As fall begins in Alaska, wildfires linked to warming rage on

FILE PHOTO: Firefighters from the Chugach National Forest work to protect the Romig Cabin on Juneau Lake from the Swan Lake Fire near Cooper Landing, Alaska, U.S. in this August 28, 2019 handout photo. Chugach National Forest/Handout via

By Yereth Rosen

SEWARD, Alaska (Reuters) – Leaves in Alaska are changing color and the rainy season is supposed to begin, but wildfires are raging on in an unusually long and fierce fire season that scientists say is linked to the far north’s long-term climate warmup.

Usually, Alaska wildfires wind down by late July, but this week, the state Department of Natural Resources extended the official fire season to Sept. 30. Last week, Governor Mike Dunleavy declared state emergencies for fires burning north and south of Anchorage.

The most serious blaze is the Swan Lake Fire on the Kenai Peninsula south of Anchorage, which had grown to over 160,000 acres (64,750 hectares) by Thursday and the 3,300-acre (1,335- hectare) McKinley Fire north of Anchorage.

Billowing smoke from the Swan Lake Fire has sent particulate pollution levels in the Kenai Peninsula to some of the worst measured anywhere in the world. Ignited by an early June lightning strike, the fire has snarled traffic and nearly shut down tourism in an area famous for its outdoor recreation.

In the port town of Seward, thick smoke blowing south from the Swan Lake fire blotted out the normally spectacular views of mountains and glaciers and forced cancelation of tourists’ excursions.

“What can you do? Global warming,” said Marlee Hernandez at Exit Glacier Tours in Seward.

“It’s been kind of a botched summer,” said Joe Drevets, who was working behind the counter at Seward’s Sea Bean Café.

The McKinley Fire has destroyed more than 130 structures, 51 of them primary homes, and displaced hundreds of people in the woodsy area, about 80 miles (130 km) north of Anchorage. It was 71-percent contained on Thursday and officials were allowing evacuated residents to return, but 560 firefighters remained on duty.

More than 200 Alaska fires remained active on Thursday, according to state and federal fire officials. In all, 684 fires have burned over 2.5 million acres (1 million hectares) in Alaska this year. Though far short of the record 6.6 million acres (2.7 million hectares) burned in 2004, this year’s fire total is part of a trend.

Big fire years are more frequent as Alaska warms at a rate at least twice the global average. This is the 15th time in the past 80 years that more than 2 million acres (810,000 hectares)burned in a single season, and six of those years have been since 2000, said Tim Mowry, a spokesman for the Alaska Division of Forestry.

Especially remarkable are the ultra-dry and dangerous conditions in Alaska’s most populous region, with some wildfires breaking out this summer even within city limits.

“I’ve been here 40 years, and this is the most extreme fire condition here that I can remember,” said John See, a wildfire expert with the Anchorage Fire Department.

Until this year, there had never been a “severe drought” declaration for Anchorage in the two-decade history of the U.S. Drought Monitor. Anchorage and fire-stricken areas to the north and south of the city passed that threshold earlier this month and moved last week to the more serious “extreme” drought condition.

The fires are part of a summer of extremes in Alaska – record heat, lightning strikes in unlikely places, extraordinary meltdown of glaciers and widespread die-offs of animals, including whales, seals, birds and masses of pre-spawned salmon killed in waters with temperatures measured as high as 80 degrees F (26.7 C).

A late arrival of winter is almost a lock, said Brian Brettschneider, a climatologist with the University of Alaska Fairbank’s International Arctic Research Center.

“Even if our temperatures turned on a dime, there’s so much warmth in the water around Alaska that it is just going to take time for that to dissipate,” Brettschnider said.

After that, the winter ice that forms is likely to be thin, vulnerable to another early spring melt, leaving open waters to draw in more solar heat and feeding the warming cycle, he said.

(Reporting by Yereth Rosen; editing by Bill Tarrant and Sandra Maler)

Supreme Court justice Ginsburg ‘up and working’ after fall

FILE PHOTO: U.S. Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg participates in taking a new family photo with her fellow justices at the Supreme Court building in Washington, D.C., U.S., June 1, 2017. REUTERS/Jonathan Ernst/File Photo

By Andrew Chung and Simon Thompson

WASHINGTON/LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – U.S. Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg is already up and working in her hospital room, a day after breaking three ribs in a fall, her nephew said late on Thursday at the Hollywood premiere of a film about her life.

Ginsburg, a ground-breaking liberal jurist who at 85 is the oldest U.S. Supreme Court justice, was hospitalized on Thursday after falling at her office at the court, a court spokeswoman said.

