IN BRIEF

FAMILY PROMISE

Event will show what it's like to be homeless

Family Promise, a local nonprofit group, will host an overnight "cardboard city" on Friday to draw attention to the plight of homeless families and raise money for the charity.

Participants should bring their own cardboard boxes and sleeping bags to The Crossing, A Christian Church, at 7950 W. Windmill Lane, near Buffalo Drive. The event begins at 5:30 p.m. and goes until 7 a.m. Saturday.

"We hope to open some eyes to what it must be like to have only a box to sleep in, to have that be your home," said Terry Lindemann, executive director of Family Promise.

Organizers suggest donations of $100 per participant. For more information, call 638-8806.

SIERRA NEVADA

Study links wildfires to climate change

A warming climate will fuel larger, more frequent wildfires in the Sierra Nevada and other parts of the West, and the fires will in turn contribute to climate change, according to a new study.

More than 20 international scientists, in the report published Friday in the journal Science, said fire is not only a consequence of climate change but a cause.

Scientists determined intentional deforestation fires, many set in tropical areas to expand agriculture or ranching, contribute up to a fifth of the human-caused increase in emissions of carbon dioxide.

The researchers called on the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change to integrate fire into its assessment of climate change.

A 2007 blaze at Lake Tahoe destroyed 254 homes.

2ND CONGRESSIONAL DISTRICT

Candidate announces bid to unseat Heller

More than 11/2 years before the next election, Cindy Olivas Trigg announced her candidacy Friday for the Democratic nomination to face Republican Rep. Dean Heller in the 2nd Congressional District.

Olivas Trigg, 54, president of the Douglas County School Board, said she plans a "different kind of campaign" against Heller "with what Dr. Martin Luther King used to call the 'fierce urgency of now.' "

"Starting today, as a candidate for Congress I am going to campaign every day like it's the final stretch," the former flight attendant said in remarks prepared for her campaign kickoff at a Reno restaurant.

Democrat Jill Derby lost to Heller in each of the prior two elections. Aides to Heller did not return messages.