Mount Etna volcano roars into action with ash and lava
ROME — Mount Etna in Sicily has roared back into spectacular volcanic action, sending up plumes of ash and spewing lava.
Italy’s National Institute of Geophysics and Vulcanology (INGV) says that the volcano, which initially “re-awoke” in late July, sprang into fuller action Thursday evening by shooting up chunks of flaming lava as high as 150 meters (500 feet) almost constantly.
On Friday, INGV said the action was continuing, feeding ash plumes several hundred meters (yards) into the air above the crater.
No evacuations of towns on Etna’s slopes were reported.
Sicilians farm on the fertile soils of the slopes of Etna. The volcano is also a popular destination for hikers on the Mediterranean island.
Joe Arpaio’s long goodbye: Redemption or ‘kamikaze’ mission?
FOUNTAIN HILLS, Ariz. — It was five days before ballots will be counted in his bid for the Republican nomination for U.S. Senate, and former Arizona lawman Joe Arpaio had no idea what he was doing.
The final days of a campaign are usually frantic, with candidates’ every moment scheduled to ensure they meet as many voters as possible. But Arpaio had nothing planned Thursday until a 4:30 p.m. meeting.
“I ought to go to a Mexican restaurant and see how they treat me,” Arpaio, 86, said as he sat in his strip mall office. So he and his aides piled into the newly-rented campaign bus in the latest stage of what is likely to be the controversial lawman’s long goodbye.
Arpaio served six terms as sheriff of Maricopa County, which includes Phoenix. He won national acclaim and condemnation for his hardline policies. He jailed inmates in tents in the desert heat. He directed deputies to hunt people in the country illegally, a practice a court found to be racial profiling. He lost his 2016 re-election bid after being convicted of contempt of court for continuing that profiling. He was pardoned by President Trump last year.
Now he’s disappointed some supporters with his erratic GOP Senate primary bid in which he lags badly in polls behind U.S. Rep. Martha McSally and former state Sen. Kelli Ward. Arpaio’s legacy, they fear, will be splitting the conservative vote Tuesday, letting McSally, the favorite of establishment Republicans with whom Arpaio has long feuded, win the nomination.
Prince’s family sues doctor who prescribed him pain pills
MINNEAPOLIS — The family of the late rock star Prince is suing a doctor who prescribed pain pills for him, saying the doctor failed to treat him for opiate addiction and therefore bears responsibility for his death two years ago, their attorney announced Friday.
Prince Rogers Nelson died of an accidental overdose of fentanyl April 15, 2016. Authorities say Dr. Michael Schulenberg admitted prescribing a different opioid to Prince in the days before he died, oxycodone, under his bodyguard’s name to protect the musician’s privacy. Schulenberg has disputed that, although he paid $30,000 to settle a federal civil violation alleging that the drug was prescribed illegally.
The lawsuit filed in Hennepin County District Court this week alleges that Schulenberg and others had “an opportunity and duty during the weeks before Prince’s death to diagnose and treat Prince’s opioid addiction, and to prevent his death. They failed to do so.”
According to the complaint, which was first reported by ABC News.com , Prince’s family seeks unspecified damages in excess of $50,000.
An attorney for Prince’s six surviving siblings said Friday that the new lawsuit will eventually replace a lawsuit they filed in April in Illinois to beat a legal deadline. A week before he died, Prince lost consciousness on a flight home from playing a concert in Atlanta. The plane made an emergency stop in Moline, Illinois, where he was revived at Trinity Medical Center with a drug that reverses opioid overdoses.
Fox’s Carlson stunned by reaction to stories on South Africa
NEW YORK — Fox News’ Tucker Carlson says he’s shocked his segments this week on a South African policy on land reform should be considered an appeal to white nationalists — let alone spark an international incident.
Carlson argued against a proposal that would allow the South African government to seize some white-owned farmland, part of an effort to address inequities left over from apartheid. Shortly after Carlson talked about it, President Donald Trump tweeted that he’d asked the secretary of state to look into it. Some criticized the president’s tweet as racially divisive.
Carlson said in an interview Friday that he’s protecting principles that protect all racial groups — not trying to appeal to white nationalists.
