Horse rescue
Aftershocks remain
Abused horses rehabbed to help veterans with PTSD PAGE A7
Things unsettled after refugee takever ends PAGE A10
SUNNY 100 • 64 FORECAST, B4 | Monday, June 27, 2016 | magicvalley.com
Man dies in Bliss crash Police say teen driver fell asleep at wheel TIMES-NEWS
TETONA DUNLAP PHOTOS, TIMES-NEWS
Mandaean priests prepare themselves for a baptism ceremony Wednesday at Rock Creek Park in Twin Falls.
Keeping the faith: Mandaean baptism
Baptism ceremony celebrates marriage of 2 young couples TETONA DUNLAP tdunlap@magicvalley.com
TWIN FALLS — Mandaean priests dressed in white garments gathered at the banks of Rock Creek. Long leafy branches shielded them from the rising morning sun as they stood with their heads bowed. One priest crouched on a rock to touch the water with his hands. Another priest took off his shirt, wading into the middle, dunking his head beneath the cold waters. Preparation for the baptism ceremony had begun. A string around a cluster of trees near the water served as a makeshift clothes line, allowing clothing to dry as they put on fresh white robes. The white
Women are baptized by a Mandaean priest Wednesday at Rock Creek Park in Twin Falls. gowns are called restehs. When Mandaeans die, they are also buried in restehs. Then they prayed in a triangle at Rock Creek Park before the wedding party arrived.
Twin Falls has an estimated 60 Mandaean families and many of them came together for a wedding baptism Wednesday at Rock Creek Park. Mandaeans are an indige-
nous people from Iraq and Iran with fewer than 100,000 in the world. The faith doesn’t accept converts, and some consider members who marry outsiders as no longer Mandaean. A 2011 report by Human Rights Watch, said 90 percent of Mandaeans have either left or been killed since the invasion of Iraq by US-led forces in 2003. An estimated quarter of the population was in refugee camps in Jordan and Syria in 2007, and 10,000 remained split between Iran and Iraq, the Associated Press reported. On Wednesday, Twin Falls Mandaeans greeted Mandaeans from Boise, California and Texas. Two of the three priests who conducted the baptism traveled from Australia. The central rite for Mandaeans is baptism. It is not only regarded as a symbol of life, but to a certain degree as life itself. Baptism Please see Mandaean, Page A5
Foreign biz eyes Idaho HEATHER KENNISON hkennison@magicvalley.com
TWIN FALLS — Idaho and the Magic Valley got a lot more attention this year from foreign companies at the SelectUSA Investment Summit 2016. The third annual event June 19-21 promoted foreign direct investment in the U.S., and representatives in Idaho’s 21-member team say the state is a real player in the global economy. Local attendees established multiple leads and connections that could bring more investors and companies to the Magic Valley. “The state of Idaho was a rock star at this event,” Twin Falls
Mayor Shawn Barigar said. Gov. C.L. “Butch” Otter spoke at the summit Sunday, which Barigar thinks helped draw attention to the state. “We had a line at our booth all day Monday from individual companies and investors,” he said. “This was sort of like drinking out of a fire hose.” Rupert City Administrator and State Sen. Kelly Anthon said he has high hopes many of those will come to southern Idaho. “I think I’ve got at least three interested this week that COURTESY PHOTO would apply to Rupert and the Idaho Department of Agriculture Director Celia Gould, left, Burley Mini-Cassia area,” he said. Economic Development Director Doug Manning and Rupert City Administrator and Idaho State Sen. Kelly Anthon, center, meet with an Please see Foreign, Page A5 Italian cheese-making company at SelectUSA 2016.
If you do one thing: Mini-Cassia’s Got Talent show will feature vocals,
dance, instrumentals and comedy at 7 p.m. at Wilson Theatre in Rupert. Tickets are $10 at the door.
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BLISS — One person is dead and two others injured following a one-vehicle rollover crash on U.S. Highway 26 near Bliss. Troopers responded about 3 a.m. Sunday to milepost 142 on U.S. 26 where an eastbound 1999 Ford F250 rolled, injuring all three occupants of the pickup, Idaho State Police said. One of the passengers, 55-year-old Jesus Gomez-Rangel, of Gooding, was thrown from the pickup, ISP said. He was flown to St. Alphonsus Medical Center in Boise where he later died. The name of the teen driving the pickup hasn’t been released. ISP said the teen fell asleep, went off the right shoulder of the road, woke up, overcorrected the pickup, crossed both lanes of the highway and rolled off the north shoulder of the road. The teen driver and another passenger, 35-year-old Alfredo Solis, were taken by ambulance to North Canyon Medical Center in Gooding. Solis was no longer listed as a patient at the hospital about 9:15 a.m. Sunday. ISP did not say whether the driver was wearing a seat belt, but Gomez-Rangel and Solis were not. ISP is investigating the crash.
