A Chester County man who was convicted earlier this month of killing his ex-girlfriend in front of her children escaped from custody early Thursday morning, investigators said.
Danelo Cavalcante, 34, slipped past guards at the Chester County Prison in West Chester just before 9 a.m., according to District Attorney Deborah Ryan, who called Cavalcante “extremely dangerous.” Anyone who sees Cavalcante is encouraged to stay away from him and call 911 immediately.
Acting Chester County Prison Warden Howard Holland declined to provide information about how Cavalcante escaped, saying that the escape was under investigation. After Cavalcante’s disappearance was noticed, prison authorities locked down the facility and notified law enforcement agencies in the immediate area, Holland said.
Cavalcante was last seen at 9:30 a.m. walking south in Pocopson Township on Wawaset Road, the road on which the prison is located.
He was dressed in a white T-shirt, gray shorts, and white sneakers, Ryan said. Cavalcante is 5 feet tall and 120 pounds, with black curly hair and brown eyes.
Pennsylvania State Police and the U.S. Marshals are assisting in the search for Cavalcante, according to Ryan. Cavalcante’s family members in Phoenixville have spoken with investigators, who said they are cooperating. The family of Deborah Brandao — Cavalcante’s ex, whom he killed in 2021 — have been notified and have been moved to a safe location.
Authorities are offering a reward of as much as $10,000 for information that leads to his arrest.
A Chester County jury took about 15 minutes on Aug. 16 to convict Cavalcante of first-degree murder in the stabbing death of Brandao, whom he had dated for two years. He was sentenced Aug. 22 to life in prison, and was awaiting transfer to state prison.
Cavalcante killed Brandao with a kitchen knife that he had been using earlier that day to cut meat for a barbecue, bringing it with him to confront Brandao in April 2021 at her home in Schuylkill Township.
Hours after the murder, Cavalcante drove to Phoenixville, where two of his friends helped him change his clothes, fuel his car, and escape the area, according to their testimony during the trial. Cavalcante planned to flee the country, driving south on I-95, but was arrested in Virginia by state police there.
During a statement to detectives, Cavalcante admitted to killing Brandao, and said he was sorry for doing so.
But Ryan, in her closing arguments to jurors during the trial, said that remorse was not genuine.
Cavalcante was angry at Brandao, Ryan said, because she had threatened to go to the police with information about Cavalcante’s criminal past in his native Brazil: At the time of the stabbing, Cavalcante was wanted for a 2017 murder there.
“He couldn’t have that,” Ryan told the jurors in her closing arguments. “So he had to silence her. And that’s what he did.”
Ryan described the pair’s relationship as abusive and toxic, calling Cavalcante “an angry and jealous boyfriend who needed to be in control.”
But Cavalcante’s lawyer, Sameer Barkawi, said the killing was not premeditated: Cavalcante “snapped,” Barkawi said, during a tense argument with Brandao.
“This was a volatile — and that’s probably putting it lightly — relationship,” Barkawi said. “It’s important to understand the toxicity of this relationship.”
Cavalcante had assaulted Brandao twice before, just months apart in 2020.
That June, officers in Upper Providence Township were called to the apartment the two shared in Royersford for reports of a disturbance. Brandao told the officers that Cavalcante had attacked her, biting her lip hard enough to draw blood and chasing her and her children out of the apartment.
A warrant was issued for his arrest on simple assault, but Cavalcante reneged on his promise to turn himself in, according to testimony during the trial.
Six months later, Cavalcante chased Brandao with a knife, and she applied for a temporary protection-from-abuse order against him.
It lapsed two months before her murder, when she didn’t appear for a hearing before a judge in Montgomery County.
A Texas district court judge ruled on Wednesday that a new state law aimed at preventing cities from making local rules on a broad range of subjects — including requiring rest breaks for construction workers — was unconstitutional, siding with the leaders of Houston, San Antonio and other Texas cities who had challenged the law.
