Wyoming wolf hunt; vanishing bees; cops' Facebook blitz
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Odd and interesting news from around the West.
- By BOB MOEN Associated Press
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CHEYENNE, Wyo. (AP) — A state district judge is considering whether to dismiss a defamation lawsuit filed by a former Wyoming schools superintendent against a former U.S. House candidate.
Judge Thomas Campbell heard arguments Wednesday on a motion by Tim Stubson to dismiss the lawsuit filed against him by Cindy Hill.
Hill contends that Stubson made malicious and false statements about her during his U.S. House campaign last year. Stubson, also a former state legislator from Casper, lost in the Republican primary to Liz Cheney, who went on to win the seat in the general election.
Stubson's comments included a remark that Hill had committed "illegal" acts while she was superintendent, according to Hill's lawsuit.
Stubson's attorney, Monty Barnett, argued that any comments made by Stubson about Hill are protected political speech, noting that they occurred in the context of a political campaign and during a political debate.
"This is a First Amendment free speech case," Barnett said.
He said the lawsuit is "little more than a retaliatory strike" at Stubson.
Hill's attorney, her husband Drake Hill, argued that Stubson made maliciously false statements about Hill that are not protected free speech.
Stubson's characterization of Cindy Hill's actions as "illegal" implies criminal behavior that harmed her reputation, Drake Hill said.
"Calling that person a criminal is defamation per se," he said.
The comments by Stubson concerned the controversy over removing Cindy Hill as administrator of the state Education Department while she was state superintendent of public instruction. Stubson was a member of the Legislature in 2013 when a law was passed and signed by Gov. Matt Mead, removing the state superintendent as head of the agency.
The law was passed after high-ranking lawmakers and Mead clashed with Hill over how she was running the department. Stubson was among those who supported removing Hill.
Hill challenged the law in a lawsuit and a divided Wyoming Supreme Court struck down the law as unconstitutional.
Judge Campbell also was involved in that 2013 lawsuit, denying Hill's request to stop enforcement of the law until a court decision was rendered in the lawsuit.
Hill later challenged Mead in the 2014 GOP primary and lost.
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PORTLAND, Ore. (AP) — An Oregon man who was investigated and fined by a state board for unlicensed practice of engineering has filed a lawsuit alleging the state's definition of an engineer violates the First Amendment.
Mats Jarlstrom, 56, was fined $500 after identifying himself as an engineer in emails he sent to Beaverton officials challenging Oregon's timing of yellow traffic lights as too short, The Oregonian/OregonLive reported (https://is.gd/WBmq6f).
The Beaverton man, who has a bachelor of science degree in engineering, has joined the Institute for Justice to file a federal civil rights lawsuit against members of the state Board of Examiners for Engineering and Land Surveying.
The board's attempt to keep people from calling themselves engineers if they're not an Oregon-licensed professional engineer is a violation of their right to free speech, Jarlstrom's attorneys said.
"It's important in my mind we can share ideas freely in Oregon to promote innovation," Jarlstrom said. "I feel violated at this point in time."
The state board has a history of investigations on others for using the word "engineer" including Portland City Council Commissioner Dan Saltzman, according to the lawsuit.
A spokesman for the board declined to comment.
This is not Jarlstorm's first lawsuit.
In 2014, Jarlstorm's filed a lawsuit against Beaverton that claimed the city's yellow lights were too short at intersections. Even though the judge tossed out his lawsuit, Jarlstorm continued presenting his findings from his studies to local media, CBS News show "60 Minutes" and the annual Institute of Transportation Engineers last summer.
His current lawsuit does not seek monetary damages.
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Information from: The Oregonian/OregonLive, http://www.oregonlive.com
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CHEYENNE, Wyo. (AP) — Planning for Wyoming's first wolf-hunting season in four years will get going now that a federal court has lifted endangered species protection for wolves in the state.
The Wyoming Game and Fish Department said Wednesday it will draft plans for wolf hunting this fall after the court put wolves back under state control Tuesday.
The plans would allow regulated hunting in northwest Wyoming outside Yellowstone and Grand Teton national parks and northwest of the Wind River Indian Reservation.
Elsewhere in Wyoming, wolves as of Tuesday may once again be killed on sight at any time.
Wyoming held regulated wolf hunts in 2012 and 2013 before a judge put wolves back under federal control soon before a planned 2014 hunt. Hunters killed 23 wolves in the 2013 hunt.
- By STEVEN DUBOIS Associated Press
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PORTLAND, Ore. (AP) — The son of former Oregon Gov. John Kitzhaber says his crash into a motor home last 4th of July was a desperately needed wake-up call.
Logan Kitzhaber, 19, of Portland pleaded guilty last month to assault and driving under the influence of intoxicants for causing the wreck on U.S. Highway 101 near the Oregon coast. As part of his plea agreement, he had to write a letter to the injured occupants of the motor home — Stan and Martha Lyckman of Port Angeles, Washington.
Kitzhaber, in a letter dated April 11, said he was a misguided teenager without any motivation at the time of the crash. He was addicted to popping pills and had no interests outside of drugs.
"This wreck was the culmination of my journey down a long, dark, emotional path laden with prescription pills," he wrote. "On Independence Day I hit rock bottom."
When he awoke in the hospital, he realized his life must change: "I truly believe that if I hadn't crashed, I would have overdosed."
State Police said Kitzhaber was driving to Lincoln City in a Toyota Prius registered to his father. The car crossed the centerline and then sideswiped the motorhome. Kitzhaber apologized to the Lyckmans, saying his poor choice has forever changed their lives. He promised to avoid intoxicants, pursue his education and never again recklessly endanger innocent people.
"Nobody deserves what I put you through," he wrote.
Kitzhaber pleaded guilty and was sentenced March 27 to a week in jail and five years on probation. He was also ordered to undergo drug and alcohol treatment and his license was suspended for five years.
The Lyckmans submitted a victim-impact statement to Lincoln County Circuit Court, letting Kitzhaber know how the crash upended their lives — emotionally, physically and financially.
"In the course of a few seconds, we went from being happy campers to being crippled," Martha Lyckman wrote. "With no time to pray, we experienced horror."
The letter says Stan Lyckman has endured six surgeries and nearly lost his leg. Moreover, he developed a severe blood clot that caused concern for his life.
Martha Lyckman, who retired four days before the crash, said her injuries are more emotional than physical: "Rattled to the core is the only way I can express the deeply penetrating trauma I have experienced."
Kitzhaber's father served three full terms as Oregon governor. He resigned early in his fourth term, in February 2015, amid an influence-peddling scandal.
- By CHARLIE BRENNAN Daily Camera
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BOULDER, Colo. (AP) — It's the time of year that honeybee swarms typically start to take wing, setting beekeepers' phone lines ablaze as word spreads about their availability to collect and place in awaiting hives.
But anxiety is running high in the local beekeeping community as April draws to a close, with word-of-mouth reporting of a high number of lost colonies over the winter. Firm explanations are proving elusive.
Hygiene-area beekeeper Tony Lewis lost eight out of his 10 colonies over the winter — and can't figure out why.
"It sucked," Lewis said. "It's the highest loss I've ever had. I've come close to that (before), but not quite."
As for possible reasons, Lewis said, "This is totally anecdotal ... but it seems like people in Boulder Valley lost more than in Denver, but who the hell knows why? It is so speculative. Is there more pesticide use and herbicide use (in Boulder County) because it is more ag than Denver? Maybe."
Lafayette resident Bill Pomeroy had two active hives going into the winter, and now has just one. He has heard about high losses suffered locally, including another Lafayette beekeeper who lost a dozen colonies.
