Twister kills 13 in Mexico border city; 12 people reported missing in Texas flash flooding
Twister kills 13 in Mexico border city; 12 people reported missing in Texas flash flooding
CIUDAD ACUNA, Mexico — A tornado raged through a city on the U.S.-Mexico border Monday, destroying homes, flinging cars like matchsticks and ripping an infant from its mother’s arms. At least 13 people were killed, authorities said.
In Texas, 12 people were reported missing after the vacation home they were staying in was swept away by rushing floodwaters in a small town popular with tourists. Hays County Judge Bert Cobb said witnesses reported seeing the house pushed off its foundation by the swollen Blanco River and smash into a bridge. Cobb said only pieces of the home have been found so far. He says main flooding activity happened around 4 a.m. Monday.
The baby was also missing after the twister that hit Ciudad Acuna, a city of 125,000 across from Del Rio, Texas, sent its infant carrier flying. Rescue workers began digging through the rubble of damaged homes in a race to find victims.
The twister hit a seven-block area, which Victor Zamora, interior secretary of the northern state of Coahuila, described as “devastated.”
Hundreds of people were being treated at local hospitals, authorities said, and as many as 800 homes had been destroyed, with thousands more damaged.
Malaysia says jungle camps used by human traffickers contained 139 suspected graves
WANG KELIAN, Malaysia — Malaysian authorities said Monday a cluster of abandoned jungle camps used by human traffickers contained 139 suspected graves as well as barbed-wire pens likely used to cage migrants, shedding more light on a regional trade that preyed on some of Southeast Asia’s most desperate people.
National police chief Khalid Abu Bakar said forensics experts were exhuming the suspected graves found at 28 vacated camps in the hilly jungle area on the border with Thailand where trafficking syndicates were known to operate.
“It is a very sad scene,” Khalid told reporters at a police outpost in the town of Wang Kelian several kilometers (miles) from the camps, one of which appeared large enough to hold about 300 people. “I am shocked. We never expected this kind of cruelty.”
At one forest camp, police found several parts of a decomposed body inside a wooden pen. The parts were placed into white bags and brought to Wang Kelian, and district police chief Rizani Ismail said they would be examined by forensics experts. Police said they would begin digging up other suspected graves — mounds of earth, covered with leaves and marked by sticks — on Tuesday.
“We have discovered 139 of what we believe to be graves,” Khalid said. “We believe they are victims of human trafficking.”
Biden phones Iraq’s prime minister, reinforces US support and thanks Iraqi fighting forces
WASHINGTON — Vice President Joe Biden reassured Iraq’s government on Monday of U.S. support in the fight against the Islamic State group, telephoning Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi with thanks for “the enormous sacrifice and bravery of Iraqi forces” one day after Defense Secretary Ash Carter questioned the Iraqi military commitment.
Biden’s call followed harsh criticism from Iraqi and Iranian quarters after Carter questioned Iraqi forces’ “will to fight” the surging Islamic State group.
A White House statement on Monday describing Biden’s call said the vice president welcomed an Iraqi decision to mobilize additional troops and “prepare for counterattack operations.” Biden also pledged full U.S. support to “these and other Iraqi efforts to liberate territory from ISIL,” the statement said, using an acronym for Islamic State.
Charter nears deal to buy Time Warner Cable for about $55 billion
Charter Communications Inc. is close to buying Time Warner Cable for about $55 billion, two people familiar with the negotiations.
The people spoke on condition of anonymity Monday because of the private nature of the deal talks.
One of the people said the deal will be announced early Tuesday morning.
Charter had wanted to buy Time Warner Cable Inc. earlier, but Time Warner Cable chose a $45 billion offer from Comcast Corp. instead.
Comcast walked away from the Time Warner Cable deal after regulators pushed back against it. Regulators had concerns that the two companies together would undermine online video competition. The combined company would have served more than half the country’s broadband subscribers, and consumer advocates said a merger would limit choices and lead to higher prices.
Obama speaks at Arlington National Cemetery
ARLINGTON, Va. — President Barack Obama on Monday saluted Americans who died in battle, saying the country must “never stop trying to fully repay them” for their sacrifices. He noted it was the first Memorial Day in 14 years without U.S. forces engaged in a major ground war.
Speaking under sunny skies to some 5,000 people in an amphitheater on the hallowed grounds of Arlington National Cemetery, Obama said the graveyard is “more than a final resting place of heroes.”
“It is a reflection of America itself,” he said, citing racial and religious diversity in the backgrounds of the men and woman who paid the ultimate sacrifice to preserve “the ideals that bind us as one nation.”
His appearance is an annual rite for presidents at the cemetery nestled among verdant hills overlooking the Potomac River. It came months after the end of the U.S. combat mission in Afghanistan, where the number of stationed troops has been reduced to about 10,000 from a peak of more than 100,000.
By wire sources.