Construction workers took a rest in the shade of their trailer during a dangerous heat wave in Austin, Texas, in June.Matthew Busch for The New York Times
Why It Matters: The law was part of the struggle for control of Texas.
The law, known as House Bill 2127, was set to go into effect on Friday. Its passage this year was among the most aggressive steps yet taken by the Republican-dominated Legislature to exert control over the state’s increasingly progressive, Democratic-led cities.
The law would have prevented cities from enacting ordinances including those affecting labor, agriculture and natural resources, and was expected to nullify existing laws on everything from sanitation rules to the regulation of puppy mills. It was labeled “the Death Star” by its Democratic opponents because of its sweeping impact on the powers of cities to regulate themselves.
After its passage, the law gained national attention because it would have tossed out ordinances in Austin and Dallas requiring periodic rest breaks for construction workers — a change adopted as the state was experiencing a series of searing heat waves.
In a news conference on Wednesday, Mayor Sylvester Turner of Houston called the judge’s ruling a “tremendous victory” for the people of Houston and other cities around Texas.
Background: Businesses liked the law. City leaders did not.
Business groups such as the National Federation of Independent Business, Republican lawmakers and Gov. Greg Abbott backed the law, which they dubbed the Regulatory Consistency Act, as a means of streamlining regulations and preventing companies from having to comply with a hodgepodge of different regulations in different parts of the state.
Labor groups, city leaders and Texas Democrats objected that it was instead a means of usurping local control at a time when cities in Texas were becoming increasingly progressive and adopting greater protections for workers and tenants.
In July, the City of Houston, joined by San Antonio and El Paso, filed suit against the State of Texas, arguing that the law was overly broad and violated the provisions of the State Constitution that give cities the power to make their own rules. City leaders said that because of the law’s sweeping language, they had yet to determine precisely which of their rules would be pre-empted by the measure, and which could still be enforced.
The Travis County judge hearing the case in Austin, Maya Guerra Gamble, agreed, finding that the law “in its entirety is unconstitutional” and granting the cities’ motion for summary judgment on Wednesday.
What’s Next: Rules on water breaks remain, for now.
The Texas attorney general was expected to appeal the decision. The case could eventually end up before the State Supreme Court, whose nine members are all Republican.
U.S. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell speaks to the media following the weekly policy luncheons at the U.S. Capitol on June 21, 2023 in Washington, DC.
Kevin Dietsch | Getty Images
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., on Wednesday appeared briefly unable to respond to reporters' questions at a press event, marking the second time in weeks that the Republican leader has abruptly stopped speaking and required help from people around him.
McConnell, 81, initially seemed to struggle to hear when asked at an event in Covington, Kentucky, about his views on running for reelection.
But the senator then froze at the lectern and did not speak for about 30 seconds. He did not appear to immediately respond when a member of his staff approached him to ask if he had heard the question.
"All right, I'm sorry, you all. We're going to need a minute," the aide said during that interval.
McConnell then appeared to signal he was ready to receive another question. He was asked about Kentucky Attorney General Daniel Cameron, who is running for governor.
After his aide loudly repeated the question into his ear, McConnell said, "I think the governor's race is going to be very close," with his voice lowering in volume as he finished his reply.
He brushed off a final question about former President Donald Trump's latest indictment in Georgia before being led away from the lectern.
McConnell suffered a similar episode July 26 in Washington, D.C., where he froze and was briefly unable to speak at a press conference.
In that case, McConnell's fellow senators rushed in to help him, and after a few minutes he returned to the lectern and continued speaking to reporters.
At the time, McConnell dismissed questions about whether the health scare was in any way connected to a concussion he suffered earlier this year when he fell at a political fundraiser.
Spokesmen for McConnell did not immediately respond to CNBC's request for comment on the latest incident.
Fresh questions about McConnell's health arise at an especially fraught moment for Republicans in Congress, who hold a narrow majority in the House and 49 seats in the Senate, one shy of a majority.
On Tuesday, Republican House Majority Leader Steve Scalise announced that he had been diagnosed with multiple myeloma, a rare blood cancer. The Louisiana lawmaker called the disease "very treatable" and promised he would return to Washington, though he did not say precisely when.