"It's crazy," said Pomeroy.
One theory he'd heard is the suggestion that nanoparticles of aluminum in so-called "chemtrails" left by airplanes are working their way into the environment at a level that is having a negative effect on pollinators.
This idea has been branded by many to be little more than a conspiracy theory. A group of scientists from the University of California-Irvine surveyed 77 atmospheric chemists and geoscientists and 76 said they had found no evidence of such spraying, according to an article on seeker.com.
The Front Range experienced an unusually mild autumn and a relatively mild winter, but Pomeroy doesn't see that as a factor.
"If anything, they would have been able to survive better, because they wouldn't be eating so much" of the honey that they store and depend on to survive the winter season, he said.
But Lewis floated a possible explanation related to climate change.
That theory, he said, is that, "Because we have these really warm days in the winter that we never used to have ... they come out of their balls that they bunch up in, in the hive, to keep warm.
"Then, when it gets cold again quickly, they don't get back into their ball. But who the hell knows?"
'SO DEPRESSING'
Beth Conrey, a Berthoud resident and past president of the Colorado State Beekeepers Association, as well as current vice president of Boulder County Beekeepers Association, said in an email, "I have heard rumors of large losses but can neither confirm nor deny them as I have no locally collected data from which to draw.
"Personally," Conrey added, "I sustained 20 percent losses. This is much better than previous years but still unsustainable. Imagine if it were cattle or corn ... I had a neighbor who lost all eight of his hives. His daughter lost all three of hers. I am certain there are folks around the state with similar tales to tell."
The losses are far more than rumor, according to man whose livelihood is bees — Tim Brod, owner and operator of Highland Honey, based in unincorporated Boulder County, who currently presides over 165 to 180 hives in multiple locations. He believes that he might have seen 35 to 40 percent of his hives go dark over the winter. But he has heard figures tossed around by others of losses as high as 60 percent.
"It's just, like, so depressing," Brod said.
He is convinced there is no simple explanation for the current situation.
"When you're looking at a biological system, there's not one single factor," he said. "There's a constellation of events going on, and those events get more intensified when you live in a highly populated area."
Brod sees three factors at work. One is the increased use of pesticides and herbicides. Another is the decrease in available forage for apian life as development continues across the Front Range. The third leg of the stool is backyard beekeepers doing an inadequate job of learning about — and treating their bees for — Varroa destructor, a parasitic mite that attacks honeybees in their hives.
"There's not enough people who thoroughly understand Varroa and are treating for it," Brod said. "The last thing I want to do — we don't want to blame backyard beekeepers, because backyard beekeepers are responsible for kicking the wheel of awareness for helping us change laws and regulations" regulating the use of harmful chemicals. But, he said, "There is more backyard beekeepers need to do."
'UNPRECEDENTED,' GETTING WORSE
Tom Theobald, of Niwot, is also a past president of the state beekeepers' association and a founder of the Boulder County Beekeepers Association. He has heard of hive losses locally this winter of up to 80 percent.
On the list of culprits, Theobald rates high the use of neonicotinoids, a class of neuroactive insecticides. The estimated four million pounds that are used each year nationally on crops, he said, represent only about 10 percent of the total neonicotinoid use, with the other 90 percent going to seed treatment. With an estimated 5,000 to 10,000 times more toxicity than DDT, Theobald said, neonicotinoids are having a devastating effect on pollinators.
Once the keeper of about 200 hives, Theobald said last year he was down to 12 — and that none of those survived this winter.
"Every year is unprecedented," Theobald said. "This is my 42nd year of beekeeping. Before these problems began, my losses would have been on the order of 2 to 5 percent. In a really severe winter or unusual circumstances, that might have gone to 10 percent. But what we're seeing now is unprecedented. And it's getting worse every year."
Brod urged support for HJR 17-1029, the Colorado Highway Pollinator bill, a resolution to designate U.S. 76 from Denver to the Nebraska state line as a bee-friendly highway. It would encourage the Colorado Department of Transportation to manage the right-of-way to promote pollinator habitat. Rep. KC Becker, D-Boulder, is a primary sponsor.
With significant winter hive loss and beekeepers typically dependent on swarm hotlines to replenish or stock their backyard hives, there's a possibility there simply won't be enough swarms to go around this spring, Conrey said.
"Insufficient swarms have happened before," she said. "We have had several years when swarm seasons were poor. And when that happens, people simply have to do without. Can't create them."
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Information from: Daily Camera, http://www.dailycamera.com/
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OREM, Utah (AP) — A Utah Valley University student says he accidentally discharged a gun being stored in his book bag while sitting in a busy cafeteria.
The Salt Lake Tribune reports (http://bit.ly/2pjc3uv ) no injuries were made known to authorities after the gun fired on Tuesday.
The student says the handgun fired after he reached into his book bag. The bullet struck a table and a light fixture.
A university spokesman says the student had a valid concealed carry permit. It is legal to carry a concealed firearm on a college campus in Utah.
A police investigation is ongoing.
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Information from: The Salt Lake Tribune, http://www.sltrib.com
- By MELISSA CASSUTT Jackson Hole and News Guide
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JACKSON, Wyo. (AP) — It takes a long time to get to the top of the tallest mountain of the world.
The nearly 39-mile trek from Lukla, Nepal, to the base of Mount Everest can take from eight days to nearly two weeks. Getting to the summit takes another four to six weeks of breathless climbing and multiple passes through one of the most deadly and dangerous spots on the mountain.
The swiftest groups — pre-acclimatized and kissed by good luck with a well-timed weather opening — make it from Lukla to the peak of the 29,029-foot mountain in four weeks. Ellen Gallant hopes to make it in about seven, by her 51st birthday on May 16.
But if she's honest about it, it's taken her 15 years to get here.
"In my life it's about pushing my limits and finding where I cry 'uncle,'" Gallant said. "I start with running 10Ks and I move to marathons and I move to triathlons and then Ironman triathlons. I'm pushing the limit to see where I reach my limit in terms of what I'm physically capable of."
Gallant has faced this mountain three times before — the first, a trip that launched a love for Nepal, mountaineering and the mountain itself. The other two treks to the mountain, taken in the spring of 2014 and 2015, were marred by such severe tragedy that she returned to the states with nightmares of what she'd seen.
Gallant, a cardiologist and mountaineer, twice switched from hopeful climber to working doctor, triaging the wounded and identifying those killed by an avalanche. She's seen the mountain swallow men whole.
That's why she's going back. She doesn't want to remember Everest as a place of tragedy.
"I feel like I can't leave things the way I did in '15," she said. "I got to give it one last go."
FIRST CLIMB IN THE TETONS
The first mountain Gallant ever climbed was the Grand Teton.
She was working in Austin, Texas, at the time, and a friend suggested they take a trip to Jackson. She'd never even been in a climbing gym, but she's always been someone who likes to push herself. The two took an Exum climbing course and summited the peak in the summer of 2000.
After that she was always trying to find her way back.
"It's always been about trying to find a way to live here," Gallant said. "It was 15 years or so of trying to get to Jackson."
Gallant landed a job in the community in 2015, coming on as a cardiologist at St. John's Medical Center. By that time her love for mountaineering had also solidified, starting with a trip to the Himalayas in 2002 that first set her sights on Everest.
She had traveled to Cambodia and Thailand with a group of friends, but branched off on her own to Nepal, wanting to take the trek up the Khumbu Valley to Everest base camp.
"It was incredible running around camp, seeing all these interesting people," she said.
