U.S. regulators approved a plan to demolish four dams on a California river and open up hundreds of miles of salmon habitat that would be the largest dam removal and river restoration project in the world when it goes forward. The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission vote Thursday on the lower Klamath River dams is the last major regulatory hurdle and the biggest milestone for a $500 million demolition proposal championed by Native American tribes and environmentalists for years. The project would return the lower half of California’s second-largest river to a free-flowing state for the first time in more than a century.
The Indian Health Service says all tribal members covered by the federal agency will be offered a vaccine at every appointment, when appropriate. Thursday’s announcement of the new vaccine strategy said that throughout the coronavirus pandemic, American Indians and Alaska Natives have had among the nation’s highest COVID-19 vaccination rates. But Indigenous people are especially vulnerable to vaccine-preventable illness. IHS officials recently noticed fewer patients were getting the vaccine. Patients have also fallen behind in jabs for childhood diseases such as measles, mumps and rubella as well as shingles shots for older adults and flu shots for all….
