It's Wednesday, September 16th. I'm Hila Hughes.

And I'm Gideon Ressick and this is what a day the podcast equivalent of a small wooded area you can visit without coughing or burning.

Yeah, tin trees, perhaps ababbling brook, no fires, has kind of what we're going for here.

Yeah, I'm podcasting, but I'm also napping on the log.

Oh my god, Ressick.

On today's show, a look at how smoke from the fires is impacting air quality and how to protect yourself, then some headlines.

But first, the latest, the city of Louisville, Kentucky has come to a $12 million settlement deal with the family of Brianna Taylor, the 26 year old black woman who was shot and killed by white police officers in her own apartment six months ago.

The police killing spark protests in the city and across the country as part of a massive movement against police brutality and systemic racism.

So let's get into the details of the settlement.

Yeah, so first of all, the $12 million is the largest the city has ever paid out according to the career journal.

And it stems from a wrongful death lawsuit brought by Taylor's mother to make a Palmer in addition to the money and perhaps more importantly, the agreement also includes a bunch of police reforms, including mandatory reviews of all search warrants by commanding officers, mandatory EMS presence at sites of search warrants.

And an early warning system that's meant to flag officers with disciplinary issues in advance.

This comes after the city passed Brianna's law earlier this summer that bands the use of no knock warrants and other cities and states have also passed similar laws this year.

Right, and that's the kind of warrant that was used to enter Brianna Taylor's apartment without warning on the night of her killing.

That's right. And in this case, the police also got five warrants, which they said were for a drug operation involving Taylor's ex boyfriend.

But they didn't seem to grasp after all their police work that they were no longer dating at the time.

And on the night of the raid, her current boyfriend, who was a licensed gun owner, was with Taylor.

And at the last minute, police reportedly changed their no knock warrant to a knock and announce, which required the officers to identify themselves.

Allegedly, the announced part wasn't done clearly and Taylor's boyfriend Kenneth Walker opened fire because he was concerned the Taylor's ex boyfriend was coming into the apartment.

There's a really good New York Times investigation about everything that led up to that night that we can link to in our show notes.

All right. And getting into the other policy changes in the settlement. How do they apply?

Yes, so on the early warning system, there had been multiple complaints of excessive use of force by one of the officers on the scene of Taylor's killing.

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