On the trip back she stopped at Gorak Shep, a small settlement along the trekking route. She spent the night, and in the morning plopped down at a big picnic table with a bunch of other women for breakfast. The women turned out to be a group of American climbers, assembled for the first all-female expedition up Everest.
"Literally, it was this 30-minute breakfast with these women and they talked to me about climbing, why they loved it," Gallant said, "and it just absolutely changed my life."
She climbed Mount Rainier in Washington the following fall.
"It was my first time on crampons, first time with an ice ax," she said. "Since then it's been about getting back to Everest, being worthy of the mountain and being ready and trained."
She's since climbed Rainier eight times by five routes. She's climbed the Grand six times, the Matterhorn, a 14,692-foot peak straddling the borders of Switzerland and Italy, and Cho Oyu in Tibet, the sixth highest mountain in the world at 26,864 feet. She's summited three of the "Seven Summits," named for being the highest mountains on each of the seven continents — Aconcagua in Argentina, Denali in Alaska and Mount Vinson in Antarctica.
"I've been lucky to climb all over the world, beautiful mountains," Gallant said. "But it's always in the back of my head: Everest. I want to know if I'm capable of standing at 29,000 feet. And I just don't know the answer."
ATTEMPTING TO SUMMIT
Gallant knew she wanted to make an attempt at a summit in the spring of 2014, but she also knew it would mean sacrifice. One of the first was leaving a practice of eight cardiologists. She spent the final months of 2013 and the first few of 2014 focused on training, and left for Kathmandu in March of 2014.
The acclimatization process included climbing Lobuche, a nearby mountain, before starting rotations up Everest. In April, her team planned a rotation through the Khumbu Icefall, but decided to wait another day because one member of the party was having trouble with the altitude.
The sound when the ice avalanche released was the loudest thing Gallant had ever heard.
"When I heard it I unzipped my tent, looked toward the West shoulder and saw this ice release coming," she said. "It seemed like it went on for a minute or two."
There were a lot of Sherpas, people native to Nepal, in the icefall that day, backed up because one of the ladders used to cross was out.
Gallant threw clothes on and ran out to see what had happened. A Western guide equipped with a radio intercepted her, and pointed her to "Everest ER," a medical tent set up at base camp.
"This is really bad," he told her.
Sixteen men were killed and buried in the avalanche. Dozens of others were injured.
"We had a number of walking wounded who came in," she said. "We had five or six folks who were helicoptered to us in critical condition, and then there were 16 men buried."
After treating the patients in the tent, Gallant was called to the helipad, where climbers had been working to get the bodies out from the ice.
"There's this belief in Buddhism that the families need the bodies to allow reincarnation," she said. "So these amazing Sherpas, these amazing Western climbers stayed there in harm's way to dig out these men."
She stood with other climbers as helicopters long-lined the dead from the icefall to base camp, where they were unclipped, placed under a blue tarp and photographed with an iPhone. She scrolled through her phone with sirdars — lead Sherpas — showing them pictures of the dead, asking for identification.
"It was just this horrifying thing that still lives in my brain," she said.
The mountain closed to climbing after the disaster and Gallant made her way back to the states. She returned the next spring, ready to face the mountain again.
"I wasn't ready to give up just yet," she said.
SECOND ATTEMPT AT A SUMMIT
Gallant returned to Everest in 2015 with a new team. They acclimatized as they had before, climbing Lobuche, starting rotations up to camps one, two and three.
The group had one last rotation up to camp three planned, and then they'd be waiting for their weather window for the summit.
A little before lunchtime on April the rumbling started. She unzipped her tent and looked toward Pumori and Lingtren, two mountains west of Everest, across the Khumbu Valley.
"It was the earthquake happening," she said. "By the time I unzipped and looked, there was this massive avalanche coming toward us."
The quake registered at 7.8 on the Richter scale, triggering massive ice and snow avalanches on Pumori and Lingtren.
"It wasn't a typical avalanche," Gallant said. "If I'm in the backcountry, I get buried. That's not what happened. Because of the geology and how long and skinny the valley is, the earthquake triggered the avalanche that then led to an air blast.
"What killed and injured people was blunt-force trauma," she said. "It was 16-pound propane tanks being thrown across camp."
Gallant was thrown on her face into her face in her tent, knocking out her left front tooth. Bleeding from her mouth, she shoved the tooth back in and rushed to find the other doctors on site. Two tents were set up, one for head injuries and long-bone fractures, the other for internal injuries. They split up the work, each taking a dozen patients to look over.
She made rounds aside Dr. Ritesh Goel, a doctor with the Indian army. Together they injected doses of Decadron, a steroid that reduces cerebral swelling, and parceled out pain meds they'd collected from other climbers.
"In the states all of these patients would be an IV going and saline and pain meds, and we just didn't have it," she said. "Everyone in camp, whatever drugs they had, just gave them to us. We basically did what we could."
Around 2 a.m. a Sherpa brought her a sleeping bag. She was exhausted and she needed to sleep.
"I tried to lie down on the ground and it was completely soaked with blood," she said. "I remember the smell — that sort of iron smell of blood — and I couldn't take it. All of these men, all of these incredible Sherpa who were so critically injured, they're lying in this blood-soaked carpet."
Two hours later a Sherpa was brought in unconscious. Soon after that his breathing became shallow and his pulse weak.
"There was really nothing to do," Gallant said, tears coming to her eyes. "I sat down next to him, held his hand and knew he was about to die."
Ritesh held a stethoscope to his chest and confirmed the silence. Together they placed his body in a sleeping bag, duct-taped the ends and tagged it with a time of death.
"I later found out that he was in his late 30s, he guided for one of the local Nepali companies and he had three kids," she said. "And he was there because of us. He was there because he was a Sherpa climbing with us. Things like that just vividly live in my memory at this point."
GOING BACK TO THE MOUNTAIN
In many ways preparing to head back to Everest for a third attempt at the summit feels familiar.
Gallant spent months sleeping in a high-altitude tent, a chamber that replaces oxygen with nitrogen to create an oxygen-deprived environment similar to what she'll face on Everest. Since October she's been sleeping above 8,000 feet, most recently spending most nights at 18,000 feet. On weekends she has been climbing into the tent and setting it to 23,000 feet to watch "movies that I don't have to think very hard about."
She spent her evenings and weekends hiking the bootpack up Snow King and Mount Glory in crampons, hauling a 40-pound bag of cat litter. She spent mornings cycling on her road bike, set up on a trainer in her living room, watching CNN with a hypoxic mask strapped to her face and a pulse oximeter on her index finger to measure her oxygen saturation.
She had a personal trainer asking her to smash tires with 25-pound sledge hammers and a massage therapist helping prevent another tear to her hamstring, an injury she suffered in 2015. Again she resigned, leaving her position at St. John's so she can return to Nepal.
A lot of the preparation has been the same. Though mentally, it's a different journey back.
YOU'RE NOT IN CONTROL
"In '14 and '15, I was so sure I was going to make it — no question about it. I was ready, nothing was going to stop me. And two major disasters happened. What I took away is that I'm not in control of everything. That is probably a good lesson for life. I'm just going into this in a very different, quieter mindset this year."
She wears a red prayer cord around her neck, a gift she hasn't removed since it was given to her by a monk at the Tengboche Monastery as she was hiking out from base camp after the 2015 earthquake.
She holds this blessing, along with notes she's received from people all over the world, close to her heart. She reads the letters often, like the one she received from a Sherpa who wrote her in August 2015. The mountaineer had lost a cousin and several friends in the earthquake.