More security possible at City Council NATHAN BROWN nbrown@magicvalley.com
TWIN FALLS — Authorities will decide Monday morning whether the controversy and threats over a sexual assault against a 5-year-old girl warrant additional security at the evening’s City Council meeting. “We’ll evaluate that Monday morning and make some decisions,” police Chief Craig Kingsbury said on Friday. Three boys from Middle Eastern families, ages 7, 10 and 14, were involved in the sexual assault against the girl at the Fawnbrook Apartments on June 2, authorities have said. Two of the boys are Sudanese, one Iraqi, and the two older boys were taken into custody a week-and-a-half ago are facing juvenile charges. The case is sealed due to the age of the defendants. Some anti-Muslim and anti-refugee resettlement blogs that have written about the case have accused law enforcement Please see Council, Page A5
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Times-News
Plan to widen camping corridors near Grand Canyon draws protests FLAGSTAFF, Ariz. (AP) — A plan to widen hundreds of miles of camping corridors south of the Grand Canyon would be detrimental to the landscape, according to state conservationist groups. Kaibab National Forest officials say popular corridors to the canyon’s South Rim will be expanded from 30 feet to 300 feet over the next three years. The move would be a significant change of longtime management rules for the forest and its paths. The final rule revision is expected later this summer, the Arizona Daily Sun reported. The limit is 300 feet in several other forests in Arizona. The proposal would expand the width on roughly
290 miles of roads. In addition, it would open access to another 21,000 acres for offroad camping as well as 24 miles of official road within two forest districts. Environmental groups say off-road vehicles could potentially damage wildlife habitats, grasslands and other landscape. “We see unregulated travel at odds with the goals to restore these important habitats,” said Alicyn Gitlin, of the local Sierra Club. Katie Davis, of the Center for Biological Diversity, said a risk of fire across a greater area could be another after-effect. Conservation advocates have been closely observing the Kaibab’s travel management rulemaking process
since 2005, Davis said. That is when national forests in the U.S. were told to establish rules for motorized access and recreation on forest grounds. The Tonto National Forest recently issued a draft of its final Travel Management Rule. The Center for Biological Diversity and the Sierra Club are currently reviewing it. The change was made because of complaints about initial road limits closing off campsites that had been used for years, Kaibab spokeswoman Jackie Banks said. The expanded corridors will be consistent with corridors in the Coconino and Prescott national forests and eliminate confusion for visitors, she added
1 killed, 2 injured in Las Vegas shooting AS VEGAS (AP) — Police L say a triple shooting left one man dead and two others injured after an altercation at a convenience store. The late Saturday incident unfolded after the victims, who haven’t been
identified, arrived at the convenience store and got in altercation with two men. One of those men fired shots into the car that the victims were sitting in. Authorities say two of the victims are in stable condi-
tion and the third was killed. The suspects ran from the store parking lot and fled in a car. Police say this is the 84th homicide for the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department this year.
Council From A1
and the city of trying to cover up what happened, and city police and the Federal Bureau of Investigation are looking into some threats that have been made against city officials. Kingsbury is usually at the Council meetings, and other officers sometimes come as well when there is an agenda item such as new police officers being sworn in or, as will be the case Monday, a police officer is being honored or given a certification. Kingsbury said he expects a few officers to be at the meeting. Vice Mayor Suzanne Hawkins, who as of Friday had received one threat she has reported to police, said it would be the mayor’s call whether to have additional security, but she doesn’t expect anything to happen. “I don’t believe it’s our local citizens doing it,” she said.
Graffiti ordinance
One of the big agenda items Monday is a new version of a graffiti removal ordinance is going to be back before the City Council. The new version adds language saying the police will try to enlist partner agencies and organizations to remove graffiti, with the property owner’s consent, before the city removes the
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Graffiti under a bridge was removed by juveniles earlier this year. graffiti unilaterally or imposes any penalties. It also adds an option for a property owner to appeal to the City Council. The City Council sent the ordinance back for revisions two weeks ago, hoping to soften it a bit and make it friendlier toward property owners. Although the current police and Council had planned to get community organizations to help remove graffiti anyway before making a property owner pay, they wanted language in the ordinance to make that clear in the future, too. Among other items, the Council is also scheduled to decide whether to: use $32,350 in contingency funds to make fixes to City Pool to make Americans with Disabilities Act requirements,
spend $20,000 to buy a parcel at the corner of Addison Avenue West and Monroe Street, which would make it easier to maintain a lateral that’s there and could be a site for a future pressurized irrigation station, waive $1,114.99 in building permit fees for a new equipment storage shed built by the school district, and award Peace Officer Standards and Training Council certificates to officers Matthew Gealta and Simon Rodriguez and detectives Javier Paredez and Jon Wilson. The meeting is scheduled to start at 5 p.m. in the City Council Chambers, 305 Third Ave. East. The agenda and related materials are available online at tfid.org.
