PENINSULA DAILY NEWS for Tuesday, September 17, 2013 P A G E
A3 Briefly: Nation Crews reach Colo. towns, view damage ESTES PARK, Colo. — Mountain towns cut off for days by massive flooding slowly reopened to reveal cabins toppled, homes ripped from their foundations and everything covered in a thick layer of muck. Anxious home and business owners took what they could salvage as the weather cleared Monday to resume airlifting those still stranded. Crews plowed up to a foot of mud left standing along Estes Park’s main street. Emergency officials offered a first glimpse at the scope of the damage. Counties reported some 1,500 homes have been destroyed and about 17,500 damaged, according to an initial estimate released Sunday by the Colorado Office of Emergency Management. The number of people unaccounted for was dropping Monday as Larimer County officials said they made contact with hundreds of people previously not heard from in flooded areas.
Runner-up concedes NEW YORK — New York City mayoral candidate Bill Thompson conceded the Democratic primary race to front-runner Bill de Blasio on Monday, averting a runoff and clearing
the way for de Blasio to campaign for the general election. Thompson endorsed his rival at City Hall, saying he was proud Thompson to support him as the party’s nominee to “make this city work for all New Yorkers again.” Thompson also asked his supporters to back de Blasio, saying the party needed to put aside its differences to elect its first New York mayor since 1989. With Thompson out of the way, de Blasio faces Republican nominee Joe Lhota on Nov. 5.
Fracking study WASHINGTON — Drilling and fracking for natural gas don’t seem to spew immense amounts of the greenhouse gas methane into the air, as has been feared, a new study says. The University of Texas’ findings bolster a big selling point for natural gas, that it’s not as bad for global warming as coal. And they undercut a major environmental argument against fracking, a process that breaks apart deep rock to recover more gas. The study, mostly funded by energy interests, doesn’t address other fracking concerns about potential air and water pollution. The Associated Press
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Emergency personnel respond to a reported shooting at the Washington Navy Yard in Washington, D.C., on Monday. Streets were closed and airport flights temporarily halted.
Navy yard shooter had checkered past Police shoot, kill reservist THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Briefly: World U.N.: Findings show ‘clear’ sarin evidence UNITED NATIONS — U.N. inspectors said Monday there is “clear and convincing evidence” that chemical weapons were used on a relatively large scale in an attack last month in Syria that killed hundreds of people. The findings represent the first official confirmation by scientific experts that chemical weapons were used in Syria’s civil war, but the report left Ban the key question of who launched the attack unanswered. The rebels and their U.S. and Western supporters have said the regime of President Bashar Assad was behind the Aug. 21 attack, while the Syrian government and its closest ally, Russia, blame the rebels. Secretary of State John KeSecretary-General Ban Ki-moon presented the U.N. inspectors’ report to a closed meeting of the U.N. Security Council. “This is a war crime and a grave violation of . . . international law,” Ban told the council in remarks distributed to the press. “The results are overwhelming and indisputable.”
Gold mine protests BUCHAREST, Romania — Romania’s president has called
on the government to withdraw legislation it sent to parliament that could let a planned Canadian-run gold mine go ahead. The mine has been criticized over its use of cyanide in the extraction process. President Traian Basescu said Monday it would be unconstitutional for the legislature to pass a law pertaining to a private company. He called on state agencies to take responsibility for the controversial mine in Rosia Montana, a small town in northwest Romania. Thousands of protesters had marched Sunday through Bucharest against the mine and Canadian mining company Gabriel Resources, accusing authorities of trying to sell off Romania’s assets too cheaply. It would be the biggest gold mine in Europe.
Concordia operation GIGLIO ISLAND, Italy — Using a vast system of steel cables and pulleys, maritime engineers on Monday gingerly winched the massive hull of the Costa Concordia off the Italian reef the cruise ship had struck in January 2012. But progress in pulling the heavily listing luxury liner to an upright position was going much slower than expected. Delays meant the delicate operation — originally scheduled from dawn to dusk Monday — was not expected to be completed before this morning. “Things are going like they should, but on a timetable that is dragging out,” Franco Gabrielli, head of Italy’s Civil Protection Agency, said Monday. The Associated Press
WASHINGTON — Aaron Alexis seems a study in contradictions. He was a former Navy reservist, a Defense Department contractor, a convert to Buddhism who was taking an online course in aeronautics. But he also had flashes of temper that led to run-ins with police over shootings in Fort Worth, Texas, and Seattle. While some neighbors and acquaintances described Alexis as “nice,” his father once told police detectives in Seattle that his son had anger management problems related to post-traumatic stress brought on by the terror attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. A profile began to emerge Monday of Alexis after authorities identified him as the gunman in a mass shooting at the Washington Navy Yard that left 13 people dead, including 34-year-old Alexis. He died after a running gunbattle with police, investigators said. Investigators said they had not established a motive for the
attack, which unfolded about 8:20 a.m. Monday in the heart of the nation’s capital, less than four miles from the White House and two miles from the Alexis Capitol. In addition to those killed, more than a dozen people were hurt, including a police officer and two female civilians who were shot and wounded. They were all expected to survive.