"Sherpa are Buddhists by religion and our faith is deeply rooted in karma — as you sow, so shall you reap. So, Ellen, karma is like a mirror and your good karma will someday reflect back with good consequences, for sure," she read, choking up a few times. "I on behalf of the people of Nepal and all climbing Sherpas, would like pay my highest gratitude for your wonderful contribution to save the victims and survivors of the avalanche tragedy both this year and in 2014."
"After '14 and even more so in '15, I kind of felt like a failure. I go twice, I quit a job for 2014 to train. And the thing that I found most humbling was messages like this," Gallant said. "It was good friends who said that what I ended up doing was what I was meant to do."
She knows she might again fail to reach the summit. And for everything the mountain, the people and the place have given her, she has plans to give back, regardless of what happens. She aims to become more involved with dZi Foundation, established to improve the health and lives of remote communities in Nepal, and One Heart World-Wide, a Nepalese-based nonprofit aimed at preventing mother and child deaths caused by complications in pregnancy and childbirth.
Even if she never gets to the top of Everest, a piece of her heart will always be in the Himalayas. This year she's looking to offer that piece a little healing.
"The way I'm going into this is I've done everything I can. I've trained as hard as I can and I'm mentally prepared and I still don't know. I still don't know if I can do it. I think so much of it is the mountain goddess deciding. Just very quietly and humbly I'm going into this, and we'll just see how it happens."
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Information from: Jackson Hole (Wyo.) News And Guide, http://www.jhnewsandguide.com
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EUGENE, Ore. (AP) — Aggravated theft charges have been filed against a bookkeeper accused of stealing $250,000 from the drug and alcohol treatment that employed her in Eugene, Oregon.
An arrest warrant affidavit written by a Eugene police detective says 60-year-old Melodi Ann Sappe used some of the money to purchase Visa gift cards worth tens of thousands of dollars.
The Register-Guard reports (http://bit.ly/2owLzbV ) Sappe pleaded not guilty at her arraignment Tuesday.
Sappe has been fired the center, Serenity Lane. She had worked there since 2004.
Serenity Lane moved from Eugene to a new facility in Coburg last year.
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Information from: The Register-Guard, http://www.registerguard.com
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ALBUQUERQUE (AP) — The Albuquerque Police Department is using its official Facebook page to criticize area judges and local news media.
The Albuquerque Journal reports (https://goo.gl/EKFlRl) in recent months the department has used its social media page to highlight specific actions by judges and the media. In some posts, Albuquerque police criticize them and have attracted hundreds of harsh comments from the public.
Some user comments have called for violence against judges or accused reporters of crimes.
Albuquerque police spokeswoman Celina Espinoza says there is a lot of finger-pointing over the city's crime rates and the police are only trying to tell "the whole story."
Heath Haussamen, a board member of the Rio Grande Chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists, says said the chapter opposes the department's use of social media as its main medium for distributing information.
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Information from: Albuquerque Journal, http://www.abqjournal.com
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LAS VEGAS (AP) — Authorities say a four-month-old baby has been hospitalized after a shooting at an apartment complex east of the Las Vegas Strip.
The infant suffered injuries that were not considered life-threatening after being shot in the hand Tuesday.
Las Vegas police say the child was inside an apartment with family at the time of the shooting.
Preliminary information suggests a gun was fired in a neighboring apartment and the bullet went through the wall, striking the baby.
No additional details have been released.
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KENAI, Alaska (AP) — A company looking to bring a football field-sized airship to Alaska is planning to use it to transport liquefied natural gas to the state's rural areas.
PRL Logistics first announced plans to base an airship at its facility along the Kenai River last year. Founder and CEO of the Anchorage-based transportation and contracting company Ron Hyde updated the Kenai City Council on the project last week, The Peninsula Clarion reported (http://bit.ly/2qe8dSF).
The egg-shaped aircraft is under construction in California and is expected to be ready for use in 2019.
Hyde said his company has been working with ExxonMobil to add modular liquefied natural gas tanks on the airship that could be used to deliver North Slope gas to Alaska's isolated communities.
The airship can land on snow, ice, gravel and water and has space for 47,000 pounds of cargo. It generates lift from its aerodynamic shape and a helium-filled envelope. The aircraft can take off and land vertically, allowing it to deliver cargo in places without runways.
The goal of the Alaska project is to cut costs for construction projects in remote areas and make economic opportunities more accessible to smaller companies that may not have the money to build airstrips, ports and temporary roads to transport materials.
Hyde said pulling off small projects in Alaska can be "very expensive."
"If the cost of being able to do remote construction and responsible resource development can be reduced through reducing the logistics cost, some projects that might be close to going may actually go," he said.
PRL Logistics also plans to build a $10 million hangar in Kenai to house the airship and possibly move its accounting, procurement and technical teams from Anchorage to Kenai.
"With the amount of work we're able to execute down here, it makes sense to have our corporate capabilities located here as well," Hyde said.
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Information from: (Kenai, Alaska) Peninsula Clarion, http://www.peninsulaclarion.com
- By JONATHAN J. COOPER Associated Press
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SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) — California lawmakers are considering an audacious proposal that would substantially remake the state's health care system by eliminating insurance companies and guaranteeing coverage for everyone.
The idea known as single-payer health care has long been popular on the left. It's gaining traction with liberals as President Donald Trump struggles with his efforts to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act.
The proposal, promoted by the state's powerful nursing union and two Democratic senators, is a longshot. But the supporters hope the time is right to persuade lawmakers in California, where Democrats have long been willing to push the boundaries of liberal public policy and are now particularly eaaliger to stand up to the Republican president.
Hundreds of nurses are planning to rally Wednesday in Sacramento ahead of a hearing in the Senate Health Committee.
"We have the chance to make universal health care a reality now," Sen. Ricardo Lara, D-Bell Gardens, said last month. "It's time to talk about how we get to health care for all that covers more and costs less."
The measure would guarantee health coverage with no out-of-pocket costs for all residents of California, including people living in the country illegally. Private insurers would be barred from covering the same services, essentially eliminating them from the marketplace. Instead, a new state agency would contract with health care providers such as doctors and hospitals and pay the bills for everyone.
However, an essential question is still unanswered: Where will the money come from? California health care expenditures last year totaled more than $367 billion, according to the University of California, Los Angeles Center for Health Policy Research.
The bill envisions using all the money now spent on health care — from Medicare, Medicaid, federal public health funds, and Affordable Care Act subsidies. But it would also require tax increases on businesses, individuals or both.
Lara, who wrote the bill with Democratic Sen. Toni Atkins of San Diego, says they're working on details.
Employers, business groups and health plans have mobilized in opposition to the proposal, warning that it would require massive tax increases while forcing patients to wait a long time to see a doctor. They say the state should stay focused on implementing President Barack Obama's Affordable Care Act, which is credited with significantly reducing the ranks of the uninsured in California.
"A single-payer system would make the quality of our health care worse, not better," California Association of Health Plans President and CEO Charles Bacchi said in a statement when details of the bill were announced. "We've made substantial progress in expanding and increasing access to and quality of care - this step backwards would be particularly devastating for Californians."
The idea faces significant hurdles.
The legislation, SB562, would impact everyone— not just the roughly 8 percent of Californians who lack insurance — including people on Medicare and private, employer-sponsored insurance — plans that are generally well-liked by the people who have them. Replacing billions of dollars in health care spending by employers and individuals would require significant tax increases, which must have support from two-thirds of the Assembly and Senate.
And even if it were to clear the Legislature and be signed by Gov. Jerry Brown, it would require cooperation from Trump's administration to waive rules about federal Medicare and Medicaid dollars.