Congress is scheduled to return to session in September after a monthlong recess, with the Senate back in session Sept. 5 and the House on Sept. 12.
This is breaking news. Please check back for updates.
A suspect is in custody after a shooting at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill on Monday afternoon left a faculty member dead and prompted students and others to shelter in place for hours as police looked for the gunman, school officials said.
Shots were reported fired at 1:02 p.m. ET at the school’s Caudill Laboratories, and a suspect was taken into custody shortly after 2:30 p.m., Chancellor Kevin Guskiewicz said at a Monday evening news conference.
The names of the faculty member and the suspect were not immediately released. It was too early to know a motive for the shooting, UNC Police Chief Brian James said.
“We really want to know the ‘why’ in this case and what led to it,” James said.
The gun used in the shooting has not been found, the chief added.
“This loss is devastating and the shooting damages the trust and safety that we so often take for granted in our campus community. We will work to rebuild that sense of trust and safety within our community,” Guskiewicz said.
The school had issued an alert to students telling them to shelter in place at about 1 p.m., later adding a suspect was at large. The university then issued an “all clear” late in the afternoon.
Classes and campus activities were canceled Monday and Tuesday, officials said.
During the alert period, university police advised students to go inside immediately, close windows and doors and to wait until further notice, according to an email. A witness on campus told CNN they were locked down in their building and saw armed officers searching campus.
Video from CNN affiliate WRAL in Chapel Hill showed a large number of police vehicles at the campus with their emergency lights flashing. At times, people walked out of nearby buildings in a single-file line with their arms in the air.
A WRAL reporter also recorded video of campus police surrounding a person in handcuffs who appeared to be dressed in a dark shirt and jeans and wearing glasses at the time the school was under lockdown.
This is the second week of the fall semester at the school. The university has a student body population of about 32,000, along with more than 4,000 faculty and 9,000 staff members.
CNN’s Steve Almasy, Devon M. Sayers and Evan Perez contributed to this report.
At least seven people were injured Saturday morning in a shooting at a Boston parade, police said.
The victims were taken to local hospitals with non-life threatening injuries.
Several arrests were made and firearms recovered, police said.
The shooting occurred during the Jouvert Parade, which is part of the city’s Caribbean carnival, according to Boston Police Sgt. Det. John Boyle.
Police said emergency calls started to come in around 7.45 a.m. regarding a shooting at the corner of Blue Hill Avenue and Talbot Avenue in Dorchester.
A police spokesperson said “multiple victims” were transported to local hospitals.
A spokesperson for the Boston Medical Center referred CNN to police for information on the incident.
The city’s annual Caribbean carnival was expected to take place with two separate parades on Saturday in the area, according to a local traffic advisory.
The daylong carnival, which dates to 1973, usually draws thousands of people for a cultural celebration that includes a steelpan competition and a masquerade ball, according to its website.
To commemorate the 60th anniversary of the March on Washington, CBS News presents a special, season finale of BET's "America In Black" series with a look at the women behind the march in 1963, the volunteer worker who owns the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.'s "I Have a Dream" speech, an interview with Tennessee state Rep. Justin Pearson and more. Stream it on the free CBS News app starting at 8 p.m. EDT on Tuesday, Aug. 29.
On Aug. 28, 1963, Walter Cronkite began his evening news broadcast with a vivid description of the March on Washington. The day would come to be a watershed moment in the equal rights movement for Black Americans.
"They called it the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom," said Cronkite. "They came from all over America. Negroes and Whites, housewives and Hollywood stars, senators and a few beatniks, clergymen and probably a few Communists. More than 200,000 of them came to Washington this morning in a kind of climax to a historic spring and summer in the struggle for equal rights."
One of those clergymen was the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., who made his famed "I Have A Dream" speech on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial on the afternoon of Aug. 28. He spoke for 16 minutes in a rallying cry for all to have equal rights.
