Western Springs firefighters on Wednesday night put out a transformer fire on Maple Street, between Grand and Woodland avenues, the village said in a statement. ComEd was able to quickly reduce an initial 90-home power outage to 14, the village said. In its statement, which was issued about 9 p.m., the village said the houses would be affected until the transformer could be replaced, which was expected sometime in the evening. The return of power was especially important given the temperature is forecast to reach 100 degrees in Western Springs on Thursday.  

PHOTOS: Wednesday, the last day of summer break in the Belvidere School District, was also one of the hottest days of the year and local firefighters wanted to give the kids one last big party before the school year begins. The Belvidere Fire Department teamed up with the Belvidere Park District Wednesday afternoon to hold a Back to School Hydrant Block Party. Dozens of kids, and their parents, were greeted with a fire truck pumping water onto Winterroth Park on E. 6th St., with the kids getting some relief from the heat on water slides and under the spray from the BFD truck. BFD Lt. Nicholas Thornton helped organize Wednesday's block party. He says bringing the community together is the best part of events like these. "It's nice to have the community out here," Thornton says.  

VIDEOS: There is a new fire truck at Palm Beach International Airport that's joining the fleet, designed to fight fires from inside the aircraft. "It's a high tech piece of equipment. We just took delivery of it a few weeks ago, and the guys are training on it now. It has every new technology that's available to keep everyone safe here at the airport," said District Chief Bob Kropa of Palm Beach County Fire Rescue. The truck is called Dragon 5 and has seven on-board computers, a 360-degree camera, can get up to runway speeds of 70 mph, and a stinger that can pierce an aircraft and shoot water inside to fight internal fires. "This stinger will pierce right through the metal and it has holes right here. So it allows the water to get right where it needs to go," said Kropa.  

VIDEO: Cruise and its autonomous cars spent the weekend pulling back some of their vehicles on San Francisco streets following a request from the Department of Motor Vehicles. This comes after two accidents and several incidents in the past week. Cruise said it will work with the DMV to make improvements to its fleet. Cruise kept half of its 400 autonomous vehicles on the sidelines. Right now, according to the company, 150 cars are scheduled to drive at night and only 50 vehicles will be on San Francisco streets during the day. The DMV said it was investigating "concerning incidents." The first one on Aug. 11 when several Cruise cars paused for 15 minutes at an intersection in the North Beach neighborhood. Then several days later there was an accident involving a fire department truck, injuring one passenger in the Cruise.  

VIDEO: When someone calls 911, it's usually on their worst day. What most people might not consider, are the dispatchers who answer those calls every single day, and the impact it has on their mental health. The signing of House Bill 2717 is a historic decision for all 911 operators in the state of Arizona. It will offer unlimited mental health services without fear of running out of sessions or having to pay for extra sessions out of pocket. "To say the least, our 911 dispatchers have the grave responsibility of keeping our neighbors and communities safe," said Arizona Governor Katie Hobbs. "During those phone calls, they can experience extremely traumatic situations that they take home with them." Having mental health services available for dispatchers is crucial in extending the career of a dispatcher and will be pivotal when it comes to recruiting new talent.  

Since 1999, more than a million people have died from drug overdoses. It's an issue that has grappled communities, both big and small, across the U.S. "The drug overdose crisis is impacting nearly every corner of the U.S.," The San Francisco Chronicle's data editor, Dan Kopf, said. The Chronicle, a Hearst newspaper, has documented the accelerating epidemic as drug overdoses claimed the lives of 107,669 people last year. It created a nationwide database to track overdose deaths. "We found that there was no easy-to-use resource to help people understand the impact on their community and where to get help," Kopf said. "Given the gravity of the crisis and the expertise we've built on the subject, it was clear we needed to build such a tool."