More like this...
- By BOB MOEN Associated Press
CHEYENNE, Wyo. (AP) — A state district judge is considering whether to dismiss a defamation lawsuit filed by a former Wyoming schools superintendent against a former U.S. House candidate.
Judge Thomas Campbell heard arguments Wednesday on a motion by Tim Stubson to dismiss the lawsuit filed against him by Cindy Hill.
Hill contends that Stubson made malicious and false statements about her during his U.S. House campaign last year. Stubson, also a former state legislator from Casper, lost in the Republican primary to Liz Cheney, who went on to win the seat in the general election.
Stubson's comments included a remark that Hill had committed "illegal" acts while she was superintendent, according to Hill's lawsuit.
Stubson's attorney, Monty Barnett, argued that any comments made by Stubson about Hill are protected political speech, noting that they occurred in the context of a political campaign and during a political debate.
"This is a First Amendment free speech case," Barnett said.
He said the lawsuit is "little more than a retaliatory strike" at Stubson.
Hill's attorney, her husband Drake Hill, argued that Stubson made maliciously false statements about Hill that are not protected free speech.
Stubson's characterization of Cindy Hill's actions as "illegal" implies criminal behavior that harmed her reputation, Drake Hill said.
"Calling that person a criminal is defamation per se," he said.
The comments by Stubson concerned the controversy over removing Cindy Hill as administrator of the state Education Department while she was state superintendent of public instruction. Stubson was a member of the Legislature in 2013 when a law was passed and signed by Gov. Matt Mead, removing the state superintendent as head of the agency.
The law was passed after high-ranking lawmakers and Mead clashed with Hill over how she was running the department. Stubson was among those who supported removing Hill.
Hill challenged the law in a lawsuit and a divided Wyoming Supreme Court struck down the law as unconstitutional.
Judge Campbell also was involved in that 2013 lawsuit, denying Hill's request to stop enforcement of the law until a court decision was rendered in the lawsuit.
Hill later challenged Mead in the 2014 GOP primary and lost.
PORTLAND, Ore. (AP) — An Oregon man who was investigated and fined by a state board for unlicensed practice of engineering has filed a lawsuit alleging the state's definition of an engineer violates the First Amendment.
Mats Jarlstrom, 56, was fined $500 after identifying himself as an engineer in emails he sent to Beaverton officials challenging Oregon's timing of yellow traffic lights as too short, The Oregonian/OregonLive reported (https://is.gd/WBmq6f).
The Beaverton man, who has a bachelor of science degree in engineering, has joined the Institute for Justice to file a federal civil rights lawsuit against members of the state Board of Examiners for Engineering and Land Surveying.
The board's attempt to keep people from calling themselves engineers if they're not an Oregon-licensed professional engineer is a violation of their right to free speech, Jarlstrom's attorneys said.
"It's important in my mind we can share ideas freely in Oregon to promote innovation," Jarlstrom said. "I feel violated at this point in time."
The state board has a history of investigations on others for using the word "engineer" including Portland City Council Commissioner Dan Saltzman, according to the lawsuit.
A spokesman for the board declined to comment.
This is not Jarlstorm's first lawsuit.
In 2014, Jarlstorm's filed a lawsuit against Beaverton that claimed the city's yellow lights were too short at intersections. Even though the judge tossed out his lawsuit, Jarlstorm continued presenting his findings from his studies to local media, CBS News show "60 Minutes" and the annual Institute of Transportation Engineers last summer.
His current lawsuit does not seek monetary damages.
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Information from: The Oregonian/OregonLive, http://www.oregonlive.com
CHEYENNE, Wyo. (AP) — Planning for Wyoming's first wolf-hunting season in four years will get going now that a federal court has lifted endangered species protection for wolves in the state.
The Wyoming Game and Fish Department said Wednesday it will draft plans for wolf hunting this fall after the court put wolves back under state control Tuesday.
The plans would allow regulated hunting in northwest Wyoming outside Yellowstone and Grand Teton national parks and northwest of the Wind River Indian Reservation.
Elsewhere in Wyoming, wolves as of Tuesday may once again be killed on sight at any time.
Wyoming held regulated wolf hunts in 2012 and 2013 before a judge put wolves back under federal control soon before a planned 2014 hunt. Hunters killed 23 wolves in the 2013 hunt.
- By STEVEN DUBOIS Associated Press
PORTLAND, Ore. (AP) — The son of former Oregon Gov. John Kitzhaber says his crash into a motor home last 4th of July was a desperately needed wake-up call.
Logan Kitzhaber, 19, of Portland pleaded guilty last month to assault and driving under the influence of intoxicants for causing the wreck on U.S. Highway 101 near the Oregon coast. As part of his plea agreement, he had to write a letter to the injured occupants of the motor home — Stan and Martha Lyckman of Port Angeles, Washington.
Kitzhaber, in a letter dated April 11, said he was a misguided teenager without any motivation at the time of the crash. He was addicted to popping pills and had no interests outside of drugs.
"This wreck was the culmination of my journey down a long, dark, emotional path laden with prescription pills," he wrote. "On Independence Day I hit rock bottom."
When he awoke in the hospital, he realized his life must change: "I truly believe that if I hadn't crashed, I would have overdosed."
State Police said Kitzhaber was driving to Lincoln City in a Toyota Prius registered to his father. The car crossed the centerline and then sideswiped the motorhome. Kitzhaber apologized to the Lyckmans, saying his poor choice has forever changed their lives. He promised to avoid intoxicants, pursue his education and never again recklessly endanger innocent people.
"Nobody deserves what I put you through," he wrote.
Kitzhaber pleaded guilty and was sentenced March 27 to a week in jail and five years on probation. He was also ordered to undergo drug and alcohol treatment and his license was suspended for five years.
The Lyckmans submitted a victim-impact statement to Lincoln County Circuit Court, letting Kitzhaber know how the crash upended their lives — emotionally, physically and financially.
"In the course of a few seconds, we went from being happy campers to being crippled," Martha Lyckman wrote. "With no time to pray, we experienced horror."
The letter says Stan Lyckman has endured six surgeries and nearly lost his leg. Moreover, he developed a severe blood clot that caused concern for his life.
Martha Lyckman, who retired four days before the crash, said her injuries are more emotional than physical: "Rattled to the core is the only way I can express the deeply penetrating trauma I have experienced."
Kitzhaber's father served three full terms as Oregon governor. He resigned early in his fourth term, in February 2015, amid an influence-peddling scandal.
- By CHARLIE BRENNAN Daily Camera
BOULDER, Colo. (AP) — It's the time of year that honeybee swarms typically start to take wing, setting beekeepers' phone lines ablaze as word spreads about their availability to collect and place in awaiting hives.
But anxiety is running high in the local beekeeping community as April draws to a close, with word-of-mouth reporting of a high number of lost colonies over the winter. Firm explanations are proving elusive.
Hygiene-area beekeeper Tony Lewis lost eight out of his 10 colonies over the winter — and can't figure out why.
"It sucked," Lewis said. "It's the highest loss I've ever had. I've come close to that (before), but not quite."
As for possible reasons, Lewis said, "This is totally anecdotal ... but it seems like people in Boulder Valley lost more than in Denver, but who the hell knows why? It is so speculative. Is there more pesticide use and herbicide use (in Boulder County) because it is more ag than Denver? Maybe."
Lafayette resident Bill Pomeroy had two active hives going into the winter, and now has just one. He has heard about high losses suffered locally, including another Lafayette beekeeper who lost a dozen colonies.
