3 balloons crash; 16-20 people injured
CHEYENNE, Wyo. -- Three sightseeing balloons crashed Monday in a popular western Wyoming tourist destination, injuring between 16 and 20 people, officials said.
The balloons owned by the same tour operator went down separately and did not crash into each other, said Teton County Sheriff Matt Carr.
Weather apparently contributed to the crashes but exactly what happened wasn't known and was still being investigated, Carr said.
At least one person was flown to a hospital in Idaho Falls for treatment, Carr said.
The crash scene involved an area about half a mile long. All of the balloons belonged to the Wyoming Balloon Co., he said.
The weather in Jackson Hole, near Grand Teton and Yellowstone national parks, was partly cloudy with winds of 9 mph shortly after the accident.
New injunction on Lee statue ordered
RICHMOND, Va. -- A judge dismissed a legal challenge Monday that had been blocking Virginia officials from removing a towering statue of Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee from the state's capital city, but he immediately imposed another injunction against dismantling the figure.
The new 90-day injunction bars Gov. Ralph Northam's administration from "removing, altering, or dismantling, in any way" the larger-than-life statue of Lee on a prominent Richmond avenue while claims in a lawsuit filed by local property owners are litigated.
Now covered in graffiti, the Lee monument has become a focal point and gathering spot amid Richmond's sustained anti-racist protests since the police custody death in Minnesota of a Black man, George Floyd.
Richmond Circuit Judge W. Reilly Marchant wrote in a decision released Monday that "the public interest does weigh in favor" of a temporary injunction barring the statue's removal.
In the property owners' case, the group argues that removing the Lee statue -- the last Confederate statue now standing on Monument Avenue -- could result in the loss of the neighborhood's National Historic Landmark designation, "which will have a substantial adverse impact, " including the loss of "favorable tax treatment and reduction in property values."
Separately, Marchant dismissed entirely as not "legally viable" the claims filed by a descendant of signatories to an 1890 deed that transferred the statue to the state, and he dissolved an existing injunction in that case.
Wildfire threatening Los Angeles area
BANNING, Calif. -- A wildfire in mountains east of Los Angeles that is Southern California's biggest blaze so far this year was still raging Monday, with thousands of people forced to evacuate their homes.
The blaze in Riverside County, among several wildfires across California, had consumed more than 41 square miles of dry brush and timber since it broke out Friday evening, according to the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection.
As of Monday morning, it was just 5% contained and the fire, along with coronavirus precautions, made for added stress at an evacuation center, said John Medina, an American Red Cross spokesman.
Investigators are trying to determine the cause of the blaze that began as two adjacent fires in Cherry Valley, a rural area near the city of Beaumont, about 85 miles east of downtown Los Angeles.
One home and two outbuildings were destroyed, fire officials said. No injuries were reported.
50.7% of population said to be under 40
ORLANDO, Fla. -- Millennials and their younger siblings and children now outnumber the baby-boom generation to make up a majority of the U.S. population, according to a new analysis by the Brookings Institution.
The Brookings analysis shows that 50.7% of U.S. residents were under age 40, as of July 2019.
The analysis of population estimates released this summer by the U.S. Census Bureau shows that the combined millennial, Generation Z and younger generations numbered 166 million people. The combined Generation X, baby boomer, and older cohorts represented 162 million U.S. residents.
"To many Americans -- especially baby boomers themselves -- this news may come as a shock. For them, the term 'millennial' has been associated with a youthful, often negative, vibe in terms of habits, ideology, and politics," William Frey, a senior fellow at Brookings' Metropolitan Policy Program, wrote in the analysis. "Now, the oldest millennial is 39, and with their numbers exceeding those of baby boomers, the millennial generation is poised to take over influential roles in business and government."
Millennials typically are defined as being born between 1981 and 1996. Baby boomers, long considered a primary driver of demographic and social change in the U.S. because of their large numbers, were born between the end of World War II and the arrival of the Beatles in the U.S. in 1964.
Squeezed between the boomers and millennials, Generation Xers were born in the late 1960s and 1970s. Members of Generation Z were born after 1996.
-- Compiled by Democrat-Gazette staff from wire reports