Firefighter dies in Sierra National wildfire

SIERRA, Calif. — A firefighter was killed Saturday morning while battling a wildfire in the Sierra National Forest, officials said.

Braden Varney, a heavy equipment operator with Cal Fire, died at the scene as crews battled the Ferguson fire in the rugged area near Yosemite National Park, said Cal Fire spokesman Scott McLean.

Mr. Varney, 36, of Mariposa, served in Cal Fire’s Madera-Mariposa-Merced Unit for a decade. He left behind a wife and two kids.

Mr. McLean said Mr. Varney’s death is still under investigation. Mr. Varney’s job involved operating bulldozers, and he was working on the line with teams trying to contain the fire when he was killed.

The Ferguson fire, which started about 10:30 p.m. Friday near El Portal in Mariposa County, had burned 130 acres and was 5 percent contained as of Saturday morning, according to Cal Fire.

Missouri marriage limit

JEFFERSONCITY, Mo. — Missouri has outlawed the practice of marrying 15year-olds.

Gov. Mike Parson signed a bill Friday to raise the minimum age to 16. Before, Missouri was one of 25 states with no minimum marriage age. And Missouri was the only state that allowed 15year-olds to marry with one parent’s approval, even if the other parent objected.

Missouri had become a destination wedding spot for 15-year-old brides, with 1,000 15-year-olds marrying in the state between 1999 and 2017. Many of them married men age 21 or older.

Now, no one age 15 or under is allowed to marry in the state. The minimum legal age is 16. Marriage before 18 still requires one parent’s approval and marriage licenses will not be given to individuals 21 or older intending to marry someone 16 or younger.

Jaguar kills 3 zoo animals

NEWORLEANS — A jaguar at a New Orleans zoo slipped out of its enclosure and went on a rampage Saturday night, attacking four alpacas, an emu and a fox before zoo officials managed to sedate it.

The big cat was first reported missing at 7:20 a.m., before the Audubon Zoo opened, officials said in a press release. By 8:15 it had been tranquilized and returned to its enclosure.

Three animals were killed; three others were injured. No humans were injured, although the circumstances of the escape sparked a worrisome thought: The “jaguar jungle” is also home to a children’s play area.

In a news conference Saturday, zoo officials said the facility was safe, even though they wouldn’t say how the predator managed to escape.

The jaguar, a 3-year-old named Valerio, didn’t eat the animals it went after, but rather was engaged in a territorial display, said Kyle Burks, the zoo’s vice president and managing director.

The zoo was closed Saturday as officials tried to discover how the feline escaped and grief counselors were brought in for traumatized staff. The zoo planned to reopen at 10 a.m. Sunday.

Double shark attack

FERNANDINABEACH, Fla. — Of 88 unprovoked shark bites documented by the Florida Museum of Natural History last year, more than one third took place in Florida, the shark attack capital of the world.

The vast majority of those attacks were on southern beaches. Shark encounters are relatively rare farther up Florida’s Atlantic coastline and almost unheard of in Nassau County.

Or so they were before Friday afternoon, when consecutive attacks sent two people to the hospital and shut down Fernandina Beach, about 25 miles northeast of Jacksonville.

The first victim, Dustin Theobald, 30, told News 4 Jax from his hospital bed that he had brought his 8year-old to the beach to play Friday. He was in the surf when he “felt something grab onto my foot and pull.”

He reached back to find what he thinks was a nurse or a blacktip shark.

A 17-year-old boy was bitten minutes later. Both will recover. Authorities evacuated swimmers afterward.

Before the weekend, four shark attacks had been recorded in Nassau County in the last 135 years, compared to more than 800 across the state.