Gunfire kills deputy, road-rage suspect
SPOKANE, Wash. -- A sheriff's deputy was killed in central Washington state, and a police officer was shot and wounded after they exchanged gunfire with a road-rage driving suspect, authorities said Wednesday.
The events unfolded Tuesday night when the two officers tried to stop the suspect's vehicle after authorities received a complaint about the motorist's driving, reported as a "road-rage type event," said Ellensburg Police Chief Ken Wade.
The suspect, who has not been identified, was chased by police until the driver stopped the car near the town of Kittitas. He got out and exchanged gunfire with the sheriff's deputy and the police officer, Wade said.
Deputy Ryan Thompson, 42, was killed, and Kittitas police officer Benito Chavez, 22, was shot in the leg and suffered a shattered femur, Wade said.
The suspect died at a hospital, and Wade said authorities were still working to identify him.
EPA exec: Water, not climate top threat
WASHINGTON -- Unsafe drinking water, not climate change, is the world's most immediate public-health issue, Environmental Protection Agency administrator Andrew Wheeler contended Wednesday.
Environmental groups responded by saying the Trump administration is neglecting -- or worsening -- both health threats.
Wheeler made his case for a shift in public focus in a CBS News interview that aired Wednesday and in a speech later in the day in Washington on global water issues.
Wheeler told CBS News that while climate change is "an important issue," most of the threats it poses are "50 to 75 years out."
The Natural Resource Defense Council responded by citing the damage and deaths from Hurricanes Harvey and Maria in 2017, and from back-to-back years of record wildfires in California.
Wheeler's low-key assessment of any immediate danger from climate change is in line with that of the Trump administration overall, which is working to open more public lands for oil and gas development and to prop up the flagging domestic coal industry.
In his speech later in the day, Wheeler said water problems claim lives daily around the world.
Clergy still hiding abusers, lawyers say
CHICAGO -- Advocates for clergy abuse victims said Wednesday that their list of 395 priests or laypeople in Illinois who have been publicly accused of sexually abusing children is far more extensive than the names already released by the state's six dioceses.
Attorneys Jeff Anderson and Marc Pearlman say the disparity shows that church leaders continue to conceal the scope of the clergy abuse crisis.
They say that of the 395 names on the list being released Wednesday, only one is a priest still in active ministry.
Pearlman said this is the first time such a comprehensive Illinois list has been compiled. It aggregates previously reported information, and it's not clear how much is new. The new list pulls names from lawsuits, news articles and other public sources.
The Archdiocese of Chicago said it already releases the names of every priest who's had a substantiated allegation against him and turns over the names of those accused to law enforcement officials.
Army: Water-test files to cost $290,400
WASHINGTON -- The U.S. Army has informed The Environmental Working Group that it would charge the advocacy group $290,400 to provide records of water tests at 154 military installations for a family of compounds known as PFAS, which federal authorities say appear to be linked to certain cancers and other health and developmental problems.
Formally called perfluoroalkyl and polyfluoroalkyl substances, PFAS are found in firefighting foam used at military bases and are in a wide range of nonstick and stain-resistant consumer products. The compounds have been dubbed "forever chemicals" because they are expected to take hundreds or thousands of years to break down.
Deputy Assistant Defense Secretary Maureen Sullivan told a House panel this month that the Defense Department has identified 401 military sites where it believes PFAS were used and has found 24 U.S. military drinking water systems around the world with PFAS levels above the current U.S. advisory level.
Environmental attorneys asked for the water-test records under the federal Freedom of Information Act.
Ordinary people and communities worried about water contamination may not have lawyers able to wrangle with the Pentagon "and certainly don't have the money to pay for this kind of information," said Melanie Benesh, one of the attorneys who made the request.
A Section on 03/21/2019