Ketchum, Idaho – An enormous wildfire threatening the Sun Valley ski resort was nearly half contained Wednesday, but authorities said they didn’t know when thousands of evacuees could return.
Fire managers said wind from thunderstorms expected to hit the area later this week could increase fire activity, so crews were struggling to build and reinforce fire lines. The blaze in central Idaho had blackened about 69 square miles.
No buildings have been damaged, but on Tuesday gusty wind pushed flames close to the borders of the Sun Valley Resort ski area. About 2,000 homes have been evacuated.
Additional nation/world news briefs:
PHOENIX
Heat record broken, but it’s a dry heat
People in Phoenix expect it to be hot, but they wouldn’t mind a cool spell – maybe 107 or so.
Phoenix reached a shoe-melting, spirit-crushing milestone Wednesday: 29 days of 110-degree-plus temperatures in a single year. The previous record of 28 days was set in 1970 and matched in 2002, according to the National Weather Service.
The streak is enough to vaporize any humor left in the phrase “It’s a dry heat.” The average number of days that top 110 degrees in a given year is 10.
NEW YORK
Arabic-themed school to open under security
An Arabic-themed public school will open next week with extra security after months of protest by some who say it will be a training ground for radical Islam.
Enrollment is nearly full at the 60-student Khalil Gibran International Academy, which will require its students to take Arabic as a foreign language, said Department of Education spokeswoman Melody Meyer on Wednesday.
Sixth-graders will be the first to attend the school, which will add a grade each year to end up with 500 to 600 students in grades 6 through 12. It joins a number of small public schools in the city that have themes, covering areas including arts, social justice and Chinese language.
Two of the five teachers hired at the school graduated from universities with federally funded programs aimed at boosting the number of schools in the U.S. teaching Arabic, Meyer said.
Since the school was announced in February, critics have attacked the school as a potential training ground for radicals.
Meyer said education officials are taking into account the controversy and will provide extra security on the first day of school.
DOÑA ANA BASE CAMP, N.M.
Cap found belonging to GI who vanished
Army officials on Wednesday found a hat belonging to a soldier who vanished into the desert after leaving only a vague note.
Spec. John R. Fish’s cap was found about 1 1/2 miles north of this desert training camp north of Fort Bliss as soldiers walked side-by-side through thick brush.
Fish, a 19-year-old ammunitions specialist, was last seen Monday. Officials found a note on his bunk Monday that read: “I have some things to take care of. I won’t be coming back,” his commander said.
Fish served in Iraq for a year mostly in noncombat roles before returning last November, another commander said. She said Fish’s extensive writings suggested to her that he may have been depressed.
PARIS
Holy water confiscated from pilgrim travelers
Even holy water from the Roman Catholic shrine at Lourdes can’t get by security screening fliers for suspicious liquids.
A passenger on a new Vatican-backed charter airline had to hand over a container of water collected at Our Lady of Lourdes Cathedral to security officials at the airport in southern France on Monday before boarding a return flight to Rome, officials for Mistral Air said.
Airport officials barred other pilgrims on the Mistral Air flight from taking holy water from the shrine back to Rome, the Italian news agency Apcom reported. The pilgrims protested that they had waited in long lines to fill up their bottles with holy water from the grotto.
