enforce immigration laws and the demands for resources for enforcement."
The number of asylum seekers spiked well after the U.S. launched a major expansion in enforcement, erecting hundreds of miles of fences, adding surveillance gear and doubling the size of the Border Patrol.
The spike highlights the need to address other aspects of the immigration system, such as the courts and the Department of Health and Human Services, which supervises unaccompanied children, said David Aguilar, who led the Border Patrol from 2004 to 2010.
"There's a new border environment that we, as a country, need to address," Aguilar said. "The border environment that I took over as chief in 2004 is very different than what we see today."
The report's authors did not include asylum seekers in their calculation of how many people are apprehended at the border. That is in contrast to the Homeland Security Department, which counts them.
The different approaches help explain why the report found that 54 percent of people trying to enter the country illegally between Mexico border crossings got caught last year. That's much lower than the government's publicly stated success rate of 81 percent.
Rep. Martha McSally, an Arizona Republican who has pressed Homeland Security officials to release the report, said the 54 percent figure was no surprise.
"Given that DHS knows these facts, they need to stop pushing misleading measurements that don't show the full picture and create mistrust with the American public," she said.
The Homeland Security Department began releasing its "interdiction effectiveness rate" two years ago — 81 percent last year and 79 percent in 2014. It also includes people who set foot in the country and turned back. The most recent report does not include them.
The authors caution that the number of asylum seekers cannot be counted precisely and was calculated using categories of people most closely associated with those claims, including unaccompanied children from countries other than Mexico.
Homeland Security officials said Thursday that the report was "one building block provided by a research organization" toward developing more reliable measures of border security and that its methodology needed refinement.
The report showed a dramatic decline in the number of people who eluded capture — 200,000 in 2015 compared with 1.9 million in 2005. The drop coincides with increases in spending on border enforcement to $14 billion a year and the introduction of tougher penalties for people who get caught, including jail time.
"This is the first solid evidence we have that the border buildup of the last 20 years has indeed made some significant difference in deterring and reducing illegal entries across the southern border," said Edward Alden, senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations.
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LAS VEGAS (AP) — Nevada officials say they've tried, but can't find anyone to sell them a drug they need to carry out executions.
The Nevada Department of Corrections said Friday that they received no bids for lethal injection drugs during a monthlong window that closed this week. Corrections chief James Dzurenda said his agency would work with the attorney general, the governor and the Legislature to determine their next course of action.
There are 80 people on the state's death row, but none have exhausted their appeals. Nevada hasn't had an execution since 2006.
State officials were told in August that one of the two drugs that make up a cocktail in Nevada's lethal injection has expired, and the pharmaceutical company that produces it refuses on principle to give the state any more.
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LAS CRUCES, N.M. (AP) — Dona Ana County Sheriff's detectives say they've have uncovered a counterfeit money manufacturing ring and one suspect in the case is facing 104 counts of forgery.
The investigation began last month after the manager of a Las Cruces pizza delivery company reported fake bills used in a transaction between a driver and a customer.
Detectives traced the money back to a home where a search warrant uncovered several pieces of equipment that detectives suspect were used to manufacture all denominations of bills from $1 to $100.
They say nearly $3,300 in counterfeit bills were seized from the house.
Authorities say the fake bills possibly were passed at businesses in Las Cruces and Alamogordo.
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TWIN FALLS, Idaho (AP) — A Twin Falls police officer made a strange discovery when the person he pulled over offered a driver's license from his wife's stolen purse and wallet.
The Times-News reports (http://bit.ly/2dQak9T ) that Twin Falls Police Sgt. Ryan Howe on Monday pulled over a vehicle he believed was connected to his wife's stolen credit card and was proven right.
Howe's wife reported that someone broke into her car and made off with her purse, wallet, credit cards, driver's license, phone charger and more on Sept. 26. Throughout the course of the investigation they identified two suspects who often drove a Pontiac G6.
Howe pulled over the car on Monday for excessive tint and found that one of the suspects removed his license from a wallet identical to the one that was stolen.
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Information from: The Times-News, http://www.magicvalley.com
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ESCALON, Calif. (AP) — Police say a 16-year-old Northern California boy has been arrested in connection with a school threat linked to the national creepy clown trend.
The Modesto Bee reports (http://bit.ly/2dBcprX ) Friday that the teen used a clown-themed Twitter handle to post on Instagram Wednesday that he would go to Escalon High School on Thursday and "kill all you kids."
Police Chief Mike Borges says the post was accompanied by a photo of a blood-stained bed.
The teen was booked into the San Joaquin County juvenile hall on suspicion of making terrorist threats and causing a false emergency to be reported.
The report joins a growing number of incidents involving clowns threatening schools in California and beyond.
Earlier this week, a person dressed in a clown suit tried to abduct a 1-year-old girl in the San Francisco Bay Area. The girl was not injured.
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Information from: The Modesto Bee, http://www.modbee.com
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PORTLAND, Ore. (AP) — The Oregon bakery that denied service to a same-sex couple has closed its door permanently.
The Oregonian/OregonLive reports (https://is.gd/4y2J8j ) that according to a Sept. 29 Facebook post on a page for Sweet Cakes by Melissa the business shut down last month though the owners continue to sell cakes from their home.
