Smoky skies, overdose deaths, waterpark opens for season
A Sioux Falls teenager charged in a deadly car crash more than a year ago now wants his trial moved.
Defendant in deadly SF crash wants new trial location
Three recent overdose deaths are focusing renewed attention on the fentanyl problem in Sioux Falls.
Overdose deaths prompt response from Police Chief
We have new information about a Hot Springs man who had been missing for nearly a year.
Missing Hot Springs man's remains found
Highs will stay above average in the 70s and 80s with winds staying on the lighter side East River. While there will be plenty of sunshine, the blue skies will be covered with haze as Canadian wildfire smoke sinks southward.
Storm Center AM Update: Smoke and Warmth Hangs Around
The first waves of customers have also arrived at Wild Water West. The water park, west of Sioux Falls, held its official opening of the season Friday, following a soft-opening on Thursday.
Opening weekend at Wild Water West
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Axios
6 hours ago
- Axios
Cops, cartels and the new drone wars on the border
On the U.S. side of the southern border, local law enforcement officials have begun using AI-programmed drones to locate drug traffickers and migrants. On the Mexico side, drug cartels are using their own drones to stake out desert areas in the U.S. to smuggle their products. Why it matters: The U.S. government — whose own patrol drones help create what it calls a "virtual wall" — has long fueled the tech war along the border. But now even small local agencies are stepping into this arms race against cartels and illegal immigration. The big picture: The drone wars are unfolding even as migrant traffic has dropped to its lowest levels in decades. They're being driven in part by staffing shortages in police and sheriff's departments, as well as cuts in federal aid that have limited traditional patrols. Local agencies in Arizona, for example, have begun using drones to investigate a range of headaches: illegal dumping, methamphetamine labs operating off isolated, rural roads, and rescuing migrants or hikers in the scorching desert. The number of U.S. law enforcement agencies using drones has jumped 150% since 2018, according to a report released this year. Most use them as "first responders" to emergencies to assess scenes. Zoom in: The sheriff's office in Arizona's Cochise County — which shares 84 miles of its border with Mexico — recently announced it's launching a drone pilot program powered by Canadian drone-maker Draganfly, whose UAVs (unmanned aerial vehicles) are used by groups in Ukraine to detect landmines. In the border city of Laredo, Texas, police said earlier this month they'll deploy BRINC Drones to help them respond to emergencies within seconds. Sunland Park, N.M., near El Paso, is already using drones to help its fire and police departments rescue stranded migrants and hikers on Mount Cristo Rey, and those struggling to cross the Rio Grande. The Texas National Guard and New Mexico State Police also are using drones. How they work: Unlike commercial consumer drones, the high-tech police drones can fly for hours, collect data using AI, recreate crash scenes in minutes and direct deputies and officers to scenes using GPS. Cochise County's AI-enhanced quadcopters, for example, have thermal imaging for search-and-rescue and nighttime operations, and to locate potential cartel traffic in the border county's 6,200 square miles. Laredo's drones will be able to follow car chases, find out if a domestic violence suspect is armed before police arrive and even drop off Narcan to help someone counter an opioid overdose. What they're saying: "Cochise County wanted surveillance tied to their AI system to understand what's happening in all those remote areas of the border," Draganfly CEO Cameron Chell told Axios. Chell said the county also wanted a drone that could provide close air support for their personnel, deliver equipment and help catch or locate suspects. "You can secure your border in a much more effective way than trying to rush a bunch of people around to spots where nobody's going to be anymore." The intrigue: Some drones can monitor anything from ground-penetrating radar to air quality and can measure a person's heart rate, respiratory rate, blood pressure, and oxygen level from 500 meters away, Chell said. State of play: The local drone race comes as suspected cartels in Mexico are flying thousands of drones over U.S. territory, U.S. Department of Homeland Security officials say. Steven Willoughby, deputy director of DHS's counter-drone program, told a U.S. Senate committee last month that cartel drones made more than 27,000 flights within 500 meters of the southern border during the last six months of 2024. They're "flying between the hours of 8 p.m. and 4 a.m., when the cover of darkness can obscure illicit activity," Willoughby testified. He said the drones can fly for more than 45 minutes, reach more than 100 mph and carry more than 100 pounds. Some drones operated by cartels have dropped explosives on rival factions in Mexico, Willoughby said, although no such actions have been reported on the U.S. side.
