Pompeo sworn in as secretary of state, dashes off to Europe
WASHINGTON — Mike Pompeo took over as America’s top diplomat Thursday after being confirmed by the Senate and sworn in across the street minutes later. The new secretary of state immediately dashed off to Europe in an energetic start befitting the high-stakes issues awaiting him from Iran to North Korea.
The hard-charging former CIA director was confirmed on a 57-42 vote — one of the slimmest margins for the job in recent history. Every past nominee to get a roll call vote since at least the Carter administration received 85 or more yes votes in the Senate, with the exception of Trump’s first secretary of state, Rex Tillerson, who got 56.
He was sworn in at the Supreme Court by Justice Samuel Alito, a fellow Italian-American, who said he was “proud” to officiate for the occasion. Pompeo, in a statement relayed by the State Department, said he was “delighted” to serve as America’s top diplomat.
“I am completely humbled by the responsibility and looking forward to serving the American people and getting to work right away,” Pompeo said.
Then it was off to Andrews Air Force Base, where a government aircraft was waiting to ferry him to Brussels for meetings at NATO headquarters. State Department staffers, demoralized after a tumultuous first year of President Donald Trump’s administration, gave a round of applause to Pompeo, who responded as he boarded the aircraft with a casual, “Hi, I’m Mike.”
Migrant ‘caravan’ gathers on US-Mexico border for final push
MEXICALI, Mexico — About 175 people in a caravan of Central American asylum-seekers rested up Thursday ahead of the final leg of their monthlong journey to seek asylum in the United States, with the Trump administration warning they could be prosecuted, detained and quickly deported.
The migrants — many of them women, children and transsexuals — were set to board buses in the border city of Mexicali for a two-hour drive to Tijuana to join up with about 175 others who already arrived.
Lawyers planned free workshops on the U.S. immigration system on Friday and Saturday as many planned to seek asylum starting Sunday at San Diego’s San Ysidro border crossing, the nation’s busiest.
Migrant shelters in Tijuana’s Zona Norte neighborhood, home to the many of the city’s seedy bars and bordellos, were full. That forced organizers to look elsewhere for temporary housing, said Leonard Olsen of Pueblos Sin Fronteras, a group leading the effort.
Migrants who stayed overnight at a shelter in Mexicali were tired from the long journey and nervous about the possibility of being detained in the U.S. but also knowledgeable about their rights to seek protection from persecution in their home countries, Olsen said. Many Central American asylum seekers say they face death threats by criminal gangs in their homelands.
Smoky fire that forced evacuations out at Wisconsin refinery
SUPERIOR, Wis. — Authorities said a fire at a northwestern Wisconsin refinery where an explosion injured at least 11 people was out and people were being allowed back in their homes Thursday night after most of the city of Superior was forced to evacuate.
Douglas County officials posted an update saying the fire was extinguished but asking residents in the evacuation area to stay away from their homes for at least another two hours. The fire had poured thick clouds of noxious black smoke into the air after the explosion rocked the refinery. Schools and a hospital also were evacuated.
Authorities said a tank of crude oil or asphalt exploded about 10 a.m. at the Husky Energy oil refinery in Superior, a city of about 27,000 that shares a Lake Superior shipping port with nearby Duluth, Minnesota. That prompted them to order the evacuation of a 3-mile (5-kilometer) radius around the refinery, as well as a 10-mile (16 kilometer) corridor south of it where the smoke was heading.
It was unclear how many people evacuated, but Mayor Jim Paine said most of the city was being evacuated. The refinery is in an industrial area, but there’s a residential neighborhood within a mile to the northeast. The corridor downwind to the south of the refinery is sparsely populated. Schools in Superior and nearby Maple, Wisconsin, canceled classes Friday as a precaution.
Hospital officials said only one of the injured was seriously hurt, with what was described as a blast injury. No deaths were reported, and officials said all workers had been accounted for.
More kids have autism, better diagnosis may be the reason
NEW YORK — The government estimates that autism is becoming more common, but it’s only a small increase and some experts think it can be largely explained by better diagnosing of minority children.
About 1 in 59 U.S. children were identified as having autism in 2014, according to a Thursday report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention that focused on 8-year-old children. That’s up from 1 in 68 children in both 2010 and 2012.
White children are diagnosed with autism more often than black or Hispanic children, but the gap has closed dramatically. Autism used to be 20 percent higher in white kids than black children, and that difference shrank to 10 percent. The gap between white and Hispanic kids shrank from 50 percent to 20 percent.
That increased recognition in minority kids is likely a big reason for the overall increase, CDC researchers said.
The causes of autism aren’t well understood, and it’s not clear if other factors might also be at play — like, for example, more couples having babies later in life, said Thomas Frazier, chief science officer for the advocacy organization Autism Speaks.