Three years ago the bakery refused to make a wedding cake for Laurel and Rachel Bowman-Cryer. The Aaron and Melissa Klein said their refusal was prompted by religious beliefs.
In 2015, he Oregon Bureau of Labor and Industries ordered the Kleins to pay $135,000 in damages to the couple. The Kleins paid the damages last year, but the couple has yet to receive the award. The money will remain in a government escrow account until the end of appeals.
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Information from: The Oregonian/OregonLive, http://www.oregonlive.com
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RICHMOND, Calif. (AP) — The nation's oldest park ranger will be awarded a Congressional Record statement at the museum and national historic park where she works.
KNTV reports (http://bit.ly/2d8xXMH) Rep. Mark DeSaulnier will present 95-year-old Betty Reid Soskin with the statement at the Rosie the Riveter/WWII Home Front National Historic Park in Richmond on Friday.
The Congressional Record is the official record of the United States Congress and has been published daily since 1873.
The award is one of a long list of honors Soskin has received.
In 1995, she was named California Woman of the Year. Last Christmas she received a presidential coin from President Obama after she lit the National Christmas tree at the White House. That coin was stolen from her home in June in a brutal home invasion robbery. She recovered and returned to work just weeks after the attack.
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Information from: KNTV-TV.
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SAN LEANDRO, Calif. (AP) — Police have arrested three women in connection with running a brothel in a suburban home east of San Francisco.
KTVU reports (http://bit.ly/2d8x1rB ) San Leandro police say they found the brothel on Thursday afternoon after serving a search warrant at the home following neighbor's complaints about suspicious activity at the residence.
Authorities say the set up in the home was standard for prostitution and seized $1,500 in cash, which was believed to be proceeds from the operation, the station reported.
The names and ages of the women arrested were not released. They were arrested for resisting arrest after they tried to run from police.
Earlier in the week, detectives posed as men looking to buy sex. One woman agreed in exchange for $160.
Police are investigating if human trafficking was involved in the operation.
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Information from: KTVU-TV.
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NAMPA, Idaho (AP) — Canyon County is shutting down a tent facility used by the county jail after a number of escapes and the potential for additional ones.
The Idaho Statesman reports (http://bit.ly/2dzXWvY ) that Canyon County jail officials are working to move the 86 inmates currently housed in the tent lockup after county commissioners told Sheriff Kieran Donahue on Thursday to shut the program down.
In the past 18 months, there have been four escapes from the facility involving five inmates. Most recently, two inmates left the facility on Saturday. They have since been recaptured.
County officials say moving the inmates out of the facility will not be as easy as marching them down to the jail and that judges and prosecutors will have to be consulted before any inmates are moved or released.
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Information from: Idaho Statesman, http://www.idahostatesman.com
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ROSWELL, N.M. (AP) — Police in a southern New Mexico city are asking residents not to dress up as clowns and carry baseball bats around town amid a national "scary clown" craze.
The Roswell Police Department said they have received several reports this week of clowns with bats walking around in the city. Authorities say it appears to be connected to the recent national news reports of "scary clowns" sighting in various states.
Roswell police say although it is not illegal to dress as a clown and carry a baseball bat, officers are asking "residents to not do such things."
Police say such moves create fright in neighborhoods.
Authorities in Roswell say police have not located any of the reported clowns.
- By KARL PUCKETT Great Falls Tribune
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WHITE SULPHUR SPRINGS, Mont. (AP) — Golden eagles, hawks and falcons are zooming over Montana along mountain ridges taking advantage of powerful updraft winds during their annual fall migration to warmer climates.
"If you're not looking for it, you're not going to notice it," said Steve Hoffman, executive director of Montana Audubon, the bird conservation organization.
One place to see the action is south of Duck Creek Pass in the southern end of the Big Belt Mountains in Helena-Lewis and Clark National Forest 19 miles west of White Sulphur Springs.
More golden eagles are using the Big Belts flyway during fall migration than any other location in the Lower 48, Hoffman says.
"Damn. You have to love it," Hoffman said at the site Monday.
He was peering through a $3,500 pair of binoculars, watching a northern harrier, a type of hawk, swoop overhead. He could have seen the bird with the naked eye it was so close.
By day's end, 70 birds of prey were counted, including 31 golden eagles.
It was a slow day.
Through the last Monday of September, 973 birds, including 431 golden eagles, had been counted since Sept. 1.
Migration comes in waves, Hoffman noted.
"It's probably going to be the best golden eagle site in the Lower 48," Hoffman said of the numbers that are being counted in the Big Belts.
And the public can witness the traffic at the rare bird bottleneck because it's not difficult to reach the mountainside location where two observers are counting the birds as part of a golden eagle migration survey.
The accessibility to a major raptor migration route is rare, too, Hoffman said.
"We've had them at 20 yards," Ronan Dugan said.
It's the second year for Dugan, who is from Scotland, working as a raptor migration observer. Pay is $50 bucks a day. He lives in a camper with a leaking roof and hikes up the mountain to work each day.
Golden eagles are the most common travelers, but all kinds of raptors fly through, from vultures to osprey to northern goshawks.
"This is our office," said Dugan, his arm gesturing to the sky.