Yahoo
21 hours ago
- Yahoo
This is our second-worst wildfire season on record — and could be the new normal
This year's wildfire season is already the second-worst on record in Canada, and experts are warning that this might be the new normal. More than 7.3 million hectares have burned this year so far, more than double the 10-year average for this time of year, according to the latest figures from the Canadian Interagency Forest Fire Centre (CIFFC) and Natural Resources Canada. "It's the size of New Brunswick, to put it into context," Mike Flannigan, a professor of wildland fire at Thompson Rivers University, told CBC News. The last three fire seasons are among the 10 worst on record, according to a federal database dating back to 1972, with 2023's devastating blazes taking the top spot. "I've never seen three bad fire seasons in a row," Flannigan, who has been studying fires since the '70s, said. "I've seen two in a row: '94, '95. I've never seen three. This is scary." Manitoba and Saskatchewan account for more than half the area burned so far, but British Columbia, Alberta and Ontario are all also well above their 25-year averages. Fire bans have been announced in multiple provinces, including a total ban on going in the woods in Nova Scotia. Meanwhile, the military and coast guard were called in to help fight fires in Newfoundland and Labrador this week. Around 1,400 international firefighters have also helped fight Canadian fires so far this year, according to the CIFFC. Scientists say that climate change, driven by the burning of fossil fuels, has created longer fire seasons and drier landscapes, sparking more intense and widespread forest fires. "I used to always say… some years are cooler and wetter and we will get quiet years," Flannigan said. "But maybe every year's going to be a bad fire year now." Dry conditions across the country have allowed fires to quickly balloon this fire season. "The forests of Canada are too dry, too hot," Environment Canada climatologist David Phillips told CBC News. "This year… there's no kind of reprieve from what we've seen." This year has seen notable blazes in regions where we haven't historically, such as Newfoundland and Labrador, where one fire has grown to over 5,200 hectares. Yan Boulanger, a research scientist in forest ecology at Natural Resources Canada, says Newfoundland "is not used to [seeing] huge fires." "But we will have to get more and more used to it, because those ecosystems are also projected to see an increase in fire activity in the upcoming decades." The other outlier is Quebec, which was one of the hardest-hit provinces in 2023, when an estimated 4.5 million hectares burned. This year, the province has had a much milder fire season, thanks to frequent precipitation in the spring and early summer, Boulanger says. But a sudden bout of dry conditions in August, usually a quiet fire month for the province, has experts recommending vigilance. Consequences of repeated fires Bad back-to-back fire seasons can have huge consequences. Fire is a natural part of the lifecycle for many tree species, but a forest can become damaged to the point where trees cannot regrow in the area for years, or even decades. It's called "regeneration failure." "The problem is when we have too much fire and we are getting out of what we are calling the natural variability of the system," Boulanger said. "When such things happen… the forest can lose its resilience." Scientists are already seeing it in regions of Quebec that were heavily damaged in 2023, and in parts of the Northwest Territories and Alberta, Boulanger says. Right now, around 300,000 to 400,000 hectares are affected by regeneration failure in Quebec. Fewer trees means less carbon being stored, exacerbating the problem of increased emissions that occur during widespread forest fires. The 2023 fires produced nearly a quarter of the year's global wildfire carbon emissions. Meanwhile, wildfire smoke has been linked to a myriad of health complications, including a higher risk of dementia. WATCH | Calls picking up for a national wildfire agency: With intense wildfires becoming an annual problem in Canada on a new scale, we need more strategies, experts say. The Canadian Association of Fire Chiefs (CAFC) has called on Ottawa to establish a national forest fire co-ordination agency to ensure that personnel and equipment can be distributed across the country when different regions are seeing heavy fires, and that fire chiefs are at the table when national policies are made. The government has been studying the possibility of creating a national disaster response agency since 2023, and met with CAFC to discuss it in December. But it's time to move beyond the planning stage, according to Ken McMullen, the organization's president and fire chief in Red Deer, Alta. "All parties are saying that they think it's a good idea. The reality is nobody's helped pick up the ball and get it across the finish line," he said. Flannigan, at Thompson Rivers University, supports the idea, but believes we need to go further and create a robust national emergency management agency that would be able to provide training for fighting wildfires, forecast where fires are likely to occur and whether they're a danger, and then move resources there proactively. "Yes, it's going to cost money, but if it prevents one Jasper, one Fort McMurray, it pays for itself," he said, referring to the Alberta communities ravaged in recent years by fires. "The status quo doesn't seem to be working. We're spending billions and billions of dollars on fire management expenditures, but our area burned has quadrupled since the 1970s."
NBC News
a day ago
- NBC News
'Cold-hearted' scammers targeted hundreds by posing as grandkids in distress, prosecutors say
Thirteen citizens of the Dominican Republic have been charged with scamming 400 grandparents in the U.S. out of $5 million by posing over the phone as their grandchildren in need of help — sometimes targeting the same victims over and over — federal prosecutors said Tuesday. Grandparents in Massachusetts, California, New York, Florida and Maryland received calls from people saying they were their grandchild and had just been in a car accident or arrested or was in the midst of another emergency, said Leah Foley, the U.S. attorney for the district of Massachusetts. Their goal, Foley said, was to trick the seniors into handing over their life's savings to help their loved one. In many instances, Foley said the defendants called panicked victims 'again and again,' feigning another emergency to push for more money. 'These scams are not just financially devastating, they are emotionally traumatizing,' Foley said Tuesday at a news conference in Boston. 'Many victims not only lost their savings, but their sense of safety, judgment and trust in the world around them.' Prosecutors said the defendants ran a sophisticated criminal enterprise from organized call centers in the Dominican Republic. They hired people who spoke English to pose as the grandchildren and lawyers as well as others in the U.S. to collect the cash from victims' homes, Foley said. The average age of the victims was 84, and at least 50 of them were in Massachusetts, she said. In some cases, the fraudsters knew the name of the grandchild, Foley said. In other cases, prosecutors said they followed a vague script, identifying themselves as 'your oldest grandson.' The defendants are all citizens of the Dominican Republic. Nine are in custody, while four — from New York, New Jersey and Florida — are still at-large, prosecutors said. Most of them face a conspiracy to commit mail fraud and wire fraud charge, which is punishable by up to 20 years in prison, and a money laundering conspiracy charge, which is also punishable by up to 20 years in prison. The fraud scheme is not uncommon. In March, authorities charged 25 Canadian suspects with bilking U.S. seniors out of $21 million in a similar grandparent scam. Ted Docks, the special agent in charge of the FBI's Boston field office, said criminals overseas are 'doing this in epidemic levels.' 'What the accused did in targeting our seniors was calculated, cold-hearted and cruel,' he said. 'No grandparent should ever have to wonder if the next call they get is it a cry for help or a trap.'
