State health officials reported a record 1,091 new COVID-19 cases on Wednesday, and while that's the most cases they've ever reported in a single day, that figure doesn't necessarily represent how many people tested positive on a single day. High case counts are leading to backlogs in testing and contact tracing, but they're also leading to backlogs in state reporting. In Juneau, local emergency planning officials say case counts from the state have been lagging for weeks. "They're backed up, they're playing catch up," said Emergency Operations Planning Chief Robert Barr when the city had its highest number of cases for one day at the end of August. A state health department spokesperson hasn't yet responded to questions about how far the state is lagging behind in reporting new cases.  

VIDEO: Nearly two dozen families were forced from their homes early Thursday after a fire spread through a Northeast Dallas apartment building, firefighters say. Dallas Fire-Rescue spokesman Jason Evans said firefighters were first called at 12:50 a.m. to the Oak Meadows Apartments located at 11050 Woodmeadow Parkway. First responders found heavy flames shooting through the roof of the 3-story apartment building, prompting an immediate call for backup. Firefighters attacked the fire and were able to stop it from spreading further by accessing a breezeway in front of the fire's direction of travel, Evans said. A total of 24 residences were damaged, Evans said, one of which was unoccupied. Twelve of the units were damaged by fire and the rest were uninhabitable due to water and smoke damage.  

A Los Angeles Fire Department captain severely burned in a May 2020 explosion inside a downtown L.A. warehouse has sued the owners of the building and a vaping supply shop housed there, accusing them of hazardous activity, premise liability and negligence. Victor Aguirre and his wife, Claudia Aguirre, filed suit Wednesday in Los Angeles County Superior Court against property owner Steve Sungho Lee and his various companies along with the operators of Green Buddha and Smoke Tokes, a smoke and vape shop inside the East 3rd Street warehouse where the explosion occurred. Twelve firefighters were injured. After a criminal investigation by the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives and the Los Angeles Police Department, they were charged with more than 300 criminal counts.  

VIDEO: For the first time since their heroic act was caught on camera, Wichita firefighters spoke with KSN News about their Labor Day fire rescue at an area apartment complex. Fireman Brian Doffing says apartment fires like this don't always end with the best results for victims, but being able to rescue everyone made this one of the types of calls is exactly what makes their job worth it. "Not all of them can go great," Doffing explained. "But every call giving everything you got and training every day, I think that's what makes it different here." "In your mind, things are moving so quickly, and you look at the situation, and you see what you did, but when you watch the video, you go through and start thinking, why did you make those decisions? And then you can analyze it," Doffing added.  

General Motors is advising some Chevrolet Bolt owners to not park their electric cars within 50 feet of other vehicles to reduce the risk of a potential fire spreading to nearby cars and trucks. The warning follows the Detroit automaker recalling more than 140,000 of the EVs produced since 2016 due to the risk of batteries spontaneously catching fire from "two rare manufacturing defects." GM has confirmed fires in at least 12 vehicles, but more continue to be reported. At least one of the recalled vehicles reportedly caught fire and spread to a Maserati and Hyundai in Sacramento, California. The parking advice is being given to customers that call into the company's call center about parking their recalled vehicles in parking lots or structures, according to GM spokesman Dan Flores.  

The National Institutes of Health announced Wednesday that it was awarding nearly $470 million to New York University Langone Health for research into the long-term effects of COVID-19 to ramp up an unprecedented national effort to study so-called "long COVID." The federal money will be divvied up by NYU to fund more than 100 researchers at institutions around the country, accelerating work to build a sweeping "meta-cohort" encompassing thousands COVID-19 survivors of various ages and backgrounds who are still experiencing symptoms more than a month after their initial infection. "The only way we're going to sort this out is with very large studies that collect lots and lots of data about symptoms, physical findings, and laboratory measures," NIH Director Dr. Francis Collins told reporters at a briefing Wednesday.