Prayers for Calif. mudslide victims; death toll hits 20
MONTECITO, Calif. (AP) — Parishioners prayed on Sunday for those killed and for families still searching for missing relatives in a Southern California community ravaged by mudslides, and authorities announced another body had been found, increasing the death toll to 20.
The body of 30-year-old Pinit Sutthithepa was discovered Saturday afternoon. His 2-year-old daughter, Lydia, remained missing. His 6-year-old son, Peerawat, nicknamed Pasta, and his 79-year-old father-in-law, Richard Loring Taylor, also were killed in the mudslides.
The list of those still missing in the mudslides has shrunk to four.
Because most churches in Montecito are in an evacuation area, many worshippers attended services in nearby towns. At a church in Santa Barbara, they carried flowers, lit candles and prayed for the families who have lost loved ones. The victims were their friends and neighbors, they said.
“Our whole community is devastated,” Hannah Miller said at the Trinity Episcopal Church. “There isn’t anyone who doesn’t know someone who has been affected by this disaster. It is truly awful. We can just pray they find those poor missing people.”
Trump says program to protect ‘Dreamers’ is ‘probably dead’
PALM BEACH, Fla. (AP) — President Donald Trump said Sunday that a program that protects immigrants who were brought to the U.S. illegally as children is “probably dead,” casting a cloud over already tenuous negotiations just days before a deadline on a government funding deal that Democrats have tied to immigration.
At issue is the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program created by President Barack Obama to shield hundreds of thousands of these individuals, known as “Dreamers,” from deportation. Trump, who has taken a hard stance against illegal immigration, announced last year that he will end the program unless Congress comes up with a solution by March.
“DACA is probably dead because the Democrats don’t really want it, they just want to talk and take desperately needed money away from our Military,” the Republican president tweeted. “I, as President, want people coming into our Country who are going to help us become strong and great again, people coming in through a system based on MERIT. No more Lotteries! #AMERICA FIRST.”
Republicans and Democrats were already at odds over funding the government, and the negotiations became more complicated after Democrats insisted immigration be included.
Plane dangles off cliff after skidding off runway
ISTANBUL (AP) — A commercial airplane that skidded off a runway after landing in northern Turkey dangled precariously Sunday off a muddy cliff with its nose only a few feet from the Black Sea.
Some of the 168 people on board the Boeing 737-800 described it as a “miracle” that everyone was evacuated safely from the plane, which went off a runway at Trabzon Airport.
Images show the aircraft on its belly and perched at an acute angle just above the water.
If it had slid any further along the slope, the plane would have likely plunged into the sea in the Turkish province of Trabzon.
Pegasus Airlines said no one was injured during the incident late Saturday, despite the panic among the 162 passengers on board Flight PC8622. The six-member crew, including two pilots, was also evacuated. Flights were suspended at Trabzon Airport for several hours before resuming again Sunday.
Earthquake in Peru destroys dozens of homes, kills 1 man
LIMA, Peru (AP) — A powerful earthquake struck off Peru’s coast early Sunday, tumbling adobe homes in small, rural towns, killing at least one person and leaving dozens injured, officials said.
The earthquake destroyed 63 homes, displacing about 130 people, and it injured 65 people, Peru’s Chief of Civil Defense Jorge Chavez said.
The sole fatality was man killed when he was crushed by a fallen rock, said officials, adding that many of those injured were in Chala district, a coastal area dependent on fishing and mining that is popular with tourists.
Emergency crews responded by sending tents and mattresses to the displaced families, officials said.
“Everything that is needed is going to be sent,” Peru’s President Pedro Pablo Kuczynski said. “We are already responding at full speed.”
