At Guatemala volcano, time running out for rescue chances
SAN MIGUEL LOS LOTES, Guatemala — Emergency crews pulled more bodies from what remained of villages devastated by the eruption of Guatemala’s Volcano of Fire on Wednesday, but time was quickly running out to find survivors as the confirmed death toll rose to 99 with nearly 200 still missing.
Thousands of people displaced by the eruption have sought refuge in shelters, many of them of with dead or missing loved ones and facing an uncertain future, unable to return to homes destroyed by the volcano.
Firefighters said the chance of finding anyone alive amid the still-steaming terrain was practically nonexistent 72 hours after Sunday’s volcanic explosion. Thick gray ash covering the stricken region was hardened by rainfall, making it even more difficult to dig through the mud, rocks and debris that reached to the rooftops of homes.
“Nobody is going to be able to get them out or say how many are buried here,” Efrain Suarez said, standing amid the smoking holes dotting what used to be the village of San Miguel Los Lotes on the flanks of the mountain.
“The bodies are already charred,” the 59-year-old truck driver said. “And if heavy machinery comes in they will be torn apart.”
Ryan contradicts Trump’s claim that the FBI planted a ‘spy’
WASHINGTON — In a break with President Donald Trump, House Speaker Paul Ryan said Wednesday that he agrees there is no evidence that the FBI planted a “spy” in Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign in an effort to hurt his chances at the polls.
He also issued a careful warning about Trump’s recent assertion that he has the authority to pardon himself.
“I don’t know the technical answer to that question, but I think obviously the answer is he shouldn’t and no one is above the law,” Ryan told reporters on Wednesday.
The comments come after Trump insisted in a series of angry tweets last month that the agency planted a spy “to help Crooked Hillary win,” referring to his Democratic opponent Hillary Clinton.
There is a growing sense that Republicans are uncomfortable with those statements. Ryan, R-Wisc., is one of three congressional Republicans who have now contradicted Trump on the spying matter, including House Oversight and Government Reform Committee Chairman Trey Gowdy, R-S.C., and Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Richard Burr, R-N.C.
Vegas shooting 911 calls: ‘There’s people shot everywhere!’
LAS VEGAS — Screams and pleas for help, descriptions of people falling amid rapid gunfire, and breathless questions about what to do next emerged Wednesday in 911 audio made public by Las Vegas police eight months after the deadliest mass shooting in modern U.S. history.
“Shots fired! Shots fired! Hurry!” a woman screams, crying as a dispatcher asks where she is and the call disconnects. The dispatcher calls back and another woman answers.
“Machine guns are being fired into the Route 91 festival,” she says. “It’s coming from above, I would assume from the Mandalay Bay side over by the Luxor.”
In addition to the 518 audio calls, police released video from a camera atop the Mandalay Bay resort that provided a bird’s-eye view of the country music festival where 58 people died and hundreds were injured on Oct. 1.
The gunfire came from 32nd-floor windows into a crowd of 22,000 people at the Route 91 Harvest Festival across Las Vegas Boulevard.
EPA chief laughs off Chick-fil-A questions; senior aide quits
WASHINGTON — Environmental Protection Agency chief Scott Pruitt laughed off questions Wednesday about whether he used his office to try to help his wife get a “business opportunity” with Chick-fil-A, while a close aide abruptly resigned amid new ethics allegations against her boss.
Pruitt said in a statement that his scheduling director, Millan Hupp, 26, had resigned. It came two days after Democratic lawmakers made public her testimony to a House oversight panel that Pruitt had her do personal errands for him, including inquiring about buying a used mattress from the Trump International Hotel.
Last year, Pruitt also directed Hupp’s younger sister to reach out to a senior executive at Chick-fil-A to inquire about a “business opportunity.” At the time, Sydney Hupp, 25, was also working in Pruitt’s office as an EPA scheduler.
That business opportunity turned out to be Pruitt’s desire to acquire a fast-food franchise for his wife.
Federal ethics codes prohibit having staffers conduct personal errands and bar officials from using their position for private gain.
Judge sides with Philadelphia in ‘sanctuary city’ fight
PHILADELPHIA — A federal judge ruled Wednesday that the Trump administration cannot cut off grants to Philadelphia over the way the city deals with immigrants in the country illegally.
U.S. District Judge Michael Baylson said in his ruling that the conditions the federal government placed on the city in order to receive the funding are unconstitutional, “arbitrary and capricious.” He also wrote that Philadelphia’s policies are reasonable and appropriate.
Philadelphia has said it will turn over immigrants to Immigration and Customs Enforcement only if the agency has a warrant signed by a judge.
The federal requirements included allowing Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers access to prisons to interview people of interest, providing advanced notice of release of those people and following rules prohibiting restrictions on disclosure of any person’s immigration status.
“The public statements of President (Donald) Trump and Attorney General (Jeff) Sessions, asserting that immigrants commit more crimes than native-born citizens, are inaccurate as applied to Philadelphia, and do not justify the imposition of these three conditions,” Baylson wrote.
Kate Spade’s husband says she suffered from depression
NEW YORK — The husband and business partner of designer Kate Spade, who died in an apparent suicide, said she suffered from depression and anxiety for many years.
She was seeking help during the last five years, “seeing a doctor on a regular basis and taking medication for both depression and anxiety,” Andy Spade said in a statement released on Wednesday.
He said there were “personal demons she was battling.”
The designer was found hanged in the bedroom of her Park Avenue apartment on Tuesday. She was 55 years old and had a 13-year-old daughter.
Spade was working as an accessories editor at Mademoiselle magazine when she launched her company with her husband in their apartment in 1993.
Video details the moments before Florida school shooting
FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. — A just-released video interview with a campus security monitor at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School provides new details that may prompt another round of what-if questions about the Valentine’s Day shooting that killed 17 people.
The video released by Broward County prosecutors Tuesday was recorded shortly after the shooting. In it, Andrew Medina told detectives he saw Nikolas Cruz get out of an Uber with a large bag and make “a beeline” toward the freshman building, moments before it became a killing scene.
Medina told detectives that he recognized Cruz, wearing a backpack and carrying a duffel bag, as a troubled former student and immediately radioed another unarmed security monitor to “keep your eyes open.” That monitor entered the other side of the building, and then hid in a janitor’s closet when shots rang out, Medina said.
Neither monitor was armed with anything but a radio. The Broward School District announced Wednesday that Medina and the other monitor have been reassigned from Stoneman Douglas while their actions are reviewed.
Following the shooting at the school in Parkland, many politicians including President Donald Trump have said more trained armed personnel should be stationed at schools to protect students.
