The City of Evanston announced Tuesday that it has secured memoranda of understanding with its police and firefighter unions with regard to a mandatory COVID-19 vaccination policy for city staff. The policy, which goes into effect Monday, Nov. 15, requires all Evanston city employees to be fully vaccinated against COVID-19, or to submit negative test results weekly. The city has now reached memoranda of understanding with its Fraternal Order of Police and International Association of Firefighters unions. "Our police officers and firefighters have served our community courageously throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, and I am grateful to members of both unions for taking this additional, critical step to keep our community safe and healthy," Evanston Mayor Daniel Biss said in a news release. "I would also like to thank Interim City Manager Kelley Gandurski and her team for coordinating the productive conversations that led to these agreements."  

The Decatur Fire Department will celebrate the opening of the second of three new stations at 11 a.m. Friday at Station 3, 855 N. Fairview Ave. A ribbon-cutting for the new station, which became operational in October, will be followed by and open house. The department also celebrated the graduation of three new firefighters from the Illinois Fire Service Institute in October. The fire department opened a new Station 5 in March 2020 at 3808 Greenridge Dr. The city has announced plans for a new Fire Station 7, which will serve the southeast side of the city. The new city fire house will be located on Chestnut Avenue just south of U.S. 36, which is south of the railroad tracks and close to areas that have grown in population. The current station is located on Airport Road and is a shared facility with the Decatur Airport fire department.  

Edwardsville firefighters battled a very difficult fire with a call out at 2:11 a.m. Tuesday at 1025 Troy Road and Hale Avenue. Edwardsville Fire Department Chief James Whiteford said when fire crews arrived they found heavy fire in the back half of the house. "Bystanders advised everyone was out of the house," he said. "Quick deployment of a 1-3/4" pre-connected handline produced a quick knockdown of the heavy fire from outside. Crews then transitioned to the interior of the structure to continue extinguishing the fire. Inside they found the floor had burned through in the bedroom, making advancement into the room impossible.  

VIDEO/PHOTOS: A large fire that overcame a junkyard Tuesday afternoon in Southwest Philadelphia continued to smolder hours after firefighters gained control of the inferno that sent thick black smoke billowing across the city. Fire crews from multiple departments responded to the construction waste recycling facility on the 3700 block of South 61st Street just before 4 p.m. Captain Derek Bowmer told reporters that the fire started in a heap of trash and quickly spread. "Wood, tires, things like that, when they break down houses. It looks like that's what's in the piles," said Captain Derek Bowmer of the Philadelphia Fire Department. Nearly 100 firefighters responded to the blaze, including marine units that pumped water from the Schuylkill River to douse the flames.  

At community events where first responders are present and the U.S. flag is raised, you'll see many of the men and women working for fire, police, and other emergency services salute. That's how you know they are military veterans. "Service members both past and current are allowed to salute in civilian clothes," said Spicewood Fire Chief Sam Stacks, a U.S. Navy veteran. "When you see someone saluting, nine times out of 10, they are a veteran." Once out of the military, many veterans feel called to continue their service, this time in the community as first responders, turning their military experience into a civilian career. While only 7 percent of the U.S. population has served in the military as of 2020, 19 percent of police officers are veterans, according to a research project conducted for The Marshall Project, a nonprofit journalism organization dedicated to criminal justice. It is the third most common occupation for veterans.  

The engineering department at Texas Tech University headed down to the Lubbock Fire Rescue Training Facility to gain first-hand experiences as a firefighter for their latest project. Suman Chowdhury, with the Department of Engineering at Texas Tech, says the project isn't actually for a grade, it's about the safety of firefighters. "Department of Homeland Security is interested to develop a firefighting helmet," Chowdhury said. "So, right now, the firefighters' activities and roles have changed a lot throughout the years. Only 7% of their activities that are mainly fire extinguishing, but mostly respond to the vehicle extrication, automated accidents and, and also, like there are active shooting incidents firefighters are responding to, but they do not have a ballistic helmet." These researchers are trying to improve one the most important pieces of safety equipment a firefighter can have: helmets.  

Property owners who repeatedly violate building codes and fail to correct potentially dangerous conditions will face mandatory penalties under a law signed by Gov. Kathy Hochul. The law, sponsored by Assemblyman Kenneth Zebrowski, D-New City, adds to the current penalties by imposing a minimum fine of $25 a day after 180 days of a property being in violation. An unaddressed violation after 360 days would bring a minimum penalty of $50 a day. The maximum code violation penalty remains $1,000 a day that could be levied by a judge. But Zebrowski said the amount is rarely imposed so he and state Sen. Rachel May, D-Onondaga, proposed strengthening code violation penalties. Zebrowski and May said the tougher fine structure is meant to push municipal governments to act faster on properties that are not up to code and have languished for months with token fines put in place.  

When a COVID-19 test returns a false-positive result — meaning a person does not have a SARS-CoV-2 infection, yet the test is positive — this disrupts that person's life unnecessarily. However, a false negative — when someone does have an infection, but the test is negative — is more detrimental. This is because treatment is mistakenly deferred, and the individual may infect others as they continue to participate in their regular daily activities. A new study from Vanderbilt University in Nashville, TN, suggests that the time of day at which a person takes an RT-PCR COVID-19 test may affect the likelihood of an inaccurate result. The study found that the participants were up to twice as likely to receive an accurate positive result if they got tested in the middle of the day and not at night.