For him, one of the most amazing parts of the job is viewing immature bald eagles, with white still on their wings, that were on the nest just a few months ago in Canada and Alaska.
Dugan and co-worker Jeff Grayum scan the sky with binoculars, or the valley below.
It's their job to count every raptor they see. They also attempt to determine the age and sex.
Montana Audubon is partnering with Montana Fish Wildlife and Parks, the U.S. Forest Service and Last Chance Gulch Audubon, in the migration survey, which began in 2015.
The primary objective is to measure long-term population trends of golden eagles using the Big Belt Mountains flyway.
"Look at that. Oh, boy," says Pat Grantham, a birder from Clancy who drove a four-wheeler up the mountain to spend the day watching birds.
It's a golden eagle.
"Another bird down low," Grayum announces, alerting the others to another raptor that's flown into view.
The bird-watching bivouac is at an elevation of 8,340 feet.
That's high enough that bird-watchers sometimes look down at the birds.
In Montana, 17 species of diurnal raptors, which are active during the day, are known to migrate through the state or spend time here.
Every one has been documented in the Big Belts, but golden eagles are the undisputed stars in the sky because of their size. As adults, they weigh 9 to 14 pounds with wingspans of 6½ feet.
Crows that occasionally chase them look like songbirds by comparison.
"We're not talking about pigeons here," Hoffman said.
Golden eagles are considered "charismatic fauna" because of their widespread popular appeal, just like wolves, elk or grizzly bears, Hoffman says.
They can reach speeds of 100 mph when they dive, tucking their wings and falling like rocks to surprise prey such as jackrabbits, ground squirrels and occasionally a wild turkey.
"They're representative of wild places," Hoffman said.
For the past 25 years, one of the most important places for monitoring migrating golden eagles in the western United States has been the Bridger Mountains, northeast of Bozeman and 60 miles south-southeast of the Big Belts.
The most significant outcome of the long-term study was a 40 percent decline in counts of migrating golden eagles along the flyway since the late 1990s.
That decline stopped around 2010, Hoffman said, but it's still important to keep an eye on the population because raptors are excellent environmental indicators because they are sensitive to habitat change.
The estimated golden eagle population in North America is 80,000 to 100,000, with most of the birds located in western North America.
In Montana, they are listed as a "species of concern."
"Only in a few places do they migrate through those very narrow corridors," Hoffman said.
The spine of the Rocky Mountains is a general migration corridor for raptors traveling from Alaska and Canada to the southwestern United States and even Mexico, Hoffman said.
Orographic lift occurs along the Rockies. That's when air is forced from a low elevation to a higher elevation as it moves over rising terrain.
"They can just fly hundreds of miles without flapping," Hoffman said.
Lift from the mountain winds allows the birds to conserve energy and reduce their caloric intake during the migration, Hoffman said.
"They're more dependent on ridge lift, strong ridge lift, than any of the raptors," Hoffman says of golden eagles, which expend more energy hunting than smaller, nimbler raptors.
Constriction points are located along the general migration route, and the Big Belts is one of those areas.
Birds follow ridge lines.
And the Big Belt Mountains are a relatively isolated range, oriented along a northwest to southeast axis, with a single, narrow ridge line, as opposed to multiple ridge lines that would give the birds more than one route to travel.
"It leads the birds into a narrow funnel," said Hoffman, comparing the mountain range to an hourglass.
Persistent, strong southwesterly winds, presumably due to a "lake effect" from Canyon Ferry Reservoir, also buffet the mountains.
Employees with the Raptor View Research Institute in Missoula first noted the high number of raptors when they were banding some golden eagles south of the Big Belts. They passed along the information to Hoffman.
In 2014, Hoffman, Dan Ellison, a member of the Helena City Commission and an avid birder, and Ellison's wife, Jane Fournier, took a look.
"The birds just kept coming," Ellison said.
In six-and-a-half hours, they counted 284 golden eagles.
Ellison called it a once-in-a-lifetime day.
Based on that experience, an abbreviated counting season was conducted over 47 days in 2015, and observers saw 4,318 raptors, including 2,630 golden eagles.
It was the highest passage rate for golden eagles of any of the Rocky Mountain migration sites south of Canada, suggesting the Big Belt Mountains flyway would be a prime location for studying the movements and population.
All 17 species of diurnal raptors in the state were observed — in a single day, on Sept. 23.
On Oct. 7, 392 raptors, including 329 golden eagles, were counted.
More golden eagles were counted in the abbreviated 2015 season than the combined number of golden eagles counted at four other locations in Montana where migrating raptors are monitored.
The first full season of counting in the Big Belts was launched this year beginning Sept. 1. It will continue until Nov. 5.
Peak migration will occur over the next few weeks.
On a recent Monday, five people were hunkered down with binoculars and cameras, sun screen slathered on their faces and stocking caps covering their heads on the exposed face of the mountain.
Grayum and Dugan are on the job from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. daily.
It's not easy to identify some of the quick-moving birds that seem to appear out of nowhere.
"They don't come back for a second look," said Ellison.
Some of the birds are drawn to the spot by a decoy of a great-horned owl posted at the top of a white-bark pine, its head swiveling in the wind.