Civil rights leader the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. addresses crowds during the March On Washington at the Lincoln Memorial, Washington D.C, where he gave his 'I Have A Dream' speech.Getty Images
What was the March on Washington?
The March on Washington for Freedom and Jobs was meant to support the Civil Rights Act, which President John F. Kennedy was attempting to pass through Congress. The act called for an expanded Civil Rights Commission, the desegregation of public schools and other locations and voting rights protections for Black Americans.
On the day of the march, more than 250,000 people walked from the Washington Monument to the Lincoln Memorial. Cronkite remarked that the march sometimes looked "more like a parade of signs than of people," as marchers carried signs calling for equality and the end of police brutality.
Along the parade route was CBS News correspondent Dave Dugan. He called the enthusiasm of the march "contagious," with older attendees "taking it rather relaxed and calmly" and younger marchers singing freedom songs like "We Shall Overcome," bubbling with energy and "exuberance."
Between 200,000 and 500,000 demonstrators march down Constitution Avenue in Washington D.C. during the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom on Aug. 28, 1963.Getty Images
The Civil Rights Act was signed into law by President Lyndon B. Johnson on July 2, 1964, after Kennedy's assassination in Dallas in November of 1963. It outlawed discrimination based on race, sex and other protected classes, prohibited discrimination against voters of color and racial segregation in schools. It would be one of the most important legislative bills passed in American history.
Who led the March on Washington?
There were 10 main leaders of the march, according to a list of biographical information held by the JFK Presidential Library. The director of the march was Asa Philip Randolph, who was 74 at the time. He organized Black workers across America and was key in convincing President Harry Truman to integrate the U.S. military after World War II.
Other major leaders included Eugene Carson Blake, a minister and former pastor to President Dwight D. Eisenhower, and Walter Reuther, a union organizer and presidential adviser. Also involved in leading the march was James Farmer, who created the Congress of Racial Equity and organized the Freedom Rides of 1961. Farmer was in jail at the time of the march after being arrested at a protest in Louisiana.
Also leading the march was John Lewis, who was arrested dozens of times in pursuit of equal rights and would go on to be a senator in Georgia, and King, who would make his iconic "I Have a Dream" speech as part of his duties that day.
The other leaders included Whitney Young, Matthew Ahmann, Roy Wilkins and Rabbi Joachim Prinz.
After the march, the leaders met with Kennedy, spending about 75 minutes with him and other officials. Kennedy released a statement praising the march and its leaders.
After the meeting in the White House, the civil rights leaders addressed media outside the presidential residence. King told assembled reporters that the president had made it "very clear that" they would need "very strong bipartisan support" to pass civil rights legislation that year.
U.S. President John F. Kennedy in the White House in 1963 with leaders of the civil rights March on Washington (left to right): the Rev. Martin Luther King, John Lewis, Rabbi Joachim Prinz, A. Philip Randolph, President Kennedy, Walter Reuther and Roy Wilkins. Behind Reuther is U.S. Vice-President Lyndon B. Johnson.Getty Images
"The job ahead is to get some of the individuals in both parties who are still a little on the fence to come over in a positive way and support this legislation," said King. "It must have bipartisan support if it is to get through."
How is the 60th anniversary of the March on Washington being observed?
One of the major observations of the 60th anniversary of the March on Washington is an assembly planned at the Lincoln Memorial. About 50,000 people are expected to arrive at the monument to pay homage to King, and his son Martin Luther King III plans to speak. The free event will "honor the past, acknowledge the present and march toward a future of progress and equality," according to the event's website.
CBS will also produce a half-hour special that will air at 8 p.m. EDT on Monday, Aug. 28 on BET, BET HER, BET+, and Paramount+. The special, titled "America in Black: The March on Washington 60 years later," will be anchored by Mark Lamont Hill and will feature archival CBS News footage and new interviews looking at the next generation of people carrying on King's legacy.
The March on Washington special will re-air on CBS News Streaming at 8 p.m. EDT on Tuesday, Aug. 29.
