East Oregonian : E.O. (Pendleton, OR) 1888-current, October 25, 2019, Image 7

East Oregonian : E.O., October 25, 2019, Page 7, Image 7

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Newspaper Page TextNATION/WORLD Friday, October 25, 2019 East Oregonian A7 Hundreds ﬂ ee ﬁ re in California wine country By JOCELYN GECKER AND NOAH BERGER Associated Press GEYSERVILLE, Calif. — Hundreds of people were forced to ﬂ ee North- ern California wine country early Thursday as a wildﬁ re exploded in size amid dan- gerous winds that prompted utilities throughout the state to impose electrical black- outs to prevent ﬁ res. Authorities ordered the entire community of Gey- serville to evacuate after the ﬁ re in the Sonoma County wine region north of San Francisco grew to more than 15 square miles. The town has about 900 residents and is a popular stop for wine country tourists. The cause of the blaze was not yet known, but strong, dry winds with gusts of up to 70 mph have affected much of the state, including that area. There were no immediate reports of any injuries. Winds slowed after day- break, helping ﬁ reﬁ ghters get a handle on the blaze, but it was still growing, said California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection spokesman Jonathan Cox. He did not have an estimate on the number of buildings destroyed. A series of deadly blazes tore through the same area two years ago, killing 44 people. Mary Ceglarski-Sher- win and her husband, Matt Ceglarski-Sherwin, lost their Santa Rosa rental home during one of those ﬁ res and ﬂ ed the ﬂ ames again early Thursday when Mary’s asthma awakened her around 2:30 a.m. Their power was still on when they grabbed their small dogs, some clothes and emergency kits they acquired during the last ﬁ re. “I told him, ‘We gotta go, we gotta go; I can feel it changing,’” Mary Ceglar- ski-Sherwin told the Santa AP Photo/Mark Lennihan, File Commuters walk through a corridor in the World Trade Cen- ter Transportation Hub in New York. The United States will add 79 million people in the next 40 years. Census report: U.S. will get older, more diverse AP Photo/Kent Porter Fireﬁ ghters prepare to defend their ground as the Kincade ﬁ re spreads down Black Moun- tain in the Geysers on Thursday in Sonoma County, Calif. Rosa Press-Democrat. “By the time we got out there, we could feel the heat and see the smoke.’” At least two ﬁ res have erupted in Southern Califor- nia, but they have remained small. Utilities in California have said the power shut- offs are designed to keep winds that could gust to 60 mph or more from knocking branches into power lines or toppling them, sparking wildﬁ res. The state’s largest util- ity, Paciﬁ c Gas & Electric, ﬁ led for bankruptcy protec- tion in January as it faced billions of dollars of dam- ages from wildﬁ res sparked by its equipment that have killed scores of people and destroyed thousands of homes over the past cou- ple of years. The inves- tor-owned energy company has set aside billions of dol- lars for insurance compa- nies and wildﬁ re victims while facing a public back- lash over its handling of the incidents. PG&E began rolling power outages Wednesday stretching from the Sierra foothills in the northeast to portions of the San Fran- cisco Bay Area, affecting a half-million people — or nearly 180,000 customers. PG&E warned that a sec- ond round of outages could occur over the weekend when winds were forecast to return. In Southern California, hot and dry Santa Ana winds prompted Southern Califor- nia Edison to cut power to more than 15,000 custom- ers. The utility was con- sidering additional power cuts to more than 286,000 customers. The San Diego Gas & Electric utility said it cut power to about 328 customers. Ukrainian leader concerned about becoming entangled in U.S. elections By DESMOND BUTLER AND MICHAEL BIESECKER Associated Press KYIV, Ukraine — More than two months before the phone call that launched the impeachment inquiry into President Donald Trump, Ukraine’s newly elected leader was already wor- ried about pressure from the U.S. president to inves- tigate his Democratic rival Joe Biden. Volodymyr Zelens- kiy gathered a small group of advisers on May 7 in Kyiv for a meeting that was supposed to be about his nation’s energy needs. Instead, the group spent most of the three-hour dis- cussion talking about how to navigate the insistence from Trump and his per- sonal lawyer Rudy Giuliani for a probe and how to avoid becoming entangled in the American elections, accord- ing to three people famil- iar with the details of the meeting. They spoke to The Asso- ciated Press on the condition of anonymity because of the diplomatic sensitivity of the issue, which has roiled U.S.- Ukrainian relations. The meeting came before Zelenskiy was inaugurated but about two weeks after Trump called to offer his congratulations on the night of the Ukrainian leader’s April 21 election. The full details of what the two leaders discussed in that Easter Sunday phone call have never been pub- licly disclosed, and it is not clear whether Trump explic- itly asked for an investiga- tion of the Bidens. The three people’s rec- ollections differ on whether Zelenskiy speciﬁ cally cited that ﬁ rst call with Trump as the source of his unease. But their accounts all show the Ukrainian president-elect was wary of Trump’s push fastest-growing group in the next 40 years, its population expanding as births outpace deaths. Other fast-growing groups include Asians, whose growth will be driven by migration, and Hispanics, whose growth will be driven by natural increases, according to the projections. The U.S. is expected to cross the 400 million-person threshold by 2058, as it adds 79 million more people in 40 years, but annual growth will slow down. The U.S. has about 326 million people today. Population growth is expected to go from an addi- tional 2.3 million per year currently to an additional 1.6 million people a year by 2060. Growth comes from immi- gration and when births out- pace deaths, but that natu- ral increase will decline as the nation ages. The nation’s median age is expected to go from 38 today to 43 by 2060. As the number of people over age 65 grows, the share of working-age adults, who pay with their employers for Social Security through a payroll tax, will also decline. Next year, there are expected to be 3.5 working-age adults for every person of retire- ment age, but that ratio declines to 2.5 by 2060, according to the projections. By MIKE SCHNEIDER Associated Press for an investigation into the former vice president and his son Hunter’s business dealings. Either way, the newly elected leader of a coun- try wedged between Russia and the U.S.