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Suspect dead after shooting at Northern California school; 2 students hurt, sheriff’s office says

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2 students shot, suspect dead in Butte County school shooting


2 students shot, suspect dead in Butte County school shooting

02:22

PALERMO – Authorities say a suspect is dead and two students are hurt after a shooting at a school in the Northern California community of Palermo on Wednesday.

The Butte County Sheriff’s Office says the incident happened around 1 p.m. at the Feather River School of Seventh-Day Adventists.

One person was found by deputies with a self-inflicted gunshot wound, with the sheriff’s office confirming that the suspected shooter had died. Two students were also found shot; their conditions were not known at this time, the sheriff’s office says, but both have been taken to local hospitals. 

The suspect has not been identified at this time. It’s also unclear if the shooting was random, the sheriff’s office says, but it doesn’t appear that the suspect had a connection to the campus.  

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Scene of the shooting investigation. 

Parents are being told to meet their children at the Oroville Church of the Nazarene at 2238 Monte Vista Avenue. 

Due to the investigation, California Highway Patrol is diverting northbound traffic on Highway 70 at E. Gridley Road west to Highway 99. Southbound Highway 70 is also closed at Power House Hill Road, with traffic being diverted to Lone Tree Road. 

The school serves about 35 students from kindergarten to eighth grade. 

Palermo is a town about 25 miles north of Marysville and 65 miles north of Sacramento.



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Data centers proliferate nationwide, encroaching on cities, suburbs

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The sprawling, windowless warehouses that hold rows of high-speed servers powering almost everything the world does on phones and computers are increasingly becoming fixtures of the American landscape, popping up in towns, cities and suburbs across the United States.

Demand for data centers ballooned in recent years due to the rapid growth of cloud computing and artificial intelligence, and urban and rural governments alike are competing for lucrative deals with big tech companies.

But as data centers begin to move into more densely populated areas, abutting homes and schools, parks and recreation centers, some residents are pushing back against the world’s most powerful corporations over concerns about the economic, social and environmental health of their communities.


How AI and data centers impact climate change

03:46

In Northern Virginia, more than 300 data centers dot the rolling hills of the area’s westernmost counties and butt up against wooded bike trails winding through the suburbs. But one of the latest proposals in the area, Plaza 500, would see a 466,000-square-foot facility and adjacent electrical substation built a few hundred feet from townhomes, playgrounds and a community center.

The pitch from Starwood Capital Group, the private investment firm founded by billionaire Barry Sternlicht, to Fairfax County officials promised jobs and a significant property tax boost. But data center critics say the incentives aren’t enough to counteract the consequences of building the facilities so close to homes.

Tyler Ray, a leader in the fight against the Virginia project, worries that more data centers in the area could compromise the already stressed power grid: Over 25% of all power produced in Virginia in 2023 went to data centers, a figure that could rise as high as 46% by 2030 if data center growth continues at its current pace. Some estimates also show a mid-sized data center commands the same water usage every day as 1,000 households, prompting concerns over the cost of water. Ray also frets over air quality, as the massive diesel generators that help power the data centers’ hardware send plumes of toxic pollutants into the atmosphere.

Ray and his neighbors tried to stop the development, but their efforts were largely unsuccessful. The Fairfax County Board of Supervisors in September said all newly proposed data centers must adhere to stricter zoning rules, but the Plaza 500 project was exempt.

“I don’t know how a general resident, even someone who has been engaging intently on an issue, has any chance to go up against the data center industry,” Ray said the night the supervisors voted.

For local governments, attracting data centers to their municipalities means a financial boon: Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin said in 2024 that Virginia’s current data centers brought in $1 billion in tax revenue.

For average-sized facilities, data centers offer a small number of direct jobs – often fewer than 100 positions. Google announced recently that its investment in nearby Loudoun County, which included two data centers, created around 150 direct jobs, a figure that data center opponents say isn’t worth the hassle. But data center advocates argue that the number of indirect jobs like construction, technology support and electrical work make the projects worthwhile. In that same announcement, Google said their investment spurred 2,730 indirect jobs.

Kathy Smith, the vice chair of the Fairfax County Board of Supervisors, voted in favor of the Plaza 500 proposal because, in her estimation, data center growth is inevitable in the region, and Fairfax County should reap the benefits.

“I have a responsibility to step back from what we do and look at the big picture,” Smith said. “Data centers are not going away.”

On the other side of the country, in Morrow County, Oregon, Amazon Web Services has built at least five data centers surrounding the 4,200-person town of Boardman, nestled among vast stretches of farmland flecked with mint patches and wind turbines, next to the Columbia river.

Last year, AWS paid roughly $34 million in property taxes and fees stipulated in the agreements after receiving a $66 million tax break. Those payments, in addition to $1.7 in charitable donations from the company in 2023, have been instrumental in updating infrastructure and bolstering services. These funds have gone toward a new ladder fire engine, a school resource officer and $5,000 grants for homebuyers so far totaling at least $2.8 million.

“This road right here? Wouldn’t happen if it wasn’t for AWS,” said Boardman Mayor Paul Keefer, riding in the passenger seat of Police Chief Rick Stokoe’s cruiser, pointing out the window at construction workers shifting dirt and laying pavement.