“The last I heard she was up and working, of course, because what else would she be doing, and cracking jokes,” her nephew Daniel Stiepleman said at the premiere of the film “On the Basis of Sex”, about a gender-based discrimination case Ginsburg tried as a young lawyer in 1972.

“I can’t promise they were good jokes but they were jokes,” said Stiepleman, who wrote the script for the film with input from the justice herself.

Ginsburg, who made her name as an advocate for women’s rights, is one of four liberals sitting on the court, to which she was appointed in 1993 by then President Bill Clinton.

The court’s 5-4 conservative majority was restored last month when the Senate confirmed Republican President Donald Trump’s appointee Brett Kavanaugh after a contentious nomination process in which Kavanaugh denied a sexual assault allegation from his youth.

Ginsburg went home after the fall but experienced discomfort overnight and went to George Washington University Hospital on Thursday morning, court spokeswoman Kathy Arberg said in a statement.

Tests showed Ginsburg fractured three ribs on her left side and she was admitted for observation and treatment, Arberg added. The court is due to hear its next arguments on Nov. 26.

If Ginsburg were unable to continue serving, Trump could replace her with a conservative, further shifting the court to the right. A potentially dominant 6-3 conservative majority would have major consequences for issues including abortion, the death penalty, voting rights, gay rights and religious liberty.

As the oldest justice, Ginsburg is closely watched for any signs of deteriorating health. She has bounced back from previous medical issues and has fallen twice before at her home, in 2012 and 2013, leading to rib injuries. She was treated in 1999 for colon cancer and again in 2009 for pancreatic cancer, but did not miss any argument sessions either time.

In 2014, doctors placed a stent in her right coronary artery to improve blood flow after she reported discomfort following routine exercise. She was released from a hospital the next day.

Trump went to the court on Thursday for a ceremony welcoming Kavanaugh to the nation’s highest court. Kavanaugh was sworn in to the lifetime job last month. The president sat with first lady Melania Trump at the front of the marble-walled courtroom near the justices’ mahogany bench, making no public remarks.

Some leading congressional Republicans, including Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and outspoken Trump ally Senator Lindsey Graham, attended. The event came a day after Trump fired Jeff Sessions as attorney general; Matthew Whitaker, who Trump named as Sessions’ interim replacement, participated.

CRITICAL COMMENTS

Ginsburg called Trump an egotistical “faker” when he was running for president in 2016, in an unusual foray into politics by a justice. Trump responded, saying her “mind is shot” and she should resign. Ginsburg later expressed regret, saying “judges should avoid commenting on a candidate for public office.”

She is a hero among many U.S. liberals, who revere her as “The Notorious R.B.G”, a nickname based on a late rap star. A documentary film about her, “RBG,” was released earlier this year, and the Hollywood biopic will be released on Christmas.

The director, Mimi Leder, called described the film as Ginsburg’s “origin story”, a term used in superhero movies.

“Our thoughts are with her tonight after her fall yesterday. We send her our love and pray for a speedy recovery. I have it on good word that she’s in great shape, and she is shooing the doctors out of her room so she can work,” Leder said at the premiere. She told Reuters her own information about Ginsburg’s health had come from Stiepleman.

Ginsburg has helped buttress equality rights during her time on the high court, including in sex discrimination cases.

Her career was shaped in part by discrimination she faced as a young lawyer in a predominantly male profession: she was one of just nine women at Harvard Law School in the 1950s, and later struggled to find a firm that would hire her.

“She was making mistakes, finding out who she was, had a very young family, her husband wasn’t very well,” actress Felicity Jones, who plays her in the film, told Reuters on the red carpet. “She was juggling a lot of difficult things at the same time but always (had) this absolute commitment to the law.”

Ginsburg voiced support for the #MeToo movement against sexual misconduct after Kavanaugh was accused of sexual assault by a university professor, saying that unlike in her youth, “women nowadays are not silent about bad behavior.”

Kavanaugh’s Senate confirmation process convulsed the nation just weeks before Tuesday’s congressional elections in which Trump’s fellow Republicans lost control of the House of Representatives but expanded their majority in Senate.

On Wednesday, Trump credited the fight over confirming Kavanaugh, who was strongly opposed by Democrats, for the gains in the Senate.