"It's crazy," said Pomeroy.
One theory he'd heard is the suggestion that nanoparticles of aluminum in so-called "chemtrails" left by airplanes are working their way into the environment at a level that is having a negative effect on pollinators.
This idea has been branded by many to be little more than a conspiracy theory. A group of scientists from the University of California-Irvine surveyed 77 atmospheric chemists and geoscientists and 76 said they had found no evidence of such spraying, according to an article on seeker.com.
The Front Range experienced an unusually mild autumn and a relatively mild winter, but Pomeroy doesn't see that as a factor.
"If anything, they would have been able to survive better, because they wouldn't be eating so much" of the honey that they store and depend on to survive the winter season, he said.
But Lewis floated a possible explanation related to climate change.
That theory, he said, is that, "Because we have these really warm days in the winter that we never used to have ... they come out of their balls that they bunch up in, in the hive, to keep warm.
"Then, when it gets cold again quickly, they don't get back into their ball. But who the hell knows?"
'SO DEPRESSING'
Beth Conrey, a Berthoud resident and past president of the Colorado State Beekeepers Association, as well as current vice president of Boulder County Beekeepers Association, said in an email, "I have heard rumors of large losses but can neither confirm nor deny them as I have no locally collected data from which to draw.
"Personally," Conrey added, "I sustained 20 percent losses. This is much better than previous years but still unsustainable. Imagine if it were cattle or corn ... I had a neighbor who lost all eight of his hives. His daughter lost all three of hers. I am certain there are folks around the state with similar tales to tell."
The losses are far more than rumor, according to man whose livelihood is bees — Tim Brod, owner and operator of Highland Honey, based in unincorporated Boulder County, who currently presides over 165 to 180 hives in multiple locations. He believes that he might have seen 35 to 40 percent of his hives go dark over the winter. But he has heard figures tossed around by others of losses as high as 60 percent.
"It's just, like, so depressing," Brod said.
He is convinced there is no simple explanation for the current situation.
"When you're looking at a biological system, there's not one single factor," he said. "There's a constellation of events going on, and those events get more intensified when you live in a highly populated area."
Brod sees three factors at work. One is the increased use of pesticides and herbicides. Another is the decrease in available forage for apian life as development continues across the Front Range. The third leg of the stool is backyard beekeepers doing an inadequate job of learning about — and treating their bees for — Varroa destructor, a parasitic mite that attacks honeybees in their hives.
"There's not enough people who thoroughly understand Varroa and are treating for it," Brod said. "The last thing I want to do — we don't want to blame backyard beekeepers, because backyard beekeepers are responsible for kicking the wheel of awareness for helping us change laws and regulations" regulating the use of harmful chemicals. But, he said, "There is more backyard beekeepers need to do."
'UNPRECEDENTED,' GETTING WORSE
Tom Theobald, of Niwot, is also a past president of the state beekeepers' association and a founder of the Boulder County Beekeepers Association. He has heard of hive losses locally this winter of up to 80 percent.
On the list of culprits, Theobald rates high the use of neonicotinoids, a class of neuroactive insecticides. The estimated four million pounds that are used each year nationally on crops, he said, represent only about 10 percent of the total neonicotinoid use, with the other 90 percent going to seed treatment. With an estimated 5,000 to 10,000 times more toxicity than DDT, Theobald said, neonicotinoids are having a devastating effect on pollinators.
Once the keeper of about 200 hives, Theobald said last year he was down to 12 — and that none of those survived this winter.
"Every year is unprecedented," Theobald said. "This is my 42nd year of beekeeping. Before these problems began, my losses would have been on the order of 2 to 5 percent. In a really severe winter or unusual circumstances, that might have gone to 10 percent. But what we're seeing now is unprecedented. And it's getting worse every year."
Brod urged support for HJR 17-1029, the Colorado Highway Pollinator bill, a resolution to designate U.S. 76 from Denver to the Nebraska state line as a bee-friendly highway. It would encourage the Colorado Department of Transportation to manage the right-of-way to promote pollinator habitat. Rep. KC Becker, D-Boulder, is a primary sponsor.
With significant winter hive loss and beekeepers typically dependent on swarm hotlines to replenish or stock their backyard hives, there's a possibility there simply won't be enough swarms to go around this spring, Conrey said.
"Insufficient swarms have happened before," she said. "We have had several years when swarm seasons were poor. And when that happens, people simply have to do without. Can't create them."
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Information from: Daily Camera, http://www.dailycamera.com/
OREM, Utah (AP) — A Utah Valley University student says he accidentally discharged a gun being stored in his book bag while sitting in a busy cafeteria.
The Salt Lake Tribune reports (http://bit.ly/2pjc3uv ) no injuries were made known to authorities after the gun fired on Tuesday.
The student says the handgun fired after he reached into his book bag. The bullet struck a table and a light fixture.
A university spokesman says the student had a valid concealed carry permit. It is legal to carry a concealed firearm on a college campus in Utah.
A police investigation is ongoing.
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Information from: The Salt Lake Tribune, http://www.sltrib.com
- By MELISSA CASSUTT Jackson Hole and News Guide
JACKSON, Wyo. (AP) — It takes a long time to get to the top of the tallest mountain of the world.
The nearly 39-mile trek from Lukla, Nepal, to the base of Mount Everest can take from eight days to nearly two weeks. Getting to the summit takes another four to six weeks of breathless climbing and multiple passes through one of the most deadly and dangerous spots on the mountain.
The swiftest groups — pre-acclimatized and kissed by good luck with a well-timed weather opening — make it from Lukla to the peak of the 29,029-foot mountain in four weeks. Ellen Gallant hopes to make it in about seven, by her 51st birthday on May 16.
But if she's honest about it, it's taken her 15 years to get here.
"In my life it's about pushing my limits and finding where I cry 'uncle,'" Gallant said. "I start with running 10Ks and I move to marathons and I move to triathlons and then Ironman triathlons. I'm pushing the limit to see where I reach my limit in terms of what I'm physically capable of."
Gallant has faced this mountain three times before — the first, a trip that launched a love for Nepal, mountaineering and the mountain itself. The other two treks to the mountain, taken in the spring of 2014 and 2015, were marred by such severe tragedy that she returned to the states with nightmares of what she'd seen.
Gallant, a cardiologist and mountaineer, twice switched from hopeful climber to working doctor, triaging the wounded and identifying those killed by an avalanche. She's seen the mountain swallow men whole.
That's why she's going back. She doesn't want to remember Everest as a place of tragedy.
"I feel like I can't leave things the way I did in '15," she said. "I got to give it one last go."
FIRST CLIMB IN THE TETONS
The first mountain Gallant ever climbed was the Grand Teton.
She was working in Austin, Texas, at the time, and a friend suggested they take a trip to Jackson. She'd never even been in a climbing gym, but she's always been someone who likes to push herself. The two took an Exum climbing course and summited the peak in the summer of 2000.
After that she was always trying to find her way back.
"It's always been about trying to find a way to live here," Gallant said. "It was 15 years or so of trying to get to Jackson."
Gallant landed a job in the community in 2015, coming on as a cardiologist at St. John's Medical Center. By that time her love for mountaineering had also solidified, starting with a trip to the Himalayas in 2002 that first set her sights on Everest.
She had traveled to Cambodia and Thailand with a group of friends, but branched off on her own to Nepal, wanting to take the trek up the Khumbu Valley to Everest base camp.
"It was incredible running around camp, seeing all these interesting people," she said.