Even though the raptors are just passing through, they have a strong instinct to chase the owl away because great-horned owls are their No. 1 enemy. At night, owls will pick off raptors on the roost or take their chicks from the nest.
At 2:25 p.m. Hoffman asked for a bird count. Just then, the northern harrier swooped in. Also known as a marsh hawk, it weighs less than a pound and has a 3- to 3 /2-foot wing span. It lives on valley bottoms and marshes. Here it was soaring in through the Montana mountains.
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The original story can be found on the Great Falls Tribune's website: http://gftrib.com/2ddQcPD
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Information from: Great Falls Tribune, http://www.greatfallstribune.com
- By JOHN ROGERS Associated Press
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LOS ANGELES (AP) — If voters give their OK, pornographic film aficionados could be seeing a new movie prop — the condom — making an appearance in every sex scene of every Triple-X-rated feature made in California.
The requirement is at the heart of Proposition 60, the so-called Safer Sex in the Adult Film Industry Act, placed on the Nov. 8 ballot by voter-signed petitions.
Those in the porn industry, including many actors themselves, vehemently oppose it as an unneeded overreach they say wouldn't improve worker safety but would drive their multibillion-dollar business out of California. The measure also includes several other provisions aimed at protecting the health of porn performers.
Proposition 60's chief proponent, the Los Angeles-based AIDS Healthcare Foundation, says it would simply extend the same kind of protection to sex workers as the state already grants hospital employees and others in professions that expose them to infectious diseases.
"The young people who are needed to make these films, they are regarded as disposable, and I don't believe that any life is expendable," said AHF founder and president Michael Weinstein, whose organization has pumped nearly $2.9 million into its effort to pass the measure. Opponents have raised about $350,000.
AHF previously campaigned successfully for a condoms-in-porn ballot measure that Los Angeles County voters passed in 2012. Earlier this year the organization pressed the state Division of Occupational Safety and Health to fine porn actor James Deen's production company nearly $78,000 for making a film in LA County without condoms.
That prompted Weinstein to scoff at the industry's threat to leave California, but filmmakers insist they will have no other choice.
"We would 100 percent stop," said Steven Hirsch, co-founder and co-CEO of Vivid Entertainment, one of the industry's largest porn producers. "We and the entire industry would 100 percent stop producing movies in the state of California, and any revenue that goes along with that the state would lose."
California's legislative analyst and finance director estimate Proposition 60 could cost the state millions of dollars annually in lost revenue, but adds that some of that could be recouped by fees it would impose on pornographers and by reduced health care costs.
After the LA County measure passed in 2012, Hirsch said his company and others moved their film shoots to other parts of the state. This time, with the stakes much higher, he said they would simply have to go elsewhere, adding that states like Florida and Nevada are possible candidates.
In addition to requiring condoms in all scenes involving sexual intercourse, Proposition 60 would:
— Require porn producers be licensed by the state and assess fines ranging from $1,000 to $70,000 for various violations.
— Require producers to pay for vaccinations, tests and monitoring of sexually transmitted diseases, something the actors themselves now pay for under an industry requirement they be tested every 14 days.
— Hold all individuals with a financial interest in a porn film liable for violations.
— Allow any witness to a violation to sue a filmmaker if state officials don't act promptly on their complaint.
It's those last two requirements that porn actress Chanel Preston says worry her most.
The industry, battered by the rise of free internet porn, has seen its revenues decline in recent years from as much as $10 billion to about $5 billion, says Mark Kernes, senior editor of Adult Video News.
That decline has prompted many actors to produce and distribute their own films, said Preston, who chairs the industry's Adult Performer Advocacy Committee. She believes Proposition 60 would leave them liable to steep fines and lawsuits.
Preston has made more than 450 films since 2011, and although she says she believes in condoms for anyone who wants to use one, she doesn't believe they would have kept her as safe as the industry's 14-day testing requirement has.
Condoms are difficult to use during porn shoots that can last for hours, she said, and often result in chafing and cuts that expose actresses to the infections they're supposed to prevent.
"People look at condoms like they're this gold standard, and for the general public, yes, they are, because you don't know the status of your partner all the time," she said. "But in our industry we do."
PHOENIX (AP) — A 23-year-old therapy horse is recovering from injuries suffered after a fall into an irrigation ditch in Avondale.
Neighbors in the community say the horse named Mister got his front legs stuck in a concrete tube that channels water beneath the roadway Friday afternoon in Avondale.
They called for help and Avondale firefighters and Maricopa County sheriff's deputies worked to pull Mister out of the watery entrapment.
A neighbor lent a forklift to help remove the animal from the ditch.
A veterinarian gave Mister a tranquilizer and began administering IV fluids because the horse was in shock.
Mister is expected to recover.
The Arizona Republic reports that the horse has worked with handicapped individuals who want to learn to ride and also worked with police in California for six years.
LAS VEGAS (AP) — Just under half of Nevada students are considered proficient in reading on tests aligned to the Common Core standards, while about one-third hit that mark in math.
The Nevada Department of Education released results (http://bit.ly/2dTl2B5 ) Friday on the 2016 Smarter Balanced Assessments. The computerized tests are administered to children in third through eighth grades.
State superintendent Steve Canavero says the reading proficiency rate is still too low, but is ahead of states such as California and Montana.
