Nation & World Glance
Honolulu warns residents after storm swells dam water levels
HONOLULU — Honolulu officials said a dam holding 21 million gallons of water was not in danger of collapsing Thursday, but still warned nearly 10,000 residents downstream that they might need to evacuate after a tropical storm caused water levels to rise in the reservoir.
Water levels in the dam rose 4-to-5 feet (nearly 1.5 meters) overnight as heavy rains from Tropical Storm Olivia dumped 7.3 inches (18 centimeters) of rain in the area. Meteorologists downgraded the storm to a tropical depression as it moved away from the islands, but warned lingering moisture could bring more rain.
The Board of Water Supply, the agency that manages the dam, said plans call for a mandatory evacuation if the water reaches 1 foot under the top of the dam.
The water was 5 feet below the top of the dam at midday Thursday. It’s also 18 inches below a spillway. Areas downstream would flood if water goes over the spillway, said Ernie Lau, the agency’s chief engineer.
“We want people to know, if you live near a dam and were the dam to fail, these would be areas we would want to evacuate before the failure of the dam,” Lau said. “But we’re nowhere close to that.”
‘It looked like Armageddon:’ Deadly gas blasts destroy homes
LAWRENCE, Mass. — A series of gas explosions an official described as “Armageddon” killed a teenager, injured at least 10 other people and ignited fires in at least 39 homes in three communities north of Boston on Thursday, forcing entire neighborhoods to evacuate as crews scrambled to fight the flames and shut off the gas.
Authorities said Leonel Rondon, 18, of Lawrence, died after a chimney toppled by an exploding house crashed into his car. He was rushed to a Boston hospital but pronounced dead there in the evening.
Massachusetts State Police urged all residents with homes serviced by Columbia Gas in Lawrence, Andover and North Andover to evacuate, snarling traffic and causing widespread confusion as residents and local officials struggled to understand what was happening.
“It looked like Armageddon, it really did,” Andover Fire Chief Michael Mansfield told reporters. “There were billows of smoke coming from Lawrence behind me. I could see pillars of smoke in front of me from the town of Andover.”
Gov. Charlie Baker said state and local authorities are investigating but that it could take days or weeks before they turn up answers.
No progress as US, Cuba meet on mysterious ‘health attacks’
WASHINGTON — Cuba said Thursday the United States is continuing to withhold important information that could help in the investigation into mysterious incidents that have injured some two dozen Havanabased American diplomats, including some with brain damage, since late 2016.
After meeting with U.S. officials at the State Department, members of a team Cuba assembled to look into the incidents said their requests for patient records and other information had again been rebuffed and rejected anew after Washington’s assertions that the injuries were caused by targeted attacks.
“The Cuban side is completely unable to support the hypothesis of health attacks and brain damage as reported by the State Department,” said Dr. Mitchell Valdes Sosa, chief of the group of Cuban scientists and physicians. “Nothing was presented that could add up to sustain such a thing.”
The Cuban delegation renewed calls for the State Department to release to it specific medical records and other data about the victims in order for it to be studied.
It also repeated demands that Washington stop referring to the cause of the symptoms as “health attacks” in the absence of definitive proof and denounced reports citing U.S. officials as saying that investigators may be narrowing their suspicions about the cause and culprit behind them.
WASHINGTON — Sen. Dianne Feinstein, the top Democrat on the Senate Judiciary Committee, said Thursday she has notified federal investigators about information she received — and won’t disclose publicly — concerning Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh.
The California Democrat said in a statement that she “received information from an individual concerning the nomination.” She said the person “strongly requested confidentiality, declined to come forward or press the matter further, and I have honored that decision.”
The FBI confirmed that it received the information Wednesday evening and included it in Kavanaugh’s background file, which is maintained as part of his nomination. The agency said that is its standard process.
A Senate Democratic aide and another person familiar with the matter said it referred to an incident that occurred while Kavanaugh was high-school age. The two spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity because they weren’t authorized to discuss the matter. The details of the alleged incident and the identity of the person who provided the information were unclear.
Cuomo defeats Nixon in NY gubernatorial primary
ALBANY, N.Y. — Gov. Andrew Cuomo easily beat back a primary challenge from activist and actress Cynthia Nixon on Thursday, thwarting her attempt to become the latest insurgent liberal to knock off an establishment Democrat.
Thursday’s results were good across the board for Cuomo, whose preferred candidates for lieutenant governor and attorney general also survived contentious primaries.