Fire lookouts keep watch over threatened forests
CBSN
Perched high atop Mount Bolivar in Northern California, Karita Knisely spends her summer scanning the skies. Most days, all she sees are clouds and trees – the firs and pines of Klamath National Forest. She'll record a family of deer with her phone. A hummingbird or two might stop by.
But what she's looking for is smoke. Because where there's smoke, there's fire. This year's wildfire season has gotten off to a record-breaking start, and it's only expected to get worse. In towers across the country, lookouts like Knisley are working to spot those fires before they blaze out of control.President Joe Biden said France was America's "first friend" at its founding and is one of its closest allies more than two centuries later as he was honored with a state visit Saturday by French President Emmanuel Macron aimed at showing off their partnership on global security issues and easing past trade tensions.
The Consumer Federal Protection Bureau last week launched an inquiry into what the agency is calling "junk fees in mortgage closing costs." These additional fees, involving home appraisal, title insurance and other services, have spiked in recent years and can add thousands of dollars to the final cost of buying a home.
Retired Maj. Gen. William Anders, the former Apollo 8 astronaut who took the iconic "Earthrise" photo showing the planet as a shadowed blue marble from space in 1968, was killed Friday when the plane he was piloting alone plummeted into the waters off the San Juan Islands in Washington state. He was 90.