On the trip back she stopped at Gorak Shep, a small settlement along the trekking route. She spent the night, and in the morning plopped down at a big picnic table with a bunch of other women for breakfast. The women turned out to be a group of American climbers, assembled for the first all-female expedition up Everest.
"Literally, it was this 30-minute breakfast with these women and they talked to me about climbing, why they loved it," Gallant said, "and it just absolutely changed my life."
She climbed Mount Rainier in Washington the following fall.
"It was my first time on crampons, first time with an ice ax," she said. "Since then it's been about getting back to Everest, being worthy of the mountain and being ready and trained."
She's since climbed Rainier eight times by five routes. She's climbed the Grand six times, the Matterhorn, a 14,692-foot peak straddling the borders of Switzerland and Italy, and Cho Oyu in Tibet, the sixth highest mountain in the world at 26,864 feet. She's summited three of the "Seven Summits," named for being the highest mountains on each of the seven continents — Aconcagua in Argentina, Denali in Alaska and Mount Vinson in Antarctica.
"I've been lucky to climb all over the world, beautiful mountains," Gallant said. "But it's always in the back of my head: Everest. I want to know if I'm capable of standing at 29,000 feet. And I just don't know the answer."
ATTEMPTING TO SUMMIT
Gallant knew she wanted to make an attempt at a summit in the spring of 2014, but she also knew it would mean sacrifice. One of the first was leaving a practice of eight cardiologists. She spent the final months of 2013 and the first few of 2014 focused on training, and left for Kathmandu in March of 2014.
The acclimatization process included climbing Lobuche, a nearby mountain, before starting rotations up Everest. In April, her team planned a rotation through the Khumbu Icefall, but decided to wait another day because one member of the party was having trouble with the altitude.
The sound when the ice avalanche released was the loudest thing Gallant had ever heard.
"When I heard it I unzipped my tent, looked toward the West shoulder and saw this ice release coming," she said. "It seemed like it went on for a minute or two."
There were a lot of Sherpas, people native to Nepal, in the icefall that day, backed up because one of the ladders used to cross was out.
Gallant threw clothes on and ran out to see what had happened. A Western guide equipped with a radio intercepted her, and pointed her to "Everest ER," a medical tent set up at base camp.
"This is really bad," he told her.
Sixteen men were killed and buried in the avalanche. Dozens of others were injured.
"We had a number of walking wounded who came in," she said. "We had five or six folks who were helicoptered to us in critical condition, and then there were 16 men buried."
After treating the patients in the tent, Gallant was called to the helipad, where climbers had been working to get the bodies out from the ice.
"There's this belief in Buddhism that the families need the bodies to allow reincarnation," she said. "So these amazing Sherpas, these amazing Western climbers stayed there in harm's way to dig out these men."
She stood with other climbers as helicopters long-lined the dead from the icefall to base camp, where they were unclipped, placed under a blue tarp and photographed with an iPhone. She scrolled through her phone with sirdars — lead Sherpas — showing them pictures of the dead, asking for identification.
"It was just this horrifying thing that still lives in my brain," she said.
The mountain closed to climbing after the disaster and Gallant made her way back to the states. She returned the next spring, ready to face the mountain again.
"I wasn't ready to give up just yet," she said.
SECOND ATTEMPT AT A SUMMIT
Gallant returned to Everest in 2015 with a new team. They acclimatized as they had before, climbing Lobuche, starting rotations up to camps one, two and three.
The group had one last rotation up to camp three planned, and then they'd be waiting for their weather window for the summit.
A little before lunchtime on April the rumbling started. She unzipped her tent and looked toward Pumori and Lingtren, two mountains west of Everest, across the Khumbu Valley.
"It was the earthquake happening," she said. "By the time I unzipped and looked, there was this massive avalanche coming toward us."
The quake registered at 7.8 on the Richter scale, triggering massive ice and snow avalanches on Pumori and Lingtren.
"It wasn't a typical avalanche," Gallant said. "If I'm in the backcountry, I get buried. That's not what happened. Because of the geology and how long and skinny the valley is, the earthquake triggered the avalanche that then led to an air blast.
"What killed and injured people was blunt-force trauma," she said. "It was 16-pound propane tanks being thrown across camp."
Gallant was thrown on her face into her face in her tent, knocking out her left front tooth. Bleeding from her mouth, she shoved the tooth back in and rushed to find the other doctors on site. Two tents were set up, one for head injuries and long-bone fractures, the other for internal injuries. They split up the work, each taking a dozen patients to look over.
She made rounds aside Dr. Ritesh Goel, a doctor with the Indian army. Together they injected doses of Decadron, a steroid that reduces cerebral swelling, and parceled out pain meds they'd collected from other climbers.
"In the states all of these patients would be an IV going and saline and pain meds, and we just didn't have it," she said. "Everyone in camp, whatever drugs they had, just gave them to us. We basically did what we could."
Around 2 a.m. a Sherpa brought her a sleeping bag. She was exhausted and she needed to sleep.
"I tried to lie down on the ground and it was completely soaked with blood," she said. "I remember the smell — that sort of iron smell of blood — and I couldn't take it. All of these men, all of these incredible Sherpa who were so critically injured, they're lying in this blood-soaked carpet."
Two hours later a Sherpa was brought in unconscious. Soon after that his breathing became shallow and his pulse weak.
"There was really nothing to do," Gallant said, tears coming to her eyes. "I sat down next to him, held his hand and knew he was about to die."
Ritesh held a stethoscope to his chest and confirmed the silence. Together they placed his body in a sleeping bag, duct-taped the ends and tagged it with a time of death.
"I later found out that he was in his late 30s, he guided for one of the local Nepali companies and he had three kids," she said. "And he was there because of us. He was there because he was a Sherpa climbing with us. Things like that just vividly live in my memory at this point."
GOING BACK TO THE MOUNTAIN
In many ways preparing to head back to Everest for a third attempt at the summit feels familiar.
Gallant spent months sleeping in a high-altitude tent, a chamber that replaces oxygen with nitrogen to create an oxygen-deprived environment similar to what she'll face on Everest. Since October she's been sleeping above 8,000 feet, most recently spending most nights at 18,000 feet. On weekends she has been climbing into the tent and setting it to 23,000 feet to watch "movies that I don't have to think very hard about."
She spent her evenings and weekends hiking the bootpack up Snow King and Mount Glory in crampons, hauling a 40-pound bag of cat litter. She spent mornings cycling on her road bike, set up on a trainer in her living room, watching CNN with a hypoxic mask strapped to her face and a pulse oximeter on her index finger to measure her oxygen saturation.
She had a personal trainer asking her to smash tires with 25-pound sledge hammers and a massage therapist helping prevent another tear to her hamstring, an injury she suffered in 2015. Again she resigned, leaving her position at St. John's so she can return to Nepal.
A lot of the preparation has been the same. Though mentally, it's a different journey back.
YOU'RE NOT IN CONTROL
"In '14 and '15, I was so sure I was going to make it — no question about it. I was ready, nothing was going to stop me. And two major disasters happened. What I took away is that I'm not in control of everything. That is probably a good lesson for life. I'm just going into this in a very different, quieter mindset this year."
She wears a red prayer cord around her neck, a gift she hasn't removed since it was given to her by a monk at the Tengboche Monastery as she was hiking out from base camp after the 2015 earthquake.
She holds this blessing, along with notes she's received from people all over the world, close to her heart. She reads the letters often, like the one she received from a Sherpa who wrote her in August 2015. The mountaineer had lost a cousin and several friends in the earthquake.