(Additional reporting by Doina Chiacu and Lisa Richwine; Writing by Andrew Chung and Peter Graff; Editing by Frances Kerry and Will Dunham)

Supreme Court Justice Ginsburg fractures three ribs in fall

FILE PHOTO: U.S. Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg participates in taking a new family photo with her fellow justices at the Supreme Court building in Washington, D.C., U.S., June 1, 2017. REUTERS/Jonathan Ernst/File Photo

By Andrew Chung

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Ruth Bader Ginsburg, a prominent liberal who at 85 is the oldest U.S. Supreme Court justice, was hospitalized on Thursday after falling in her office at the court the night before, fracturing three ribs, a court spokeswoman said.

Ginsburg initially went home after the fall, but experienced discomfort overnight and went to George Washington University Hospital on Thursday morning, court spokeswoman Kathy Arberg said in a statement.

Tests showed she fractured three ribs on her left side and she was admitted for observation and treatment, Arberg added. The court is not scheduled to hear its next arguments in cases until Nov. 26.

Ginsburg, who has served on the court since 1993, is one of the court’s four liberals. The court’s 5-4 conservative majority was restored last month when the U.S. Senate confirmed Republican President Donald Trump’s appointee Brett Kavanaugh after a contentious nomination process in which Kavanaugh denied a sexual assault allegation dating to the 1980s.

If Ginsburg were unable to continue serving on the court, Trump would likely move swiftly to replace her with a conservative, further shifting the court to the right. That would have major consequences for issues including abortion, the death penalty, voting rights, gay rights, business litigation and presidential powers.

As the oldest justice, Ginsburg is closely watched for any signs of deteriorating health. She has survived bouts with cancer and undergoes regular medical checkups. This week’s incident was not the first time Ginsburg has suffered an injury as a result of a fall – in June 2012, she fell at home and cracked two ribs.

Kavanaugh’s nomination hearings were rocked by university professor Christine Blasey Ford’s allegations that he sexually assaulted her in 1982, when they were both high school students.

Ginsburg, who made her name as an advocate for women’s rights, voiced support for the #MeToo movement against sexual misconduct even as Kavanaugh was about to face a Senate hearing on the allegations against him, saying that unlike in her youth, “women nowadays are not silent about bad behavior.”

Trump went to the court on Thursday for a formal ceremony welcoming Kavanaugh to the nation’s highest court. Kavanaugh was sworn into the lifetime job last month.

The president sat along with first lady Melania Trump at the front of the marble-walled courtroom near the justices’ mahogany bench and made no public remarks. Some leading Republicans from the U.S. Congress, including Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, attended.

CRITICAL COMMENTS

Ginsburg made critical comments about Trump when he was running for president in 2016, in an unusual foray into politics by a Supreme Court justice. She later said she regretted making the remarks, saying “judges should avoid commenting on a candidate for public office.”

Ginsburg is a hero among many U.S. liberals, sometimes called “The Notorious R.B.G” in a nickname based on the late American rapper The Notorious B.I.G.

Ginsburg has helped buttress equality rights during her time on the high court, including in sex discrimination cases, and has been a champion of abortion rights and gay rights. In 2010, after the retirement of more senior liberals, she became the court’s voice of liberalism on behalf of women, racial minorities and the poor and disenfranchised.

Trump has already named two members of the court, adding conservative federal appeals court judges Kavanaugh and Neil Gorsuch, who was confirmed by the Senate last year.

If he were able to make a third nomination to the court to replace Ginsburg, that would increase the conservative majority to 6-3. The court’s other liberal justices are Stephen Breyer, Elena Kagan and Sonia Sotomayor. Breyer, 80, is the court’s second-oldest justice.

Kavanaugh’s Senate confirmation process convulsed the nation just weeks before Tuesday’s congressional elections in which Trump’s fellow Republicans lost control of the U.S. House of Representatives but built on their majority in Senate, which has sole authority over judicial and Supreme Court nominations.

On Wednesday, Trump credited the fight over confirming Kavanaugh, in which Democrats strongly opposed the nominee, for the gains in the Senate.

“By expanding the Senate majority, the voters have also clearly rebuked the Senate Democrats for their handling of the Kavanaugh hearings,” he told reporters.

Trump selected Kavanaugh in July to replace long-serving conservative Justice Anthony Kennedy, who retired. Other candidates he considered for the vacancy included: Thomas Hardiman, who serves on the Philadelphia-based 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals; Raymond Kethledge and Amul Thapar of the Cincinnati, Ohio-based 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals; and Amy Coney Barrett of the Chicago-based 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.

(Reporting by Andrew Chung; Additional reporting by Doina Chiacu and Will Dunham; Editing by Alison Williams and Frances Kerry)