Education officials also say the results show that new investments in English Language Learners are paying off. Less than 20 percent of English language learners showed proficiency, but they scored higher in reading and math than their counterparts in Connecticut and California.
Nevada is among 15 states that uses the Smarter Balanced Assessments.
- By ELLIOT SPAGAT Associated Press
SAN DIEGO (AP) — Hundreds of thousands of people have sought asylum along the U.S.-Mexico border in the last two years, a dramatic increase that shows how migrants have changed from mostly Mexican men trying to evade capture to more Central American families who often turn themselves in, a report for the federal government shows.
Asylum seekers, many of them fleeing drug-fueled violence south of the border, peaked in 2014 at 170,000, nearly triple the 63,000 who arrived the previous year. Before 2012, there were fewer than 30,000 a year.
In the 2015 fiscal year, the number declined to 140,000 people, according to the report by the Institute for Defense Analyses, a federally funded research organization that was tapped to help develop new measures of border security. The Associated Press obtained a copy of the report from a government official involved in border issues who acted on condition of anonymity because it has not been made public.
"The dramatic increase in asylum seekers since 2011 may represent a structural change in illegal entry behavior at the southern border," the report said. "This trend is driving significant changes in how to enforce immigration laws and the demands for resources for enforcement."
The number of asylum seekers spiked well after the U.S. launched a major expansion in enforcement, erecting hundreds of miles of fences, adding surveillance gear and doubling the size of the Border Patrol.
The spike highlights the need to address other aspects of the immigration system, such as the courts and the Department of Health and Human Services, which supervises unaccompanied children, said David Aguilar, who led the Border Patrol from 2004 to 2010.
"There's a new border environment that we, as a country, need to address," Aguilar said. "The border environment that I took over as chief in 2004 is very different than what we see today."
The report's authors did not include asylum seekers in their calculation of how many people are apprehended at the border. That is in contrast to the Homeland Security Department, which counts them.
The different approaches help explain why the report found that 54 percent of people trying to enter the country illegally between Mexico border crossings got caught last year. That's much lower than the government's publicly stated success rate of 81 percent.
Rep. Martha McSally, an Arizona Republican who has pressed Homeland Security officials to release the report, said the 54 percent figure was no surprise.
"Given that DHS knows these facts, they need to stop pushing misleading measurements that don't show the full picture and create mistrust with the American public," she said.
The Homeland Security Department began releasing its "interdiction effectiveness rate" two years ago — 81 percent last year and 79 percent in 2014. It also includes people who set foot in the country and turned back. The most recent report does not include them.
The authors caution that the number of asylum seekers cannot be counted precisely and was calculated using categories of people most closely associated with those claims, including unaccompanied children from countries other than Mexico.
Homeland Security officials said Thursday that the report was "one building block provided by a research organization" toward developing more reliable measures of border security and that its methodology needed refinement.
The report showed a dramatic decline in the number of people who eluded capture — 200,000 in 2015 compared with 1.9 million in 2005. The drop coincides with increases in spending on border enforcement to $14 billion a year and the introduction of tougher penalties for people who get caught, including jail time.
"This is the first solid evidence we have that the border buildup of the last 20 years has indeed made some significant difference in deterring and reducing illegal entries across the southern border," said Edward Alden, senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations.
LAS VEGAS (AP) — Nevada officials say they've tried, but can't find anyone to sell them a drug they need to carry out executions.
The Nevada Department of Corrections said Friday that they received no bids for lethal injection drugs during a monthlong window that closed this week. Corrections chief James Dzurenda said his agency would work with the attorney general, the governor and the Legislature to determine their next course of action.
There are 80 people on the state's death row, but none have exhausted their appeals. Nevada hasn't had an execution since 2006.
State officials were told in August that one of the two drugs that make up a cocktail in Nevada's lethal injection has expired, and the pharmaceutical company that produces it refuses on principle to give the state any more.
LAS CRUCES, N.M. (AP) — Dona Ana County Sheriff's detectives say they've have uncovered a counterfeit money manufacturing ring and one suspect in the case is facing 104 counts of forgery.
The investigation began last month after the manager of a Las Cruces pizza delivery company reported fake bills used in a transaction between a driver and a customer.
Detectives traced the money back to a home where a search warrant uncovered several pieces of equipment that detectives suspect were used to manufacture all denominations of bills from $1 to $100.
They say nearly $3,300 in counterfeit bills were seized from the house.
Authorities say the fake bills possibly were passed at businesses in Las Cruces and Alamogordo.
TWIN FALLS, Idaho (AP) — A Twin Falls police officer made a strange discovery when the person he pulled over offered a driver's license from his wife's stolen purse and wallet.
The Times-News reports (http://bit.ly/2dQak9T ) that Twin Falls Police Sgt. Ryan Howe on Monday pulled over a vehicle he believed was connected to his wife's stolen credit card and was proven right.
Howe's wife reported that someone broke into her car and made off with her purse, wallet, credit cards, driver's license, phone charger and more on Sept. 26. Throughout the course of the investigation they identified two suspects who often drove a Pontiac G6.
Howe pulled over the car on Monday for excessive tint and found that one of the suspects removed his license from a wallet identical to the one that was stolen.