AWS has cultivated relationships with local officials including Keefer and Stokoe, who have both been in positions to vote on whether to authorize tax breaks with the company. Some former county commissioners and residents worry that those relationships are too cozy.

Kevin Miller, AWS’s vice president of global data centers, said in an interview with the Associated Press that “our interest is in being a model corporate citizen, to really be partners with those communities.”

Skepticism of the deals started years ago, when three formerly elected officials allegedly helped approve data center deals while also owning a stake in a company that contracted with AWS to provide fiber optic cables for the data centers. In June, they each paid $2,000 to settle an ethics complaint.

Those officials are no longer in office. But the latest data center deal struck between Morrow County officials and AWS, which gives the company an estimated $1 billion in tax breaks spread over the 15 years to build five new data centers, again raised eyebrows.

Two former Morrow County Commissioners, Jim Doherty and Melissa Lindsay, pushed unsuccessfully in 2022 for AWS to pay more in taxes in new data center negotiations.

“We didn’t want to blow it up. We didn’t want to run them off,” said Lindsay. “But there were better deals to be made.”

___

The Associated Press receives financial assistance from the Omidyar Network to support coverage of artificial intelligence and its impact on society. AP is solely responsible for all content. Find AP’s standards for working with philanthropies, a list of supporters and funded coverage areas at AP.org



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Hegseth still seeking support from senators, even as Trump reportedly searches for replacement

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Hegseth still seeking support from senators, even as Trump reportedly searches for replacement – CBS News


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President-elect Donald Trump’s pick for secretary of defense, Pete Hegseth, is still trying to garner support on Capitol Hill even as past allegations of misconduct threaten to sink his bid for the job. Sources tell CBS News that Trump is weighing options for replacing Hegseth. CBS News political reporters Jake Rosen and Taurean Small have more on Hegseth and the tense hearing held Thursday by the task force investigating the assassination attempts against Trump.

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U.S. sets Thanksgiving record for whooping cough cases

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At least 364 pertussis infections were reported to health authorities last week, according to figures published Thursday by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, marking the worst Thanksgiving week for whooping cough in recent decades.

This tops the previous Thanksgiving record of 228 cases of pertussis which were reported for the week ending Nov. 27, 2010. That year there were 27,550 cases reported by the end of 2010, below the 28,167 already tallied so far this year. 

Thanksgiving usually sees a slowdown in cases reported across most diseases, because of delays in testing and reporting around the holiday as well as changes in people going to the doctor.

But this year’s whooping cough wave is continuing to accelerate in several states this week, including in Ohio, which reported 84 cases. That is the most of any state, and more than the 67 pertussis cases that Ohio reported in the week before.

“Pertussis can be cyclical. After seeing lower numbers of reported cases in the past few years — during and after the COVID-19 pandemic — nationally, pertussis is now returning to pre-pandemic trends. Ohio is no different,” a spokesperson for Ohio’s health department said in a statement.

The Ohio spokesperson said this year’s increase remained “consistent with some years prior to the COVID-19 pandemic,” and has yet to top the total number of cases reported in 2013.

While total cases nationwide remain lower than some previous records, the pace of weekly reported cases reached 577 ahead of Thanksgiving — more than 10 times the same time last year, and the worst in at least a decade.

Health officials have cited a variety of factors for this year’s wave of whooping cough cases, including gaps in immunity from vaccination or prior infection and the switch to safer but less effective vaccines in the 1990s.

“We have to acknowledge that our vaccination rates, in Montgomery County for school-age children, are low. They’ve decreased since the pandemic, and they’re lower than the state of Ohio, and lower than the United States as well,” said Dr. Becky Thomas, medical director of the health department for Ohio’s Montgomery County.

Within Ohio, Montgomery County makes up the largest share of cases reported in recent months, despite not having the most people in the state. 

Around 63% of their cases have been in schoolchildren and 12% are in daycares, Thomas said. The department often finds out about outbreaks first from school nurses, warning of large numbers of kids calling out sick with whooping cough.

Thomas said doctors have been seeing high pertussis case counts for months, larger than the wave they saw last year.

“We had an increase in cases last fall, but nothing compared to this fall. And when we first started noticing a really significant increase was about the time that kids went back to school, so about the middle of August,” said Thomas.

Thomas said that the vast majority of reported cases in the county have said they were vaccinated for pertussis, though it is unclear if everyone was up-to-date on the shots. A third of cases have been in teens, who are recommended to have gotten a booster dose by age 12.

“We have specific data on vaccination records for entering seventh graders that shows those vaccination rates for that tetanus, whooping cough vaccine that they should have entering school are decreased,” said Thomas.

This year’s whooping cough surge also comes as health departments are bracing for the return of an expected wave of COVID-19 and flu infections this winter.

“Whooping cough isn’t the only respiratory illness that we’re concerned about. So we’re encouraging people to stay home when they’re sick, practice good hand hygiene, get their health care provider if they need to if they’re symptoms are worsening or severe, and of course get vaccinated,” said Jennifer Wentzel, the county health department’s commissioner.



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