Heavily protected facility The Washington Navy Yard is a sprawling labyrinth of buildings and streets protected by armed guards and metal detectors. The rampage took place at Building 197, the headquarters for Naval Sea Systems Command, which buys, builds and maintains ships, submarines and combat systems. About 3,000 people work at headquarters, many of them civilians. It was the deadliest shooting rampage at a U.S.-based military installation since Maj. Nidal Hasan killed 13 people and wounded more than 30 others in 2009 at Fort Hood in Texas. Hasan was convicted last month and sentenced to death.
President Barack Obama lamented yet another mass shooting in the U.S. that he said took the lives of American patriots. He promised to make sure “whoever carried out this cowardly act is held responsible.” At the time of the shootings, Alexis worked for The Experts, a subcontractor on an HP Enterprise Services contract to refresh equipment used on the Navy Marine Corps Intranet computer network. His life over the past decade has been checkered. Alexis lived in Seattle in 2004 and 2005, according to public documents. In 2004, Seattle police said, Alexis was arrested for shooting out the tires of another man’s vehicle in what he later described to detectives as an anger-fueled “blackout.” Alexis also told police he was present during “the tragic events of Sept. 11, 2001” and described “how those events had disturbed him.” While he was still in the Navy reserves in 2010, a neighbor in Fort Worth reported she had been nearly struck by a bullet shot from his downstairs apartment. Alexis admitted to police to firing his weapon but said he was cleaning his gun when it accidentally discharged.
Storms hit Mexico; 33 dead THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
VERACRUZ, Mexico — Tropical Storm Ingrid and the remnants of Tropical Storm Manuel drenched Mexico’s Pacific and Gulf coasts with torrential rains Monday, flooding towns and cities, cutting off highways and setting off deadly landslides in a national emergency that authorities said had caused at least 33 deaths. The governor of the Gulf Coast state of Veracruz said Monday afternoon that 12 people were killed when a landslide hit a bus traveling through Altotonga,
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about 40 miles northwest of the state capital. Gov. Javier Duarte said the death toll could grow. More than 23,000 people have fled their homes in the state due to heavy rains, and 9,000 are in emergency shelters.
‘Completely atypical’ The heaviest blow fell on the southern coastal state of Guerrero, where Mexico’s government reported 14 confirmed deaths. Getting hit by a tropical storm and a hurricane at the same time “is completely atypical” for Mex-
ico, said Juan Manuel Caballero, coordinator of the country’s National Weather Service. Manuel came ashore as a tropical storm Sunday near the Pacific port of Manzanillo but quickly lost strength and was downgraded to a tropical depression late Sundays. The U.S. National Hurricane Center said the system dissipated early Monday. Ingrid had maximum sustained winds of 60 mph early Monday and was centered about 25 miles west of the coastal town of La Pesca in Tamaulipas. It was moving west-northwest at 8 mph.
. . . more news to start your day
West: Business leaders talking tax code in Mont.
Nation: Funeral is held for Fla. girl who was bullied
Nation: 9/11 remains ID’d as 49-year-old man
World: More than 6,200 flee Indonesian volcano
U.S. SEN. MAX Baucus said Monday that his effort to revamp the tax code helped attract some of the business world’s biggest names to Montana for a wide-ranging conference. Baucus opened the Montana Jobs Summit in Butte with the leaders of companies such as Google, Facebook, Ford Motor, FedEx and Boeing. Several thousand business people, politicians, academics and others registered to hear speeches and hobnob with the executives. Baucus, a veteran Democrat, told reporters he was discussing his longshot bipartisan effort to revamp the tax code with the corporate leaders.
SOME 250 MOURNERS have thronged the funeral of a 12-year-old Central Florida girl who authorities say killed herself after being bullied. Young mourners cried at Monday’s 45-minute service for Rebecca Sedwick. Many wore neon green T-shirts with an anti-bullying slogan. Her body was in a closed white casket, and a nearby sign read: “Everyday, more and more kids kill themselves because of bullying. How many lives have to be lost until people realize words do matter?” Sedwick, who was picked on by as many as 15 girls for nearly a year, threw herself from a tower last week.
ANOTHER PERSON WHO died in the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks in New York City has been identified, the city medical examiner’s office announced Monday. The office said Monday that retesting has led to the identification of remains as that of a 49-year-old man who died in the attacks on the World Trade Center. The man’s name was withheld at his family’s request. Some 2,753 people died in the attacks on the trade center. The total number identified is now 1,638. Officials have been able to make new identifications from time to time.
MORE THAN 6,200 people were evacuated from their villages after the eruption of Mount Sinabung in western Indonesia, an official said Monday. The 8,530-foot volcano in North Sumatra province erupted early Sunday after being dormant for three years, sending ash into the sky with rocks pelting neighboring villages. The Antara news agency reported that five people were hospitalized in Kabanjahe, the capital of Karo District. It quoted Jhonson Tarigan, a spokesman of the local disaster mitigation agency, as saying the five were having difficulty breathing after inhaling volcanic ash.