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Information from: The Times-News, http://www.magicvalley.com
ESCALON, Calif. (AP) — Police say a 16-year-old Northern California boy has been arrested in connection with a school threat linked to the national creepy clown trend.
The Modesto Bee reports (http://bit.ly/2dBcprX ) Friday that the teen used a clown-themed Twitter handle to post on Instagram Wednesday that he would go to Escalon High School on Thursday and "kill all you kids."
Police Chief Mike Borges says the post was accompanied by a photo of a blood-stained bed.
The teen was booked into the San Joaquin County juvenile hall on suspicion of making terrorist threats and causing a false emergency to be reported.
The report joins a growing number of incidents involving clowns threatening schools in California and beyond.
Earlier this week, a person dressed in a clown suit tried to abduct a 1-year-old girl in the San Francisco Bay Area. The girl was not injured.
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Information from: The Modesto Bee, http://www.modbee.com
PORTLAND, Ore. (AP) — The Oregon bakery that denied service to a same-sex couple has closed its door permanently.
The Oregonian/OregonLive reports (https://is.gd/4y2J8j ) that according to a Sept. 29 Facebook post on a page for Sweet Cakes by Melissa the business shut down last month though the owners continue to sell cakes from their home.
Three years ago the bakery refused to make a wedding cake for Laurel and Rachel Bowman-Cryer. The Aaron and Melissa Klein said their refusal was prompted by religious beliefs.
In 2015, he Oregon Bureau of Labor and Industries ordered the Kleins to pay $135,000 in damages to the couple. The Kleins paid the damages last year, but the couple has yet to receive the award. The money will remain in a government escrow account until the end of appeals.
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Information from: The Oregonian/OregonLive, http://www.oregonlive.com
RICHMOND, Calif. (AP) — The nation's oldest park ranger will be awarded a Congressional Record statement at the museum and national historic park where she works.
KNTV reports (http://bit.ly/2d8xXMH) Rep. Mark DeSaulnier will present 95-year-old Betty Reid Soskin with the statement at the Rosie the Riveter/WWII Home Front National Historic Park in Richmond on Friday.
The Congressional Record is the official record of the United States Congress and has been published daily since 1873.
The award is one of a long list of honors Soskin has received.
In 1995, she was named California Woman of the Year. Last Christmas she received a presidential coin from President Obama after she lit the National Christmas tree at the White House. That coin was stolen from her home in June in a brutal home invasion robbery. She recovered and returned to work just weeks after the attack.
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Information from: KNTV-TV.
SAN LEANDRO, Calif. (AP) — Police have arrested three women in connection with running a brothel in a suburban home east of San Francisco.
KTVU reports (http://bit.ly/2d8x1rB ) San Leandro police say they found the brothel on Thursday afternoon after serving a search warrant at the home following neighbor's complaints about suspicious activity at the residence.
Authorities say the set up in the home was standard for prostitution and seized $1,500 in cash, which was believed to be proceeds from the operation, the station reported.
The names and ages of the women arrested were not released. They were arrested for resisting arrest after they tried to run from police.
Earlier in the week, detectives posed as men looking to buy sex. One woman agreed in exchange for $160.
Police are investigating if human trafficking was involved in the operation.
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Information from: KTVU-TV.
NAMPA, Idaho (AP) — Canyon County is shutting down a tent facility used by the county jail after a number of escapes and the potential for additional ones.
The Idaho Statesman reports (http://bit.ly/2dzXWvY ) that Canyon County jail officials are working to move the 86 inmates currently housed in the tent lockup after county commissioners told Sheriff Kieran Donahue on Thursday to shut the program down.
In the past 18 months, there have been four escapes from the facility involving five inmates. Most recently, two inmates left the facility on Saturday. They have since been recaptured.
County officials say moving the inmates out of the facility will not be as easy as marching them down to the jail and that judges and prosecutors will have to be consulted before any inmates are moved or released.
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Information from: Idaho Statesman, http://www.idahostatesman.com
ROSWELL, N.M. (AP) — Police in a southern New Mexico city are asking residents not to dress up as clowns and carry baseball bats around town amid a national "scary clown" craze.
The Roswell Police Department said they have received several reports this week of clowns with bats walking around in the city. Authorities say it appears to be connected to the recent national news reports of "scary clowns" sighting in various states.
Roswell police say although it is not illegal to dress as a clown and carry a baseball bat, officers are asking "residents to not do such things."
Police say such moves create fright in neighborhoods.
Authorities in Roswell say police have not located any of the reported clowns.
- By KARL PUCKETT Great Falls Tribune
WHITE SULPHUR SPRINGS, Mont. (AP) — Golden eagles, hawks and falcons are zooming over Montana along mountain ridges taking advantage of powerful updraft winds during their annual fall migration to warmer climates.
"If you're not looking for it, you're not going to notice it," said Steve Hoffman, executive director of Montana Audubon, the bird conservation organization.
One place to see the action is south of Duck Creek Pass in the southern end of the Big Belt Mountains in Helena-Lewis and Clark National Forest 19 miles west of White Sulphur Springs.
More golden eagles are using the Big Belts flyway during fall migration than any other location in the Lower 48, Hoffman says.
"Damn. You have to love it," Hoffman said at the site Monday.
