Power lines cause of Utah wildfire
SALT LAKE CITY (AP) — A Utah wildfire that destroyed 52 homes and left one man dead was caused by arcing between power transmission lines that were built too closely together and sent a surge to the ground that ignited dry grass, a fire investigator said Wednesday.
The central Utah Wood Hollow Fire began June 23 and wasn’t fully contained for 10 days, costing nearly $4 million to fight, according to state officials. Officials said 160 structures total were destroyed.
The 75-square-mile blaze began when winds caused two sets of high-voltage power lines to either touch or swing close enough to each other to create a surge than swept down the poles into dry brush, said Deputy Utah Fire Marshal Troy Mills.
Rocky Mountain Power, which owns the lines, said a thief stripped protective copper wire from its poles that may have prevented the surge.
“The investigation into the Wood Hollow fire is a top priority for Rocky Mountain Power. We want to understand exactly what happened,” the company said in a statement Wednesday. “We are in the process of doing our own detailed technical analysis in addition to cooperating with fire investigators. There are aspects of this investigation that have yet to be fully analyzed.”
Mills, however, insisted that even with the copper wire in place, the surge would have easily overwhelmed the protections.
Ethanol-filled freight cars derail
COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) — Exploding freight cars full of ethanol made for a dramatic early morning scene in Ohio’s capital on Wednesday, but officials said the train derailment that led to a hurried evacuation of an urban neighborhood could have been much worse.
The National Transportation Safety Board dispatched a 10-person team to investigate the derailment on the Norfolk Southern Corp. tracks, which led to spectacular explosions and the burning of three tank cars each carrying 30,000 gallons of ethanol. Nobody aboard the train was injured.
Officials said they don’t know yet what caused the accident, which occurred at around 2 a.m. in an industrial area near Interstate 71, north of downtown. The explosions were felt for blocks and sent flames shooting high in the air. Two people were injured while walking on the tracks to investigate when a second explosion occurred. Officials said they went to the hospital themselves with minor injuries.
Miss. abortion
law blocked again
JACKSON, Miss. (AP) — A federal judge on Wednesday continued to block a state law that threatens to shut down Mississippi’s only abortion clinic and make it nearly impossible for women to get the procedure in the state.
U.S. District Judge Daniel P. Jordan III temporarily blocked the law July 1 and extended that order Wednesday, though he did not say when he would rule on the clinic’s request for a preliminary injunction that would put the law on hold for a longer period. If he grants that request, the case eventually would go to trial.
The U.S. Supreme Court has ruled that states can’t place undue burdens on, or substantial obstacles to, women seeking abortions. The Mississippi law would require anyone performing clinic abortions to be an OB-GYN with privileges to admit patients to a local hospital. The doctors at the clinic in Jackson do not have those privileges, which the clinic maintains aren’t necessary.
Supporters of the law passed by the GOP-controlled Legislature this year said it’s designed to protect patients, and Republican Gov. Phil Bryant has said he hopes it will help make Mississippi “abortion-free.”
The clinic, Jackson Women’s Health Organization, said it has been unable to obtain admitting privileges for its two out-of-state OB-GYNs because local hospitals have not responded to their requests.
W.Va. man denies
enslaving his wife
LEROY, W.Va. (AP) — While her husband returned a rototiller to a West Virginia rental shop, a limping woman sneaked into another part of the building seeking help. Soon, she was at a shelter with a horrifying tale: She had been held hostage for the better part of a decade — beaten, burned and even shackled during childbirth.
Investigators said they have 45 photographs showing burns on her back and breasts from irons and frying pans, and scars on her wrists and ankles. Now her husband is in jail and authorities are investigating what Jackson County Chief Sheriff’s Deputy Tony Boggs called one of the most terrible cases he’s seen.
“This appears to go beyond abuse to what I would consider torture,” he said Wednesday.
Authorities said Peter Lizon, 37, was in jail Wednesday on $300,000 bond. He is scheduled for a preliminary hearing Friday on a malicious wounding charge, they said.
The criminal complaint says 43-year-old Stephanie Lizon told another woman at a Parkersburg shelter that her husband smashed her foot with a piece of farm equipment, among other things.
But Shawn Bayliss, Peter Lizon’s attorney, said the allegations are “the fabrication of a fertile imagination or a feeble mind, one of the two.”
Teen Vogue faces protest by girls
NEW YORK (AP) — Days after a campaign led by a 14-year-old girl secured a promise from Seventeen magazine not to alter body shapes in photographs, more teens protested against Teen Vogue on Wednesday with “Keep it Real” signs and a makeshift red carpet.
About half a dozen girls high-fived each other as they catwalked near the magazine’s office in Times Square. They’ve collected more than 28,000 signatures in just over a week asking Teen Vogue to follow Seventeen’s lead in declaring an end to digitally manipulating images.
The girls, affiliated with the protest group SPARK Movement, said Teen Vogue and other magazines read by vulnerable young readers present an unrealistic notion of beauty, threatening their self-esteem and leading to depression and eating disorders.
One of the protest organizers, 17-year-old Emma Stydahar of suburban Croton-on-Hudson, was a Teen Vogue subscriber in middle school.
“I remember looking through these magazines and thinking, ‘Oh I wish I had her legs. I wish I had her waist.’ It was, like, this is what beautiful is and this is what I look like,” she said.
Teen Vogue said in a statement it makes a “conscious and continuous effort to promote a positive body image among our readers.” Like Seventeen’s top editor, Ann Shoket, Teen Vogue agreed to a private meeting with the girls.
“We feature healthy models on the pages of our magazine and shoot dozens of non-models and readers every year and do not retouch them to alter their body size. Teen Vogue pledges to continue this practice,” the statement said.
Emma and her co-organizer of the petition drive, 16-year-old Carina Cruz, want the magazine to put that in writing on its pages for all readers to see as Shoket did in Seventeen.
Dana Edell, executive director of SPARK, said Teen Vogue presents hard-core fashion that emulates the look of its adult counterparts, compared to Seventeen’s overall focus on the teen lifestyle.
By Edell’s count, Teen Vogue’s online homepage Wednesday featured 15 models, all “very, very thin and 13 who were white.”
“These images don’t look like most girls,” she said. “They present an alien, skinny, scrawny, blond, skeletal beauty.”
Protester Britney Franco, 13, of Brooklyn is a Teen Vogue subscriber. She hopes to be a photographer and fashion editor one day.
“I love the magazine,” she said. “That’s why I want them to change.”
