Raging fires roust hundreds in northern Calif.
LOWER LAKE, Calif. — Blazes raging in forests and woodlands across California have taken the life of a firefighter and forced hundreds of people to flee their homes as crews continue to battle the flames from the air and the ground.
Twenty-three large fires, many sparked by lightning strikes, were burning across northern California on Saturday, said Daniel Berlant, spokesman for the state Department of Forestry and Fire Protection. Some 9,000 firefighters were working to subdue them, something made incredibly difficult by several years of drought that have dried out California.
“The conditions and fire behavior we’re seeing at 10 in the morning is typically what we’d see in late afternoon in late August and September,” said Nick Schuler, a division chief with Cal Fire. “But because of the dry conditions, because of the drought-stricken vegetation accompanied by the steep terrain and winds, we’re seeing fire activity that’s abnormal for this time of year.”
The fires prompted Gov. Jerry Brown to declare a state of emergency for California and activate the California National Guard to help with disaster recovery.
Mr. Berlant said firefighters were hoping cooler weather might help them this weekend, but there was also the threat that lingering thunderstorms could bring more lightning strikes like those that ignited several of the fires.
Engine Capt. David Ruhl, from South Dakota, was killed battling a fast-moving blaze that broke out Thursday in the Modoc National Forest about 100 miles south of Oregon.
Mr. Ruhl was in a vehicle Thursday, looking for ways to attack the blaze, when the fire suddenly grew and trapped him, fire information officer Ken Sandusky said. His body was recovered Friday.
Texas trooper’s record
AUSTIN, Texas — The Texas trooper who arrested a black woman later found hanged to death in jail was warned about his “unprofessional conduct” in 2014, according to documents obtained by the Associated Press.
Sandra Bland was pulled over in her car July 10 by a white state trooper, Brian Encinia, for failing to signal a lane change. The discovery of the 28-year-old’s body on July 13 with a trash bag around her neck provoked suspicions of racist treatment. A senior local official said video footage indicated she was not mistreated in jail.
In an evaluation of his work in September and October 2014, a supervisor noted Officer Encinia had received “written counseling for unprofessional conduct … for an incident occurring while at a school in Austin,” the AP said, adding that the document provided no additional information.
Attorney general indicted
HOUSTON— Ken Paxton, the Republican attorney general of Texas and a former longtime lawmaker, has been indicted by a grand jury on charges of securities fraud and of failing to register with the state securities board, felony charges that make him the first Texas attorney general in more than 30 years to be indicted while in office, officials said Saturday.
The grand jury in the northern Dallas suburb of McKinney handed up a three-count indictment against Mr. Paxton several days ago, officials said. The indictment is to be unsealed Monday, when Mr. Paxton is expected to turn himself in to the authorities at the Collin County Jail. The charges — two counts of first-degree securities fraud and one count of third-degree failure to register — are tied to Mr. Paxton’s work soliciting clients and investors for two companies while he was a member of the Texas House of Representatives but before he was elected attorney general in November 2014.
Minn. bomb scare
MINNEAPOLIS — Part of a Minneapolis-St.Paul International Airport terminal was briefly evacuated and the upper airport roadway closed on Saturday after an unattended bag tested positive for explosives, a spokeswoman said.
The unattended bag, which had been left on a scale at a ticket counter, also tested positive when a Transportation Security Administration agent swabbed it, airport spokeswoman Melissa Scovronski said. The scene was cleared and the terminal reopened about 40 minutes later, she said, after no explosives were found.
Also in the nation …
Gregg Belle, a forensic psychologist for the state Department of Correction testified Friday that Ronald H. Paquin, a former Catholic priest who was at the center of the abuse scandal in the Boston Archdiocese more than a decade ago, remains a dangerous sexual predator who should stay in prison even though he has completed his sentence. … NAACP leaders launched a 40-day march across the U.S. South on Saturday with a rally in Selma, Ala. … The White House was briefly put on lockdown Friday evening after a woman jumped over a barricade that is in front of the presidential mansion's fence.