NEWS OF THE DAY
Quake forecast: Federal scientists forecast that Oklahoma will continue to have the nation’s biggest man-made earthquake problem but it probably won’t be as shaky as recent years. In its annual national earthquake outlook, the U.S. Geological Survey reported Wednesday that a large portion of Oklahoma and parts of central California have the highest risk for a damaging quake this year: between 5 and 12 percent.
Fatal fire: Four children died in a house fire Wednesday in an Oregon timber town, and their mother, her husband and a 13-year-old sibling were critically injured, a sheriff ’s official said. The fire broke out in Riddle, a small town about 200 miles south of Portland that has been hit hard by the decline of the timber industry. The dead children were ages 4, 7, 10 and 13 and included a foster child, authorities said. The cause of the blaze did not appear suspicious, they said.
Sex abuse claims: The Archdiocese of New York is seeking a $100 million shortterm mortgage on property it owns near St. Patrick’s Cathedral to fund a compensation program for victims of clergy sexual abuse. The Manhattanbased New York Archdiocese — the nation’s second biggest after Los Angeles — announced a program last fall to begin paying abuse victims. Cardinal Timothy Dolan has portrayed the process as a “tangible sign of the church’s desire for healing and reconciliation.” Nationwide, the church has paid nearly $4 billion in settlements since 1950, more than 6,500 clergy members have been accused of abuse, and hundreds have been removed from church work.
Confederate statue: A century-old statue of a Confederate soldier that stands outside a Maryland courthouse will be moved to private property. Montgomery County Executive Ike Leggett said this week that the county will relocate the bronze statue from the courthouse in Rockville to White’s Ferry, a docking site on the Potomac River named for a Confederate general. Confederate symbols have come under increased public scrutiny since the 2015 massacre of nine black worshipers at a church in Charleston, S.C. The United Daughters of the Confederacy donated the statue to the county in 1913. A wooden box was constructed over it after the words “Black Lives Matter” were spraypainted on it in 2015.
Barred for life: A former Las Vegas justice of the peace has been barred for life from serving as a judge in Nevada for ordering a defense attorney handcuffed when she would not stop speaking in court in an effort to keep a client out of jail. The Nevada Supreme Court posted a Nevada Commission on Judicial Discipline order censuring Conrad Hafen for courtroom incidents between December 2014 and last May. That’s when he had Deputy Clark County Public Defender Zohra Bakhtary detained on a misdemeanor contempt finding after he ordered her to stop talking. Hafen lost a re-election bid.
Chronicle News Services