Fifth-grade students from Watkins Elementary School, a school in the District of Columbia, wait to recite lines from Martin Luther King Jr.'s "I Have a Dream" speech to commemorate his birthday on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial on the National Mall on Jan. 13, 2023 in Washington, D.C. The event, which is organized by the National Parks Service has been hosted every year since 2004.Getty Images
How did CBS News cover the March on Washington in 1963?
According to Cronkite, it was a "balmy" 77 degrees on the day of the March on Washington, and the crowd had a "picnicking, holiday" spirit as the numbers swelled from tens of thousands to more than 250,000 attendees. The camera cut to a reporter standing with entertainer Lena Horne and the Rev. Fred Shuttlesworth, active members of the civil rights movement.
Horne called the day "intense, to put it mildly."
"This is the beginning again, another beginning," she said.
Shuttlesworth, a civil rights activist from Birmingham, Alabama, said he saw the events of the day as the first step, not the end of the fight for equal rights.
A CBS News correspondent interviews entertainer Lena Horne (left) and Rev. Fred Shuttlesworth (right) before the March on Washington. CBS News Archives
"I think if anything, this does say, it is there ought to be little Washingtons all over, in every nook and cranny of this country," he said. "We are thinking at this time about organizing a march through the Black belt of Alabama and Mississippi, because until the people in the Black belt … can be free, then Americans on the best streets can't be free. … I think the message to the country is 'Free yourself by freeing us.'"
Soon, the march was underway, though it started earlier than expected, causing its leaders to have to run to catch up. The members of the march chanted slogans and carried signs.
"All of the demands underlined the word 'Now,'" Cronkite said. "A mood clearly expressed, that there is no more time. Now is the time to act."
After a few more moments of the marchers, the camera returned to Cronkite in the studio to talk about the political backdrop of the march. The march didn't immediately resonate with members of Congress, according to correspondent Robert Pierpoint, who reported from the U.S. Capitol. Instead, Congress was "preoccupied with a bill to settle the railroad controversy," Pierpoint said, referring to a narrowly averted railroad strike.
Sen. Strom Thurmond, who represented South Carolina for over 48 years after one term as the state's governor, even said in an interview with Pierpoint that he believed the march would "not" help the cause. He was a Democrat at the time of the interview, but joined the Republican party in September 1964. Thurmond was a longstanding opponent of civil rights legislation, saying that Black Americans were not at any disadvantage and not in need of the Civil Rights Act.
Meanwhile, Sen. Philip Hart, a Democrat who represented Michigan for over 16 years and was known as "the Conscience of the Senate," called the march an "excellent thing" that could motivate politicians to act.
Sen. Strom Thurmond (left) interviewed by CBS News correspondent Robert Pierpoint (right).CBS News Archives
"Much of what was said and done in this city today was directed at Congress but much of Congress simply was not paying attention," Pierpoint said. Most Congressmen "had strong views on the march, depending largely on whether they were for or against the president's civil rights programs, but almost all agreed on one essential point: The march itself would not influence many, if any, congressman's votes. Only the reactions of the voters at home for the march would do that, and they have yet to be heard from."
Cronkite then spoke of the meeting between leaders of the march and Kennedy, before ending the broadcast with a reflection on the progress the civil rights movement had made in less than a decade.
"As the multitude stood today at the marble feet of Abraham Lincoln, its members might have reflected that it has been 100 long years since the Great Emancipator proclaimed the Negroes free. It has been only eight short years since a group of determined and daring Negroes in Montgomery, Alabama boycotted that city's busses and protested against back of the bus segregation," Cronkite said.
"That was the first public demonstration that by today had swelled to this March on Washington. The momentum of change seems to be accelerating, and in the hearts of 21 million American Negroes and untold millions of sympathetic Whites, there beat tonight the hope that the dream of Negro equality was at last overtaking the reality of history."
County of Maui officials put out the list of 388 names Thursday, saying it was “validated” by the FBI so long as it received the first and last name of the unaccounted-for person, as well as a verified contact number for the person reporting that missing individual.
