The Texas House sent Houston's pension reform package to the governor's desk Wednesday, marking what Mayor Sylvester Turner hopes is the beginning of the end of a 16-year fiscal crisis, and giving him a landmark achievement in his second year in office. Turner, who has made passing the reforms the centerpiece of his tenure, alternated between grins and gravitas Wednesday night.
- PUB DATE: 5/25/2017 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: Firehouse.com

Inman Fire Chief Chris Cothran said Tuesday the city council should begin thinking about funding a 24/7 fire department. At Monday’s budget work session, Cothran proposed $243,000 in new funding to pay for roughly 10 firefighters to cover two 12-hour shifts, 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. He said the number of volunteer firefighters has dropped in recent years, jeopardizing quick response times to a fire.
- PUB DATE: 5/25/2017 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: goupstate.com

Mayor Rahm Emanuel on Wednesday took a page out of former Mayor Richard M. Daley’s playbook, creating a $3 million program to help up to 100 police officers, firefighters and paramedics purchase homes in “targeted” Chicago neighborhoods. Daley did the same thing in the early 1990’s with only mixed results.
- PUB DATE: 5/25/2017 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: Chicago Sun-Times

First responders in Miami County have access to more of the overdose-reversing antidote naloxone than ever before after officials received 50 dosages last week from the state’s emergency stash of the drug. The Indiana State Department of Health last year set up emergency caches of naloxone kits at five sites around the state in the event first responders ran out of the drug and were unable to obtain it through normal means, according to ISDH Director of Public Affairs Jennifer O'Malley.
- PUB DATE: 5/25/2017 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: Kokomo Tribune

It’s no secret that firefighters have a special relationship. They spend every other day together and rely on each other to have their backs. Two firefighters from West Licking Fire Department are proving that bond goes further than just the firehouse. One man needed a kidney, so another firefighter gave him one.
- PUB DATE: 5/25/2017 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: WCMH-TV Columbus