Nation & World Glance
CHICAGO — A tornado swept into a mobile home park near a small town in western Wisconsin on Tuesday, killing one person and leaving around 25 injured, as a storm system also pounded parts of at least seven states from Texas to near the Canadian border with heavy rain, high winds and hail.
Barron County Sheriff Chris Fitzgerald told several media that the tornado damaged the Prairie Lakes Estates trailer park north of Chetek. The National Weather Service reported the tornado touched down in the area just after 5:30 p.m.
Helicopter video from WCCO-TV and KARE-TV shows extensive damage at the trailer park, with several homes reduced to rubble.
GOP runoff to replace SC’s Mulvaney too close to call
COLUMBIA, S.C. — The runoff election for the Republican GOP nomination to replace Mick Mulvaney in South Carolina’s 5th District was too close to call Tuesday night, with the slightest or margins separating the contenders.
The difference in votes between former lawmaker Ralph Norman and state legislator Tommy Pope was less than 1 percent, meaning a recount is automatic.
Norman, who held a slight lead with all precincts reporting, was claiming victory, and the Club for Growth, whose political arm backed Norman, sent out an email message congratulating him.
In a statement provided to The Associated Press, Pope said he would let the automatic recount process play out, thanking his supporters and saying he was “humbled and thankful” for their trust.
Mulvaney vacated the 5th District seat to become White House budget director. The runoff was required when voters in the Republican-leaning district gave Norman and Pope roughly equal support while rejecting the flamethrowers and outsiders in a seven-way GOP primary.
New Orleans: Removal of 3rd Confederate statue begins
NEW ORLEANS — Piece by piece, New Orleans’ landscape is changing as city workers take down massive works of bronze and stone that once seemed immoveable in a region where some still cling to a Confederate legacy.
The city announced late Tuesday that it had begun the process of removing a statue of Confederate Gen. P.G.T. Beauregard — the third of four monuments city officials plan to take down across the city. The news release came as police cordoned off the site and what appeared to be a large crane was moved into position. It was not clear how long it would take to remove the massive bronze likeness of Beauregard on horseback.
“Today we take another step in defining our City not by our past but by our bright future,” said Mayor Mitch Landrieu in a news release. “While we must honor our history, we will not allow the Confederacy to be put on a pedestal in the heart of New Orleans.”
U.S. envoy: North Korea is intimidating the entire world
UNITED NATIONS — U.S. Ambassador Nikki Haley accused North Korea on Tuesday of intimidating the entire international community with its nuclear program, military ability and cyberattacks, and said any country that doesn’t implement U.N. sanctions is supporting Pyongyang’s actions.
“No one is immune to the threat of North Korea,” she told reporters before emergency closed-door consultations by the U.N. Security Council on the North’s weekend ballistic missile launch, which experts said demonstrated a significant technological jump with the rocket flying higher and for a longer period of time.
“We’re not going to continue to just say go ahead and test as often as you want,” Haley said, flanked by the South Korean and Japanese ambassadors.