Crane collapses into Mecca’s Grand Mosque; Saudi officials say at least 87 killed, many hurt
RIYADH, Saudi Arabia (AP) — A towering construction crane toppled over on Friday during a violent rainstorm in the Saudi city of Mecca, Islam’s holiest site, crashing into the Grand Mosque and killing at least 87 people ahead of the start of the annual hajj pilgrimage later this month.
Images posted by social media users showed a grisly scene, with police and onlookers attending to numerous bodies lying amid pools of blood on the polished mosque floors.
Saudi Arabia’s civil defense authority provided a series of rising casualty numbers on its official Twitter account as ambulances whisked the wounded to area hospitals. As of late Friday, it said those injured in the disaster numbered 201.
A photo released by the authority showed police and workers in hardhats inspecting a pile of collapsed concrete slabs inside a part of the sprawling, ornately decorated mosque. Another showed the base of the toppled red-and-white crane tilted upward at a sharp angle.
Images aired on Saudi state television showed the crane’s metal boom smashed through what appeared to be the roof of the mosque.
Former Texas Gov. Rick Perry drops out of 2016 GOP race, first major candidate to exit race
ST. LOUIS (AP) — Former Texas Gov. Rick Perry ended his second bid for the Republican presidential nomination on Friday, becoming the first major candidate of the 2016 campaign to give up on the White House.
The longest-serving governor in Texas history told a group of conservative activists in St. Louis that “some things have become clear” and he was suspending his campaign.
“We have a tremendous field of candidates — probably the greatest group of men and women,” Perry said. “I step aside knowing our party is in good hands, as long as we listen to the grassroots, listen to that cause of conservatism. If we do that, then our party will be in good hands.”
Four years after his first bid for the White House ended after disappointing finishes in the Iowa caucuses and New Hampshire primary, Perry this time couldn’t even make it to the second debate night of the 2016 race.
After failing to poll well enough to qualify for the featured primetime debate last month, Perry was again relegated to a pre-debate forum for the back of the pack at next week’s debate at the Reagan Library outside Los Angeles.
Police body cameras may solve 1 problem but create others for victims and innocent bystanders
WASHINGTON (AP) — A Seattle man was arrested in January during a demonstration to protest police violence. Though he has yet to be charged with an offense, his arrest — captured on police body-camera recordings, along with his full name, address, phone number and birthdate — are public records.
The use of police body cameras, like those used in Seattle, is spreading to keep officers honest about using force against citizens. But how and when the public gets to see the footage is up for debate.
Months after the arrest of Michael Moynihan, the 32-year old Seattle man, the Seattle Police Department said his case is under review. Moynihan said he supports police wearing body cameras, but his own experience shows the unsettling consequences.
“That’s a very dangerous weapon that they have there,” Moynihan said.
Videos of police shootings across the country have become critical to determining what happened in situations that turn deadly. In some cases, strapping cigarette pack-size cameras to officers’ uniforms has been framed as a way to curb police brutality and stem deteriorating trust in law enforcement.
Push by Germany to distribute migrants is rejected by 4 European nations
VIENNA (AP) — At least four countries Friday firmly rejected a European Union plan to impose refugee quotas to ease a worsening migrant crisis that Germany’s foreign minister said was “probably the biggest challenge” in the history of the 28-nation bloc.
Hungary, which along with the Czech Republic, Slovakia and Poland said it would not support the proposal, threatened instead to crack down on the thousands of people streaming across its borders daily as they flee war and persecution.
The stance by those Central European countries reflected a hardening front against distributing at least some of the refugees among them and was a stinging rebuff to German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier, who traveled to Prague to try to persuade them to reconsider.
While the Czechs, Slovaks and Poles have been relatively unaffected by the influx, Hungary has faced growing criticism about its stance toward the asylum seekers. Other EU leaders and human rights groups accuse the government of gross mismanagement or serious negligence in housing, feeding and processing the migrants traveling from the Balkans and through Hungary to Western Europe.
Peter Bouckaert of Human Rights Watch asserted Hungary was keeping migrants and refugees “in pens like animals, out in the sun without food and water.”
Major study finds aggressively lowering blood pressure saves more lives, may spur care changes
WASHINGTON (AP) — Aiming lower saves more lives when it comes to controlling high blood pressure, says a major new study that could spur doctors to more aggressively treat patients over 50.
Patients who got their blood pressure well below today’s usually recommended level significantly cut their risk of heart disease and death, the National Institutes of Health announced Friday. The benefit was strong enough that NIH stopped the study about a year early.
“This study provides potentially life-saving information,” declared Dr. Gary Gibbons, director of NIH’s National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute.
Doctors have long debated how low blood-pressure patients need to go, especially as they get older. Friday’s results are preliminary, and researchers stressed that they shouldn’t alter patient care just yet. But if the full results pan out, they eventually could influence treatment guidelines.
“This study certainly supports that lower is better,” said Dr. Mark Creager, president of the American Heart Association, who wasn’t involved with the new study. He called the research a possible roadmap to treatment strategies “that will save a significant amount of lives.”
Popular with whites, Sanders seeks black support: When they know me, ‘they will respond’
SUMTER, S.C. (AP) — The Bernie Sanders phenomenon has been almost entirely driven by white supporters. Now he’s out to overcome hurdles with prospective black voters who are still learning about him and could shape whether his underdog campaign for the 2016 Democratic nomination can last.
Sanders, who organized sit-ins over segregated housing as a college student during the civil rights movement, must cut into Hillary Rodham Clinton’s advantage with African-Americans if he’s to do well in South Carolina’s February 2016 primary, where more than half the voters are expected to be black, and in other Southern states that follow in March.
Polls find the independent Vermont senator building a lead over Clinton in New Hampshire and closing the gap in Iowa, two mainly white states very much unlike the more diverse Super Tuesday states of Alabama, Georgia, Tennessee, Virginia and others.
The independent Vermont senator and his advisers say his policies and personal story can resonate among black voters — if the campaign can reach them. He says he plans to emphasize his personal efforts more as he campaigns, beginning this weekend with a swing through Georgia, South Carolina and North Carolina.
“I believe when the African-American community in South Carolina and around the country understands that I have one of the strongest civil rights records in Congress and was involved in the civil rights movement for many years before I went to Congress, they will respond,” Sanders said in an interview.
Obama warns Russia against helping arm Syrian government to fight Islamic State group
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Barack Obama warned Russia Friday against doubling down on its support for Syrian President Bashar Assad, casting a recent buildup of Russian military equipment and personnel in Syria as an effort to prop up the embattled leader.
“The strategy they’re pursuing right now of doubling down on Assad is a mistake,” Obama said during a town hall with U.S. military personnel.
Russia denies it’s trying to bolster Assad and instead says its increased military activity is part of the international effort to defeat the Islamic State, the terror group that has wreaked havoc in both Syria and Iraq. Earlier Friday, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov called on world powers to join his country in that pursuit, arguing that Syria’s army is the most efficient force to fight the extremist network.
“You cannot defeat Islamic State with air strikes only,” Lavrov said, a dig at Obama’s strategy. “It’s necessary to cooperate with ground troops and the Syrian army is the most efficient and powerful ground force to fight the IS.”
Russia’s military moves have punctured what had been a notable uptick in optimism among U.S. officials about the prospect that Moscow was tiring of Assad, its longtime ally. Syria has been gripped by civil war for more than four years, a conflict that has claimed more than 250,000 lives and created a vacuum for extremism to thrive.