Foreign
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was at one time so essential such that unbaptized children were not considered to belong to the community. They believe they descended from Adam, the first to receive religious instructions of the Mandaeans. Peace is central to their faith and they do not believe in using force or violence. Their faith forbids carrying weapons. The Mandaean community was gathered Wednesday to celebrate the marriages of Erhima Darraji and Mahmood Khamisi and Naeim Khamisi and Sepideh Khamissi. Mahmood and Naeim are brothers. “The baptism has always stayed the same,” Naeim said. “The baptism is the first step of the ceremony.” The Mandaean faith is centered on three aspects — beliefs, soul and body. When the priests dip participants into the water, he will dip them three times to cover these three things. When it was Naeim’s turn to be baptized, he wading into the river, approaching the priest from the left and circling around him counter clockwise. When Mandaeans wed, it is for forever, because their is no divorce in the faith. Khamissi and Naeim met on Facebook when they were ages 12 and 14. They are now 19 and 20 years old. “I stalked her pretty much,” Naeim said with a laugh. It wasn’t the first time Khamissi had been baptized. She was baptized in a river as a child, but she doesn’t remember it. Khamissi is from Texas. She had never seen a waterfall until coming to Twin Falls. When it was Khamissi’s turn, she entered a different part of the river than her husband. A cluster of woman watched as one greeted those emerging from the water with a large
TETONA DUNLAP, TIMES-NEWS
Erhima Darraji is baptized by a priest Wednesday at Rock Creek Park in Twin Falls.
Most Mandaeans live in Iran and Iraq because there are a lot of rivers. dry cloth. Their last great teacher and healer was John the Baptist. Priests usually conduct weekly baptisms in rivers. But because there is no mandi or church in Twin Falls, Wednesday’s baptism was something that doesn’t happen all the time. There are no Mandaean priests in Idaho, so worshipers can’t have regular Sunday services. They usually stay home and pray or gather in other’s houses. Rish Amma has lived in Twin Falls for five years. Amma previously lived in Oklahoma after his family became refugees fleeing Iran. He said he took his family to India and went to the U.S. embassy. In one month, they were allowed to relocate to the U.S. That was 25 years ago. Amma’s family moved to Twin Falls because his mother-in-law moved here.
“We’ve got a big community all over America,” Amma said. Most Mandaeans live in Iran and Iraq because there are a lot of rivers. Amma has been baptized more than a 100 times. Mandaean infants are always baptized and it depends on the individual how many times they want to be baptized after. But you can only be baptized by a priest. More than 20 people were baptized Wednesday. One by one those dressed in white waded into the cool waters as others wearing jeans and T-shirts on the river bank took videos on their phones. One young baptism participant started crying as soon as the water reached his waist. His father and the priest held out their hands, coaxing him to come closer, as he slowly made his way shivering toward them.
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From A1
Jeff Hough, executive director of Southern Idaho Economic Development Organization, also said he came away with three solid prospects — international companies that are looking to open plants in the U.S. Anthon predicts the Magic Valley will continue to see more interest from European companies in food manufacturing. That’s because the U.S. has different demographics than Europe, and there is more predictability in non-European currencies, he said. He also got an unexpected, but welcome, invitation to a reception at the residence of Kenichiro Sasae, Japanese ambassador to the U.S. Anthon is fluent in Japanese, and has consulted Japanese companies for 20 years. “This year, we got much more interest from Japan,” he said. One company at that special reception is ultimately looking for a corporate headquarters in either eastern or southern Idaho, Anthon said. Barigar said he personally talked to 20 or 30 individuals at the booth with interest in expansions or investment opportunities in Idaho. Prior to the summit, the state had secured
Mandaean
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Rupert Administrator Kelly Anthon with Japanese Ambassador to the U.S. Kenichiro Sasae at his official residence in Washington, D.C., June 22. five formal meetings with companies. Working as a team, Idaho representatives spread the message that while the state is small in population, its officials are accessible and available, Barigar said. “They were intrigued by that accessibility and partnership,” he said. In southern Idaho, Barigar’s focus was to try and sell the strengths of the region,
and look for companies that would complement current businesses such as plastics or dairy processing. Hough said leaders including Eastern Idaho’s Jan Rogers and SIEDO’s Lisa Buddecke worked to put the booth together and applied for the governor to be a speaker. Idaho was one of four diamond-level sponsors of the event, giving it a lot of visibility, he said.
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