The list does not include identifying information like ages or genders.
“We’re releasing this list of names today because we know that it will help with the investigation,” Police Chief John Pelletier said.
“We also know that once those names come out, it can and will cause pain for folks whose loved ones are listed. This is not an easy thing to do, but we want to make sure that we are doing everything we can to make this investigation as complete and thorough as possible.”
Tim Laborte holds “missing” flyers featuring a photo of his stepfather, Joseph Lara, who has been missing since the fire on Aug. 8.REUTERS
The new list is a far cry from just two days ago, when roughly 1,100 people were said to be unaccounted for — a tally that’s been changing ever since the devastating Aug. 8 blaze that leveled Lahaina.
County officials said, though, that as of late Thursday, an additional 1,732 people previously unaccounted for had been found safe.
Authorities still acknowledged, however, that the official list likely does not account for everyone who remains missing.
Those who believe a loved one or friend is still unaccounted for are encouraged to report them to the Maui Police Department.
The new list includes 388 names, but no ages or other identifying information.County of Maui
Earlier in the week, Pelletier admitted that it was challenging to compile official lists because some people only submitted partial names, while others have been duplicated.
The death toll — 115 people — in the worst wildfire in US history in over a century is also likely to rise, officials have warned repeatedly.
Hundreds of people are unaccounted for after the deadly blaze decimated parts of west Maui.AP
Over two weeks later, experts are still scouring the torched ground for the remains of those who could not escape in time.
The affected area is about 85% cleared, but the search will take several more weeks, Army Col. David Fielder, deputy commander of the joint task force responding to the wildfires, said Friday.
“We’re not recovering whole bodies. We’re picking up ash and some of it is crumbling,” Pelletier explained.
Members of the Maui Fire Department and Ocean Safety using snorkeling gear conduct a grid search along the shoreline off Lahaina for victims of the catastrophic wildfire.NYPJ for New York Post
The family assistance center has also only collected DNA from 104 families thus far, which will slow the already arduous identification process.
The number of people coming forward to submit DNA is “a lot lower” than in comparable disasters, Maui Prosecuting Attorney Andrew Martin said Wednesday.
Authorities are working to prepare residents for the possibility that many missing individuals will never be recovered — and that they will eventually be presumed dead, HawaiiNewsNow reported.
People pray after attaching yellow ribbons to a memorial for the victims of the Lahaina wildfire.James Keivom
Early dismissals and school closures reflected the need to make schools more prepared for a hotter world.
The late-summer heat wave that blanketed a large portion of the country this week prompted several schools to cancel classes or send students home early, underscoring how ill-prepared many districts are to cope with extreme weather events that have become more common.
In Des Moines, school bus drivers received medical aid at the end of sweltering shifts. Chicago teachers were told to turn off overhead lights and draw shades to keep classrooms bearable. A marching band instructor outfitted students with water backpacks to prevent them from passing out from the heat — at 7:30 a.m.
The scorching temperatures and high humidity that dogged millions of Americans from the upper Midwest to the Southeast added to the challenges of the first days of the new school year. It was a stark reminder, education experts and parents said, of the urgent need to make schools more resilient to climate change.
“We can’t be sending students and educators into a sauna and expect them to learn,” said Karen White, the deputy executive director at the National Education Association. “As the climate continues to change and warm, we have to modernize school buildings or we are putting students in danger.”
On Wednesday, the first day of the school year for students in Des Moines, the temperature rose to 100 degrees, a record high. Only five of the public school district’s 130 buses have air conditioning, which made the ride home miserable for many students, said Phil Roeder, director of communications for the school district.
By the end of the day, Mr. Roeder said 15 drivers were treated for signs of heat exhaustion, including one who was taken to the hospital.
In Concordia, Mo., Jessica Gieselman was alarmed when her 6-year-old son, Wesley, arrived home drenched in sweat on Tuesday, the first day of school. Wesley, who has asthma, gets off on the third stop on his route and usually spends no more than 30 minutes on the bus.