"Sherpa are Buddhists by religion and our faith is deeply rooted in karma — as you sow, so shall you reap. So, Ellen, karma is like a mirror and your good karma will someday reflect back with good consequences, for sure," she read, choking up a few times. "I on behalf of the people of Nepal and all climbing Sherpas, would like pay my highest gratitude for your wonderful contribution to save the victims and survivors of the avalanche tragedy both this year and in 2014."
"After '14 and even more so in '15, I kind of felt like a failure. I go twice, I quit a job for 2014 to train. And the thing that I found most humbling was messages like this," Gallant said. "It was good friends who said that what I ended up doing was what I was meant to do."
She knows she might again fail to reach the summit. And for everything the mountain, the people and the place have given her, she has plans to give back, regardless of what happens. She aims to become more involved with dZi Foundation, established to improve the health and lives of remote communities in Nepal, and One Heart World-Wide, a Nepalese-based nonprofit aimed at preventing mother and child deaths caused by complications in pregnancy and childbirth.
Even if she never gets to the top of Everest, a piece of her heart will always be in the Himalayas. This year she's looking to offer that piece a little healing.
"The way I'm going into this is I've done everything I can. I've trained as hard as I can and I'm mentally prepared and I still don't know. I still don't know if I can do it. I think so much of it is the mountain goddess deciding. Just very quietly and humbly I'm going into this, and we'll just see how it happens."
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Information from: Jackson Hole (Wyo.) News And Guide, http://www.jhnewsandguide.com
EUGENE, Ore. (AP) — Aggravated theft charges have been filed against a bookkeeper accused of stealing $250,000 from the drug and alcohol treatment that employed her in Eugene, Oregon.
An arrest warrant affidavit written by a Eugene police detective says 60-year-old Melodi Ann Sappe used some of the money to purchase Visa gift cards worth tens of thousands of dollars.
The Register-Guard reports (http://bit.ly/2owLzbV ) Sappe pleaded not guilty at her arraignment Tuesday.
Sappe has been fired the center, Serenity Lane. She had worked there since 2004.
Serenity Lane moved from Eugene to a new facility in Coburg last year.
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Information from: The Register-Guard, http://www.registerguard.com
ALBUQUERQUE (AP) — The Albuquerque Police Department is using its official Facebook page to criticize area judges and local news media.
The Albuquerque Journal reports (https://goo.gl/EKFlRl) in recent months the department has used its social media page to highlight specific actions by judges and the media. In some posts, Albuquerque police criticize them and have attracted hundreds of harsh comments from the public.
Some user comments have called for violence against judges or accused reporters of crimes.
Albuquerque police spokeswoman Celina Espinoza says there is a lot of finger-pointing over the city's crime rates and the police are only trying to tell "the whole story."
Heath Haussamen, a board member of the Rio Grande Chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists, says said the chapter opposes the department's use of social media as its main medium for distributing information.
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Information from: Albuquerque Journal, http://www.abqjournal.com
LAS VEGAS (AP) — Authorities say a four-month-old baby has been hospitalized after a shooting at an apartment complex east of the Las Vegas Strip.
The infant suffered injuries that were not considered life-threatening after being shot in the hand Tuesday.
Las Vegas police say the child was inside an apartment with family at the time of the shooting.
Preliminary information suggests a gun was fired in a neighboring apartment and the bullet went through the wall, striking the baby.
No additional details have been released.
KENAI, Alaska (AP) — A company looking to bring a football field-sized airship to Alaska is planning to use it to transport liquefied natural gas to the state's rural areas.
PRL Logistics first announced plans to base an airship at its facility along the Kenai River last year. Founder and CEO of the Anchorage-based transportation and contracting company Ron Hyde updated the Kenai City Council on the project last week, The Peninsula Clarion reported (http://bit.ly/2qe8dSF).
The egg-shaped aircraft is under construction in California and is expected to be ready for use in 2019.
Hyde said his company has been working with ExxonMobil to add modular liquefied natural gas tanks on the airship that could be used to deliver North Slope gas to Alaska's isolated communities.
The airship can land on snow, ice, gravel and water and has space for 47,000 pounds of cargo. It generates lift from its aerodynamic shape and a helium-filled envelope. The aircraft can take off and land vertically, allowing it to deliver cargo in places without runways.
The goal of the Alaska project is to cut costs for construction projects in remote areas and make economic opportunities more accessible to smaller companies that may not have the money to build airstrips, ports and temporary roads to transport materials.
Hyde said pulling off small projects in Alaska can be "very expensive."
"If the cost of being able to do remote construction and responsible resource development can be reduced through reducing the logistics cost, some projects that might be close to going may actually go," he said.
PRL Logistics also plans to build a $10 million hangar in Kenai to house the airship and possibly move its accounting, procurement and technical teams from Anchorage to Kenai.
"With the amount of work we're able to execute down here, it makes sense to have our corporate capabilities located here as well," Hyde said.
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Information from: (Kenai, Alaska) Peninsula Clarion, http://www.peninsulaclarion.com
- By JONATHAN J. COOPER Associated Press
SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) — California lawmakers are considering an audacious proposal that would substantially remake the state's health care system by eliminating insurance companies and guaranteeing coverage for everyone.
The idea known as single-payer health care has long been popular on the left. It's gaining traction with liberals as President Donald Trump struggles with his efforts to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act.
The proposal, promoted by the state's powerful nursing union and two Democratic senators, is a longshot. But the supporters hope the time is right to persuade lawmakers in California, where Democrats have long been willing to push the boundaries of liberal public policy and are now particularly eaaliger to stand up to the Republican president.
Hundreds of nurses are planning to rally Wednesday in Sacramento ahead of a hearing in the Senate Health Committee.
"We have the chance to make universal health care a reality now," Sen. Ricardo Lara, D-Bell Gardens, said last month. "It's time to talk about how we get to health care for all that covers more and costs less."
The measure would guarantee health coverage with no out-of-pocket costs for all residents of California, including people living in the country illegally. Private insurers would be barred from covering the same services, essentially eliminating them from the marketplace. Instead, a new state agency would contract with health care providers such as doctors and hospitals and pay the bills for everyone.
However, an essential question is still unanswered: Where will the money come from? California health care expenditures last year totaled more than $367 billion, according to the University of California, Los Angeles Center for Health Policy Research.
The bill envisions using all the money now spent on health care — from Medicare, Medicaid, federal public health funds, and Affordable Care Act subsidies. But it would also require tax increases on businesses, individuals or both.
Lara, who wrote the bill with Democratic Sen. Toni Atkins of San Diego, says they're working on details.
Employers, business groups and health plans have mobilized in opposition to the proposal, warning that it would require massive tax increases while forcing patients to wait a long time to see a doctor. They say the state should stay focused on implementing President Barack Obama's Affordable Care Act, which is credited with significantly reducing the ranks of the uninsured in California.
"A single-payer system would make the quality of our health care worse, not better," California Association of Health Plans President and CEO Charles Bacchi said in a statement when details of the bill were announced. "We've made substantial progress in expanding and increasing access to and quality of care - this step backwards would be particularly devastating for Californians."
The idea faces significant hurdles.
The legislation, SB562, would impact everyone— not just the roughly 8 percent of Californians who lack insurance — including people on Medicare and private, employer-sponsored insurance — plans that are generally well-liked by the people who have them. Replacing billions of dollars in health care spending by employers and individuals would require significant tax increases, which must have support from two-thirds of the Assembly and Senate.
And even if it were to clear the Legislature and be signed by Gov. Jerry Brown, it would require cooperation from Trump's administration to waive rules about federal Medicare and Medicaid dollars.
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