He was peering through a $3,500 pair of binoculars, watching a northern harrier, a type of hawk, swoop overhead. He could have seen the bird with the naked eye it was so close.
By day's end, 70 birds of prey were counted, including 31 golden eagles.
It was a slow day.
Through the last Monday of September, 973 birds, including 431 golden eagles, had been counted since Sept. 1.
Migration comes in waves, Hoffman noted.
"It's probably going to be the best golden eagle site in the Lower 48," Hoffman said of the numbers that are being counted in the Big Belts.
And the public can witness the traffic at the rare bird bottleneck because it's not difficult to reach the mountainside location where two observers are counting the birds as part of a golden eagle migration survey.
The accessibility to a major raptor migration route is rare, too, Hoffman said.
"We've had them at 20 yards," Ronan Dugan said.
It's the second year for Dugan, who is from Scotland, working as a raptor migration observer. Pay is $50 bucks a day. He lives in a camper with a leaking roof and hikes up the mountain to work each day.
Golden eagles are the most common travelers, but all kinds of raptors fly through, from vultures to osprey to northern goshawks.
"This is our office," said Dugan, his arm gesturing to the sky.
For him, one of the most amazing parts of the job is viewing immature bald eagles, with white still on their wings, that were on the nest just a few months ago in Canada and Alaska.
Dugan and co-worker Jeff Grayum scan the sky with binoculars, or the valley below.
It's their job to count every raptor they see. They also attempt to determine the age and sex.
Montana Audubon is partnering with Montana Fish Wildlife and Parks, the U.S. Forest Service and Last Chance Gulch Audubon, in the migration survey, which began in 2015.
The primary objective is to measure long-term population trends of golden eagles using the Big Belt Mountains flyway.
"Look at that. Oh, boy," says Pat Grantham, a birder from Clancy who drove a four-wheeler up the mountain to spend the day watching birds.
It's a golden eagle.
"Another bird down low," Grayum announces, alerting the others to another raptor that's flown into view.
The bird-watching bivouac is at an elevation of 8,340 feet.
That's high enough that bird-watchers sometimes look down at the birds.
In Montana, 17 species of diurnal raptors, which are active during the day, are known to migrate through the state or spend time here.
Every one has been documented in the Big Belts, but golden eagles are the undisputed stars in the sky because of their size. As adults, they weigh 9 to 14 pounds with wingspans of 6½ feet.
Crows that occasionally chase them look like songbirds by comparison.
"We're not talking about pigeons here," Hoffman said.
Golden eagles are considered "charismatic fauna" because of their widespread popular appeal, just like wolves, elk or grizzly bears, Hoffman says.
They can reach speeds of 100 mph when they dive, tucking their wings and falling like rocks to surprise prey such as jackrabbits, ground squirrels and occasionally a wild turkey.
"They're representative of wild places," Hoffman said.
For the past 25 years, one of the most important places for monitoring migrating golden eagles in the western United States has been the Bridger Mountains, northeast of Bozeman and 60 miles south-southeast of the Big Belts.
The most significant outcome of the long-term study was a 40 percent decline in counts of migrating golden eagles along the flyway since the late 1990s.
That decline stopped around 2010, Hoffman said, but it's still important to keep an eye on the population because raptors are excellent environmental indicators because they are sensitive to habitat change.
The estimated golden eagle population in North America is 80,000 to 100,000, with most of the birds located in western North America.
In Montana, they are listed as a "species of concern."
"Only in a few places do they migrate through those very narrow corridors," Hoffman said.
The spine of the Rocky Mountains is a general migration corridor for raptors traveling from Alaska and Canada to the southwestern United States and even Mexico, Hoffman said.
Orographic lift occurs along the Rockies. That's when air is forced from a low elevation to a higher elevation as it moves over rising terrain.
"They can just fly hundreds of miles without flapping," Hoffman said.
Lift from the mountain winds allows the birds to conserve energy and reduce their caloric intake during the migration, Hoffman said.
"They're more dependent on ridge lift, strong ridge lift, than any of the raptors," Hoffman says of golden eagles, which expend more energy hunting than smaller, nimbler raptors.
Constriction points are located along the general migration route, and the Big Belts is one of those areas.
Birds follow ridge lines.
And the Big Belt Mountains are a relatively isolated range, oriented along a northwest to southeast axis, with a single, narrow ridge line, as opposed to multiple ridge lines that would give the birds more than one route to travel.
"It leads the birds into a narrow funnel," said Hoffman, comparing the mountain range to an hourglass.
Persistent, strong southwesterly winds, presumably due to a "lake effect" from Canyon Ferry Reservoir, also buffet the mountains.
Employees with the Raptor View Research Institute in Missoula first noted the high number of raptors when they were banding some golden eagles south of the Big Belts. They passed along the information to Hoffman.
In 2014, Hoffman, Dan Ellison, a member of the Helena City Commission and an avid birder, and Ellison's wife, Jane Fournier, took a look.
"The birds just kept coming," Ellison said.
In six-and-a-half hours, they counted 284 golden eagles.
Ellison called it a once-in-a-lifetime day.
Based on that experience, an abbreviated counting season was conducted over 47 days in 2015, and observers saw 4,318 raptors, including 2,630 golden eagles.