“My worry was how hot and stuffy it is on that bus for my asthmatic son to be sitting there,” said Ms. Gieselman, who posted a short video on Facebook of her son looking weary as he walked in the door. She and her husband made arrangements to drive Wesley home from school the remainder of the week, during which highs reached into the triple digits, even though it’s inconvenient because they both work. “It would be nice if we had air conditioning on the buses, but I know that that’s expensive,” Ms. Gieselman said.
Molly McGee Hewitt, the executive director of the National Association for Pupil Transportation, said districts in parts of the country unaccustomed to extreme heat during months when school is in session had been slow to make necessary infrastructure investments.
“Where they may have considered air conditioning a frill in the past, there’s a realization it’s becoming a necessity,” she said. “It’s going to be a huge investment, and it’s not something that can happen overnight.”
In 2020, the Government Accountability Office, a federal watchdog agency, found that roughly 41 percent of school districts had deficient heating, ventilation and air conditioning systems in at least half of their schools.
Since then, the Covid-19 pandemic prompted school districts to make major investments to upgrade air filtration systems. But many schools have been slow to install or upgrade air conditioning systems.
At Marshall Elementary School in Dubuque, Iowa, officials cut the school day short by two hours on Wednesday, Thursday and Friday as the temperature hovered in the 90s. The principal, Joe Maloney, said his staff worked hard to ensure students had water bottles handy and moved slowly through the day.
Toward the end of the school day on Thursday, he encountered a couple of students in the lunchroom who looked exhausted. “It looked like they were almost melting into the floor,” he said.
Daniel Krumm, a drum instructor at Roosevelt High School in Des Moines, said he and his peers around the country had come up with new protocols to keep band members safe on scorching days. Each student is issued backpacks with hydration packs and there are constant reminders to sip throughout practice, he said.
“We find that students, especially at the high school age, have a real desire to find their limit, and they’re willing to push really hard, even when it’s difficult,” Mr. Krumm said.
Shannon McCann, a special-education teacher in Federal Way, Wash., said she and her colleagues struggled to keep students safe during a heat wave last May. Teachers bought water bottles to make sure students were hydrated. Some turned classroom lights off and blasted fans.
But Ms. McCann, who has been teaching for 11 years, said those measures weren’t enough. Some students went to the nurse to get ice packs. Others were sent home with heat-induced migraines and bloody noses, she said.
“The heat and our underfunded schools and outdated infrastructure are really putting kids and educators at risk,” she said.
Joseph G. Allen, a professor at Harvard University who heads the Harvard Healthy Buildings Program, said that schools that fail to make facilities more adaptable to climate change would pay a price in student learning. Professor Allen said this problem was exacerbating inequities in the public education system because schools in less-affluent communities had been slower to make the required investments.
“It’s irresponsible that we haven’t allocated the resources to make our schools more resilient to these threats,” he said.
LAHAINA >> Shortly after the ignition of the deadliest U.S. wildfire in more than a century, a developer of land around a threatened Maui community urgently asked state officials for permission to divert water from streams to fight the growing inferno.
West Maui Land Company, Inc. said it eventually received approval from the Hawaii commission that oversees water management, but suggested the state body didn’t act quickly enough and first directed the company to talk with a downstream taro farmer who relies on stream water, according to letters by a company executive obtained by The Associated Press and other news outlets.
Community members, including Native Hawaiian farmers, say the water the developer wanted for its reservoirs would not have made a difference in the fires. The reservoirs don’t supply Maui County’s fire hydrants, and firefighting helicopters — which could have dipped into the reservoirs for water — were grounded by high winds.
The Aug. 8 fire that killed at least 115 people took place below West Maui Land Company’s developments and the Hawaiian communities that rely on the water. But the dispute over water access during the blaze has sparked new tension in a fight that dates to the mid-1800s, when unfair water distribution practices took root when plantations were established during colonization.
