Huge wildfire near Lake Tahoe slows as weather improves
SOUTH LAKE TAHOE, Calif. — Better weather has slowed the growth of the huge California wildfire near Lake Tahoe resort communities, authorities said Friday.
The Caldor Fire remained only a few miles from the city of South Lake Tahoe, which was emptied of 22,000 residents days ago, along with casinos and shops across the state line in Nevada, but no significant fire activity occurred since Thursday, officials said.
Tim Ernst, an operations section chief, said fire officials were cautiously optimistic thanks to “a lot of hard work” by firefighters over the past two weeks.
The nearly 333-squaremile fire was not making any significant advances and was not challenging containment lines in long sections of its perimeter, but Ernst said “the risk is still out there” with some areas that remained hot.
Crews were restoring utility services, knocking down hazardous trees and putting out smoldering hot spots to prepare certain areas for repopulation, but the timeline for allowing residents back to their home remains unclear, said Capt. Parker Wilbourn, a spokesman for the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection.
The fire had been driven northeast on a course leading to South Lake Tahoe for days by southwestern winds, but that pattern ended this week. Calmer winds and increased humidity Thursday and Friday helped crews increase containment of the blaze to 29%. The fire — which began Aug. 14, was named after the road where it started and raged through densely forested, craggy areas — was still considered a threat to more than 30,000 homes, businesses and other buildings.
Japan’s PM bowing out: Amid growing criticism of his handling of the pandemic, Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga said Friday he won’t run for the leadership of the governing party later this month, paving the way for a new Japanese leader after just a year in office.
Suga told reporters that heading Japan’s pandemic response and campaigning to lead his governing Liberal Democratic Party at the same time divided his energies. “I have decided not to run for the party leadership elections, as I would like to focus on coronavirus measures,” Suga told reporters.
Suga has faced criticism and nosediving public support over a coronavirus response seen as too slow and limited and for holding the Olympics despite the public’s health concerns. His hope of having the Olympic festivities help turn around his plunging popularity was also dashed.
The Liberal Democrats and their coalition partner have a majority in parliament, meaning whoever wins the Sept. 29 party vote is virtually guaranteed to become the new prime minister.
Ex-cardinal pleads not guilty in sex assault:
Former Roman Catholic Cardinal Theodore McCarrick, the once-powerful American prelate who was expelled from the priesthood for sexual abuse, pleaded not guilty Friday to sexually assaulting a 16-year-old boy during a wedding reception in Massachusetts nearly 50 years ago.
McCarrick, 91, wore a mask and entered suburban
Boston’s Dedham District Court hunched over a walker. “Shame on you!” a protester shouted.
He did not speak during the hearing, at which the court entered a not guilty plea on his behalf, set bail at $5,000, and ordered him to stay away from the victim and have no contact with minors.
McCarrick, who lives in Dittmer, Missouri, faced three counts of indecent assault and battery on a person over 14, according to court documents.
McCarrick is the only U.S. Catholic cardinal, current or former, ever to be charged with child sex crimes.
Man who shot at cops amid protests acquitted:
A man charged with attempted murder after firing at Minneapolis police officers in the chaotic protests that followed George Floyd’s death has been acquitted of all charges against him.
Jaleel Stallings argued self-defense during his July
trial, testifying that he fired at the unmarked white van after he was struck in the chest with what turned out to be a rubber bullet fired by police.
Stallings, 29, testified that he thought he was being attacked by civilians, had been struck by a bullet and was potentially bleeding out, his attorney, Eric Rice, told The Associated Press on Friday. Court documents show that after Stallings was hit, he fired three shots toward the van as a warning, then took cover. He surrendered when he realized he had fired at police. No officers were hit.
A pretrial order from Judge William Koch said two officers began kicking and punching and kneeing him as he lay motionless.
The judge found that the officers violated Stallings’ Fourth Amendment rights during the arrest and that their actions were objectively unreasonable.
British man found: A
72-year-old British man was found safe three days after disappearing in a thick jungle in northeastern Thailand while going to visit friends on a motorbike.
A local hunter came across Barry Leonard Weller on Friday in a remote forest in Khon Kaen province, said Nattapat Tadee, a member of a local volunteer team that helped rescue him. He was asleep on a rock formation after climbing it to try to see a route out.
Weller said he had not eaten anything during his ordeal but sipped water puddled on rocks, using grass as a straw, Nattapat said.
Video showed Weller walking gingerly out of the forest, the rescue team around him.
He was shoeless and dressed in shorts and an open shirt. He looked tired and had multiple small cuts on his legs, but otherwise appeared healthy.
N. Korea’s pandemic: North
Korean leader Kim Jong Un ordered officials to wage a tougher epidemic prevention campaign in “our style” after he turned down some foreign COVID-19 vaccines offered via the U.N.-backed immunization program.
During a Politburo meeting Thursday, Kim said officials must “bear in mind that tightening epidemic prevention is the task of paramount importance which must not be loosened even a moment,” the official Korean Central News Agency reported Friday.
While stressing the need for material and technical means of virus prevention and increasing health workers’ qualifications, Kim also called for “further rounding off our style epidemic prevention system,” KCNA said.
Since the start of the pandemic, North Korea has used tough quarantines and border closures to prevent outbreaks, though its claim to be entirely virus-free is widely doubted.