It was the highest passage rate for golden eagles of any of the Rocky Mountain migration sites south of Canada, suggesting the Big Belt Mountains flyway would be a prime location for studying the movements and population.
All 17 species of diurnal raptors in the state were observed — in a single day, on Sept. 23.
On Oct. 7, 392 raptors, including 329 golden eagles, were counted.
More golden eagles were counted in the abbreviated 2015 season than the combined number of golden eagles counted at four other locations in Montana where migrating raptors are monitored.
The first full season of counting in the Big Belts was launched this year beginning Sept. 1. It will continue until Nov. 5.
Peak migration will occur over the next few weeks.
On a recent Monday, five people were hunkered down with binoculars and cameras, sun screen slathered on their faces and stocking caps covering their heads on the exposed face of the mountain.
Grayum and Dugan are on the job from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. daily.
It's not easy to identify some of the quick-moving birds that seem to appear out of nowhere.
"They don't come back for a second look," said Ellison.
Some of the birds are drawn to the spot by a decoy of a great-horned owl posted at the top of a white-bark pine, its head swiveling in the wind.
Even though the raptors are just passing through, they have a strong instinct to chase the owl away because great-horned owls are their No. 1 enemy. At night, owls will pick off raptors on the roost or take their chicks from the nest.
At 2:25 p.m. Hoffman asked for a bird count. Just then, the northern harrier swooped in. Also known as a marsh hawk, it weighs less than a pound and has a 3- to 3 /2-foot wing span. It lives on valley bottoms and marshes. Here it was soaring in through the Montana mountains.
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The original story can be found on the Great Falls Tribune's website: http://gftrib.com/2ddQcPD
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Information from: Great Falls Tribune, http://www.greatfallstribune.com
- By JOHN ROGERS Associated Press
LOS ANGELES (AP) — If voters give their OK, pornographic film aficionados could be seeing a new movie prop — the condom — making an appearance in every sex scene of every Triple-X-rated feature made in California.
The requirement is at the heart of Proposition 60, the so-called Safer Sex in the Adult Film Industry Act, placed on the Nov. 8 ballot by voter-signed petitions.
Those in the porn industry, including many actors themselves, vehemently oppose it as an unneeded overreach they say wouldn't improve worker safety but would drive their multibillion-dollar business out of California. The measure also includes several other provisions aimed at protecting the health of porn performers.
Proposition 60's chief proponent, the Los Angeles-based AIDS Healthcare Foundation, says it would simply extend the same kind of protection to sex workers as the state already grants hospital employees and others in professions that expose them to infectious diseases.
"The young people who are needed to make these films, they are regarded as disposable, and I don't believe that any life is expendable," said AHF founder and president Michael Weinstein, whose organization has pumped nearly $2.9 million into its effort to pass the measure. Opponents have raised about $350,000.
AHF previously campaigned successfully for a condoms-in-porn ballot measure that Los Angeles County voters passed in 2012. Earlier this year the organization pressed the state Division of Occupational Safety and Health to fine porn actor James Deen's production company nearly $78,000 for making a film in LA County without condoms.
That prompted Weinstein to scoff at the industry's threat to leave California, but filmmakers insist they will have no other choice.
"We would 100 percent stop," said Steven Hirsch, co-founder and co-CEO of Vivid Entertainment, one of the industry's largest porn producers. "We and the entire industry would 100 percent stop producing movies in the state of California, and any revenue that goes along with that the state would lose."
California's legislative analyst and finance director estimate Proposition 60 could cost the state millions of dollars annually in lost revenue, but adds that some of that could be recouped by fees it would impose on pornographers and by reduced health care costs.
After the LA County measure passed in 2012, Hirsch said his company and others moved their film shoots to other parts of the state. This time, with the stakes much higher, he said they would simply have to go elsewhere, adding that states like Florida and Nevada are possible candidates.
In addition to requiring condoms in all scenes involving sexual intercourse, Proposition 60 would:
— Require porn producers be licensed by the state and assess fines ranging from $1,000 to $70,000 for various violations.
— Require producers to pay for vaccinations, tests and monitoring of sexually transmitted diseases, something the actors themselves now pay for under an industry requirement they be tested every 14 days.
— Hold all individuals with a financial interest in a porn film liable for violations.
— Allow any witness to a violation to sue a filmmaker if state officials don't act promptly on their complaint.
It's those last two requirements that porn actress Chanel Preston says worry her most.
The industry, battered by the rise of free internet porn, has seen its revenues decline in recent years from as much as $10 billion to about $5 billion, says Mark Kernes, senior editor of Adult Video News.
That decline has prompted many actors to produce and distribute their own films, said Preston, who chairs the industry's Adult Performer Advocacy Committee. She believes Proposition 60 would leave them liable to steep fines and lawsuits.
Preston has made more than 450 films since 2011, and although she says she believes in condoms for anyone who wants to use one, she doesn't believe they would have kept her as safe as the industry's 14-day testing requirement has.
Condoms are difficult to use during porn shoots that can last for hours, she said, and often result in chafing and cuts that expose actresses to the infections they're supposed to prevent.
"People look at condoms like they're this gold standard, and for the general public, yes, they are, because you don't know the status of your partner all the time," she said. "But in our industry we do."
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