A senior home in Anchorage reported six new coronavirus cases since Friday, despite a ban on most visitors that has been in effect for months. A Sunday notice on Providence Extended Care's website stated that it detected four new cases on Friday and reported two more on Saturday. Three of the cases are residents who are being treated at the facility, while the other three are staff who are quarantining at home. The East Anchorage campus, which also has a transitional care facility for patients recovering from medical procedures, had a large outbreak earlier this summer that infected dozens of residents and staff. At the time, it was Alaska's largest outbreak, but only one of the cases occurred at Providence Extended Care. The outbreak resulted in at least two deaths.  

VIDEO: A Riverside family's Halloween decor is so realistic that multiple people have made emergency phone calls summoning firefighters to the home. To say Carmen and Travis Long love Halloween is an understatement. They began creating their "Pirates of the Caribbean"-themed creation three years ago. "We've been adding things every year," said homeowner Carmen Long. "It started with just skeletons, then we added a cannon in the back and the ship, the pretend fire on the side." The make-believe blaze is so realistic that passersby have called the fire department numerous times. As many as 400 people have been arriving each night to admire the spooky spectacle. Onlookers can watch the creative show every Friday through Sunday from 7 p.m. to 9 p.m. at the corner of Chapman Place and Magnolia Avenue.  

VIDEO: In his 15 year career as a firefighter, Lt. Stephen Curry with Roanoke Fire-EMS has never seen anything like the fire that happened on Bullitt Avenue in southeast Roanoke over the weekend. A fire broke out around 5:45 on Saturday morning at a vacant house on the 700 block of Bullitt Avenue. As the fire burned through the structure, it started to collapse. Firefighters warned each other to be careful. Not long after, the building toppled. "I have not personally seen this happen in my career. Often in the city, it doesn't happen because our trucks get there so quick and our crews are on it pretty quickly. You can have fires that devastate a house, but it's still standing," said Curry. "So to see that particular house twist in that fashion and collapse in the back was kind of an odd sight." Falling debris hit and injured one firefighter. "That was certainly a close call. We do a dangerous job," said Curry.  

The first New Orleans firefighters were furloughed on Sunday under a plan requiring six unpaid days off by the end of the year to help stem a precipitous decline in city sales tax revenue during the coronavirus pandemic. The city's furlough requires almost all 4,700 employees to take the six unpaid days, including police, firefighters and other safety workers, reducing their salaries by about 10% and saving the city $6 million. But firefighters say it comes at the cost of public safety and the safety of firefighters. The firefighters' union said Sunday the impacts of the furloughs are already being felt. Three trucks were out of service on Sunday because firefighters had to be moved around to fill shifts elsewhere. While only about 13 people at the department were furloughed on Sunday, prior staffing issues left the NOFD with only about 110 on duty out of about 153 the union considers necessary to be fully staffed, said Aaron Mischler, the union president.  

Just as predicted, the US is now grappling with a new Covid-19 surge -- one that could overwhelm hospitals, kill thousands of Americans a day by January and leave even young survivors with long-term complications. "We went down to the lowest point lately in early September, around 30,000-35,000 new cases a day. Now we're back up to (about) 50,000 new cases a day. And it's going to continue to rise," said Dr. Peter Hotez, dean of the National School of Tropical Medicine at Baylor College of Medicine. "This is the fall/winter surge that everyone was worried about. And now it's happening. And it's happening especially in the northern Midwest, and the Northern states are getting hit very hard -- Wisconsin, Montana, the Dakotas. But it's going to be nationally soon enough."  

U.S. Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin says New York City will have to cover a $4 million shortfall to a program that helps 9/11 first responders pay for medical bills. The federal government removed funds to the World Trade Center Health Program to settle debts with the city over several years. Attorney Michael Barasch represents thousands of 9/11 first responders and survivors. He says his clients will be left untreated during the pandemic while Mnuchin and New York City fight. "The federal government, which has not exactly been truthful about the severity of this COVID-19, is pulling the rug out from underneath the [New York City] Bureau Health Services, which treats these firefighters. And making it impossible for them to hire as many people that need to be hired to take care of these firefighters." At least 21 jobs at the program are left vacant without money for new hires.