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THE IOLA REGISTER Locally owned since 1867
Victims’ remains reach Ukraine city KHARKIV, Ukraine (AP) — The remains of the victims of the Malaysia Airlines crash arrived in territory held by the Ukrainian government today on their way to the Netherlands, after delays and haphazard treatment of the bodies that put pressure on European foreign ministers meeting in Brussels to impose tougher economic sanctions on Russia. The crash site itself, in farmland held by the pro-Russian separatists whom the West accuses of shooting down the plane, remained unsecured five days after the disaster — another source of frustration for officials around the world eager to establish the facts of the case. After a 17-hour journey from the town of Torez in rebel territory, the train carrying the bodies pulled into a station in Kharkiv, a government-controlled city where Ukrainian authorities have set up their crash investigation center. The train gave a low-pitched blast from its horn as the grey corrugated refrigerator cars slowly rolled through weed-choked tracks onto the grounds of a factory where the bodies were being received. Government spokesman Oleksander Kharchenko said Ukraine “will do our best” to send the bodies to the Netherlands today. Of the 298 people who died aboard the Amster-
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Tuesday, July 22, 2014
dam-to-Kuala Lumpur flight, 193 were Dutch citizens. But Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte says his government aims to have the first bodies returned on Wednesday. “It is our aim — and at the moment our expectation — that sometime tomorrow the first plane carrying victims will leave for Eindhoven,” he said. Rutte said that the identification of some bodies will be quick. But he has warned grieving families of victims of Thursday’s crash that the identification of some others could take “weeks or even months.” In Brussels, European Union foreign ministers were discussing what action to take response to the disaster. Europe and the United States have imposed targeted economic sanctions against Russia for supporting Ukraine’s five-month insurgency that began after pro-Russian President Viktor Yanukovych was ousted by protesters in February. EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton said the priority for the ministers’ meeting was to deal with the concerns of the Netherlands, which lost more nationals in the disaster than any other. That means repatriation of the victims’ bodies and a full investigation of the crash and its cause, she said. See UKRAINE | Page A6
City may drop EMS
By RICHARD LUKEN The Iola Register
Faced with a shortfall of $377,000 in the countywide ambulance service fund, Iola officials targeted a series of potential transfers Monday night. Council members gathered for a special budget meeting Monday but did not vote on any specific measure. Instead, they asked City Administrator Carl Slaugh to bring each proposal to their regular meeting next Monday for a series of up-or-down votes. Also on the table will be the option of returning EMS back to the county, a “conversation that’s not gonna be fun for anybody,” Councilman Jon Wells said. That suggestion came from Councilman Steve French, who said that if Allen County does not agree to renegotiate its contract with the city, that Iola consider giving a sixmonth notice it was pulling out of the pact — essentially handing the service back over to the county. “I hate to suggest that,” French said, “but that is an option.” Also up in the air is a request from USD 257 to have a
Iola Councilman Jon Wells discuss the city budget during a special meeting Monday night. REGISTER/RICHARD LUKEN citywide vote on a proposed half-cent sales tax, with a portion of the proceeds helping pay for construction of a new elementary and high school. The proposal has raised the ire of merchants from around town, including Tim Henry, owner and president of Twin Motors Ford. Henry addressed the council with his concerns about sales taxes and the overall state of the city’s financial affairs. “When the buckets go dry, everybody goes back to the sales tax,” Henry said. “It puts small businesspeople not in line with neighboring towns.” Council members have the
language for the November referendum ready for their signature, but said they wanted to find out how much USD 257 taxpayers’ levies would increase to fund the project without sales tax revenues. “We need to hear more from our constituents,” Beverly Franklin said. “We need to hear from the school board,” French added. THE SPECIAL meeting was called by Mayor Joel Wicoff to further discuss the city’s proposed 2015 budget, which incorporates a 6-mill increase. The Council is scheduled to finalize its 2015 spending plan following an See CITY | Page A6
Plane lands on road for 2nd time EAST MORICHES, N.Y. (AP) — A New York pilot who landed his disabled plane on a highway for the second time in eight days said Friday he’s lucky to have escaped unhurt and thankful he didn’t hit anyone. Frank Fierro, 75, said he was “shaking” as he glided the single-engine Challenger ultralight plane to a landing on the eastbound lanes of Sunrise Highway just before 1 p.m. Fierro landed the same plane in a nearby median on July 10.
Police said Fierro was flying the plane for the first time since last week’s incident. Both times it developed engine trouble, forcing Fierro to find a makeshift runway before he could get back to Spadaro Airport in East Moriches. “I was hoping to stop in the same spot, but on the median there was a truck,” Fierro said. “I was hoping they would move. When they didn’t, I snapped the controls and moved over to the right and went on the highway.” Fierro said he hesitated to
land on the highway, a heavily traveled east-west thoroughfare from the New York suburbs to the Hamptons on the south shore of Long Island. “The last thing I would want to do is hit a family in a car,” he said. “A beautiful family with children stopped right behind me.” Fierro said despite the close calls he’ll keep flying. He cited Chesley Sullenberger, the pilot who landed a passenger jet on New York’s Hudson River after a bird struck an engine, as inspiration.
Amid border crisis, situation in Texas county turns urgent FALFURRIAS, Texas (MCT) — Daniel Zamarripa loaded his police dog into the back of his patrol car and set out to track his quarry — immigrants circumventing the local Border Patrol checkpoint. Zamarripa, 27, is one of 15 reserve deputies brought in to assist the Brooks County Sheriff ’s Office, whose four deputies have lately found themselves overwhelmed by 911 calls from migrants stranded on the vast ranches that stretch from here to the horizon in all directions. Then there are the bodies of migrants who didn’t make it to retrieve and identify: 42 so far this year. Most attention to the crisis on the Southwest border has focused in recent weeks on the Rio Grande Valley, where many of the 57,000 unaccompanied children and a large
number of families have crossed from Mexico since October, twice last year’s total. Many surrender to immigration agents willingly at the Rio Grande, aware that they will be allowed to stay pending immigration court hearings. But an unknown number end up here, 70 miles north of the border, in the meadows and scrubland that have become the region’s deadliest killing fields for migrants. Since 2009, authorities have recovered more than 400 immigrants’ bodies in the county, including a 16-year-old Central American boy discovered last month. The land looks deceptively welcoming. Thick stands of scrub oak and mesquite give way to grasslands where cows graze. Everything is so green, it seems a pond or river must be around the next bend.
Quote of the day Vol. 116, No. 187
Eduardo Canales prepares a water dispenser for undocumented immigrants walking across the scorching sandy scrublands of southern Texas. MCT/ Michael Robinson Chavez They are not. As Zamarripa drove onto a ranch late last week, he cautioned that the landscape can
be hypnotically similar. Getting lost is easy. The high that day was 100 degrees, with 67 percent humidity evident in
“The privilege of a lifetime is being who you are.” — Joseph Campbell, American mythologist 75 Cents
sultry breezes. Zamarripa glanced back at Ivan, a big See IMMIGRATION | Page A3
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