-aligned NATO democracies knew early on that vital military support might depend on whether he was willing to choose a side in an American political tussle. A former comedian who won ofﬁ ce on promises to clean up corruption, Zel- enskiy’s ﬁ rst major foreign policy test came not from his enemy Russia, but rather from the country’s most important ally, the United States. The May 7 meeting included two of his top aides, Andriy Yermak and Andriy Bogdan, the peo- ple said. Also in the room was Andriy Kobolyev, head of the state-owned natural gas company Naf- togaz, and Amos Hoch- stein, an American who sits on the Ukrainian com- pany’s supervisory board. Hochstein is a former diplo- mat who advised Biden on Ukraine matters during the Obama administration. Zelenskiy’s ofﬁ ce in Kyiv did not respond to messages on Wednesday seeking comment. The White House would not comment on whether Trump demanded an investigation into the April 21 call. The White House has offered only a bare-bones public readout on the April call, saying Trump urged Zelenskiy and the Ukrainian people to imple- ment reforms, increase prosperity and “root out corruption.” In the inter- vening months, Trump and his proxies have frequently used the word “corruption” to reference the monthslong efforts to get the Ukrainians to investigate Democrats. Trump has said he would release a transcript of the ﬁ rst call, but the White House had no comment Wednesday on when, or if, that might happen. After news broke that a White House whistleblower had ﬁ led a complaint about his July 25 call with Zel- enskiy, Trump said the con- versation was “perfect” and that he had asked his Ukrainian counterpart to do “whatever he can in terms of corruption because the corruption is massive.” During the call, Trump asked Zelenskiy for “a favor,” requesting an inves- tigation into a conspiracy theory related to a Dem- ocratic computer server hacked during the 2016 election campaign. Trump also pushed Zelenskiy to investigate Biden and his son. Trump then advised Zelenskiy that Giuliani and Attorney General Bill Barr would be contacting him about the request, accord- ing to a summary of the called released by the White House. Within days, Giuliani ﬂ ew to Madrid to meet pri- vately with Yermak, Zel- enskiy’s aide who was in the May 7 meeting. Trump has denied that an investigation of Biden was a condition for releasing mil- itary aid as a quid pro quo. But on Tuesday, the senior U.S. diplomat in Ukraine at the time, Ambassador Wil- liam Taylor, starkly contra- dicted the president, saying that Trump had demanded that everything Zelenskiy wanted, including the aid and a White House meeting, was conditional on a public vow that he would open an investigation. Taylor also detailed mul- tiple previously undisclosed diplomatic interactions between Trump’s envoys and senior Ukrainian ofﬁ - cials in which the presi- dent’s demand to investi- gate the Bidens in exchange for American aid was clear. The latest outages come two weeks after PG&E shut down power for several days to about 2 million peo- ple in northern and central California. “We understand the hardship caused by these shutoffs,” PG&E CEO Bill Johnson said. “But we also understand the heartbreak and devastation caused by catastrophic wildﬁ res.” Sonoma County Supervi- sor James Gore said PG&E was better this time about getting information to peo- ple who would be affected, but he was still astonished by the need to resort to large-scale blackouts. “I am a big believer in shutdowns to prevent ﬁ res. But the thing that erodes public trust is when it doesn’t make sense,” he said. “You say, ‘God, I know if we can put a man on the moon ... we can man- age a (power) grid.’” WASHINGTON — The U.S. population will grow older and more diverse over the next four decades, accord- ing to new Census Bureau pro- jections presented Thursday at a meeting of demographers. As the U.S. median age increases, there will be a smaller ratio of workers in the labor force able to pay the payroll tax that funds Social Security payments to peo- ple of retirement age. In 15 years, the number of people over age 65 will be larger than the number of children for the ﬁ rst time in U.S. history, according to the presentation at a Southern Demographic Association meeting in New Orleans. At the same time the U.S. is growing older, it will also become more diverse, with children leading the way. By next year, no single race group alone will make up more than half of U.S. children, the pro- jections show. Although non-Hispanic whites currently are a major- ity in the U.S., their numbers will dip below 50% of the population in 40 years, declin- ing from 199 million next year to 179 million in 2060, the projections show. People who identify as two or more races will be the DON’T BE LATE! This deal expires soon SAVE $15 NOW $29.95 $44.95 plus tax & shipping | offer expires 11/17/19 » 144-page hardcover book » Historic photos of Umatilla County » Ships Nov. 22, 2019 — a great holiday gift idea! Pre-order online and save with flat-rate shipping Umatilla.PictorialBook.com Pre-order by mail now (discount expires 11/17/19). Select an option: ☐ Ship my order to me ☐ I’ll pick up my order $29.95 plus $6.95 shipping and handling per book. $29.95 per book. Order will be shipped to the address below Pick up order at the East Oregonian oﬀ ice after 11/22/19. (211 SE Byers Ave., Pendleton) after 11/18/19. Quantity: ___ x $36.90 = $______ total Quantity: ___ x $29.95 = $______ total Payment method: ☐ Check/Money Order Credit card orders can be placed online: Umatilla.PictorialBook.com Name Send form and payment to: East Oregonian 211 SE Byers Ave. Pendleton, OR 97801 or call 800-522-0255 Address City State Phone E-mail Zip From the archives of the Athena Public Library, City of Echo, Milton-Freewater Area Historical Society, Pendleton Round-up, Tamástslikt Cultural Institute and Umatilla County Historical Society