“This is a 2023 rendition of what’s been happening in Lahaina for centuries,” said Kapua’ala Sproat, director of the Native Hawaiian law center at the University of Hawaii.
Glenn Tremble, who wrote the letters, told the AP via text that the company didn’t share the letters with the media and didn’t want to distract from West Maui’s losses. AP obtained the correspondence from various people familiar with the dispute.
“All we have asked is for the ability to make water available for fire prevention and suppression, to help people while we recover and to rebuild what we have lost,” he wrote.
The complex push-pull over Maui stream diversions recalls other battles over water rights in drought-stricken Western states that have pitted Native American tribes against farmers and farmers against urban areas.
Native Hawaiians have long fought to protect what they consider a sacred resource. Stream diversions continued even after the plantations closed, and booming development contributed to West Maui’s arid conditions. The West Maui Land Company’s subdivision — including multimillion-dollar gated homes that use diverted water — was untouched by the Lahaina fires, noted Native Hawaiians who live off the streams and farm taro, a cultural staple.
“At one time, Lahaina was known to be very verdant and very lush,” said Blossom Feiteira, a Native Hawaiian cultural practitioner and Lahaina native. Hawaiians revere water so much and its abundance was why Lahaina became the capital of the Hawaiian kingdom from 1820 to 1845, she said.
When sugar cane and pineapple fields from the plantation era shut down in the 1980s and 1990s, the water was redirected to gated communities with lush green lawns and swimming pools, she said. Overgrown brown brush and invasive grass cropped up around these developments.
“There has been resentment in the community about that kind of picture,” Feiteira said.
In one of the letters, West Maui Land Company said the state Commission on Water Resource Management should not prioritize “one individual’s farm” over fighting a wind-whipped fire.
“No one is happy there was water in the streams while our homes, our businesses, our lands, and our lives were reduced to ash,” the company said. The letter said the company requested “approval to divert more water from the streams so we could store as much water as possible for fire control” at 1 p.m. on the day of the fire, but that they were directed to first inquire with a downstream taro farmer.
At about 6 p.m., the commission approved the diversion of more water, the letter said.
West Maui Land’s suggestion that Kaleo Manuel, first deputy of the commission, delayed the release of stream water has struck a nerve among Native Hawaiians and others who say the company is making him a scapegoat and using the tragedy to take yet more water.
A Lahaina stream sustains Keʻeaumoku Kapu’s taro patches on his ancestral lands deep in Kauaula Valley in the mountains above Lahaina. He fled the town on the afternoon of the fire as flames approached and spent a night in his truck. The fire didn’t get close to his home and farm in the valley, but in 2018 area residents used water from the stream to fight a wildfire, he said.
He called West Maui Land’s characterization of the stream diversions “bogus” and disingenuous.
“They’ll do anything to get it,” Kapu said of the water.
The company is “trying to use this incredibly difficult time to get a legal and financial advantage, especially over their water resources, when that’s something they were not able to accomplish legally before the fire,” said Sproat, of the Native Hawaiian law center.
The letters caused such a commotion that the state Department of Land and Natural Resources re-assigned Manuel, drawing a lawsuit from West Maui residents decrying the move. The department said in a statement that Manuel’s reassignment didn’t suggest he did anything wrong, but would allow officials to focus on Maui.
Manuel couldn’t immediately be reached for comment. Community groups urged supporters to go to Manuel’s Honolulu office last week to bestow lei upon him in gratitude for his efforts.
Conflicts over stream diversions are not just a West Maui issue. Soon after the fires started, the state attorney general’s office filed a petition with the state Supreme Court blaming an environmental court judge’s caps on East Maui stream diversions for a lack of water for firefighting.
The court didn’t immediately issue a ruling after hearing arguments Wednesday.
“This is what happens when there’s literally not enough water anymore,” said Kamanamaikalani Beamer, a former trustee of the Commission on Water Resource Management, calling streams “the veins that fill up our aquifers.”
“Water brings together like the multitude of interests — economic, cultural,” he said. “But it’s because no one can just create it out of nothing.”
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