A man drowned Saturday evening after he dived off a boat into Harding Lake in Interior Alaska, troopers said. Troopers were called to the lake because 31-year-old Dustin R. Baxter did not resurface after diving from the boat, troopers wrote in an online statement. It was not immediately clear why he was unable to resurface. Wildlife troopers and members of Salcha Fire and Rescue searched the lake until darkness, troopers said. Crews returned to the area Sunday morning to continue searching, and troopers said Baxter's body was found after several hours. Harding Lake is roughly 45 miles south of Fairbanks along the Richardson Highway.  

VIDEO: A huge fire broke out at an apartment building that is under construction in central Phoenix early Tuesday morning. Video from the scene shows massive flames engulfing the building north of 12th Street and Indian School Road. A large plume of black smoke could be seen for miles. Capt. Todd Keller with the Phoenix Fire Department said it is a two-story apartment building that has been under construction for about seven months. It reportedly was still in the framing stage which means there was plenty of exposed wood to feed the flames. So far, no injuries have been reported and firefighters are working to gain control of the blaze.  

PHOTOS: When Jeannette fire Chief Bill Frye and Mark Scalzitti were junior firemen, they would jump on the back of a 1965 Mack fire engine to respond to calls. Too young to drive it at the time, both have fond memories of getting suited up in the fire station and riding Engine 6 through town, the siren blaring. The engine spent the last 19 years with private collectors elsewhere in the state after the city sold it in 2001. Now the old friend is back home. And this time Frye and Scalzitti get to drive. "I appreciate it for the history that it is, and I'm glad that people get to enjoy it now," said Scalzitti, the proud owner of a vintage fire truck. Engine 6 served the city for 21 years and, after that, it acted as a backup to a newer truck until it was sold to someone on the other side of the state, Frye said. Then someone else near Carlisle bought it three years ago, Scalzitti said. When it was put up for sale recently, Scalzitti jumped at the chance.  

VIDEO: Lubbock Fire Rescue is partnering with the Texas Tech Whitacre College of Engineering to help improve firefighter safety. Their current project is developing a safer firefighter helmet to help mitigate the risk of traumatic head injuries while on the job. Lt. Brady Robinette said what spurred this research was the tragedy on Jan. 11. "Lt. (Eric) Hill and Officer (Nicholas) Reyna were working the scene of a traffic accident. They got struck by a vehicle and killed, and also the horrendous injuries that Matt Dawson sustained in that same accident, that was really the impetus for this research project," Robinette said. Suman Chowdhury, an assistant professor in the Department of Industrial, Manufacturing and Systems Engineering, is leading the effort. "Firefighters are increasingly called up to respond to active shooter incidents, vehicle accidents and medical emergencies. So, currently we are conducting two preliminary studies in collaboration with Lubbock Fire Rescue," Chowdhury said.  

People living in some of the largest U.S. cities and their surrounding areas face the highest risk of contracting COVID-19 in the near future, according to a new set of online dashboards created by researchers in the Cockrell School of Engineering at The University of Texas at Austin. The risk analysis model used by the website examines more than 3,000 U.S. counties and features three dashboards that focus on aspects of community resilience: risk, exposure and vulnerability. Counties are scored on 13 different variables across the three dashboards, accounting for socioeconomic circumstances, population density, transportation infrastructure and other important metrics for measuring the pandemic, such as available intensive care unit beds and the average number of new cases. The researchers said the new model presents the most comprehensive look yet at the virus's current and future spread across the U.S.  

Back in April, in the early stages of the coronavirus pandemic, there was a national shortage of protective N95 masks. Ryan Githens and Joe Webster, both engineers for Oceaneering, an engineering and applied technologies company with offices in Hanover, used their design skills to create a workaround solution to keep first responders in their community safe — an adapter that allows firefighters to use their SCBA masks as an N95 filter, "protecting their respiratory system and face from potential exposure to the virus," Githens said. Githens, a senior electronic technician, is also volunteer firefighter with the Abingdon Fire Company. It's as a volunteer firefighter that Githens and his colleagues rely on Self-Contained Breathing Apparatus, or SCBA, masks while on duty. Githens' work brought a fix for the scarce N95 mask issue. An N95 is a respirator which helps with airborne particle filtration, and offers better protection than a surgical mask against COVID-19.