Italian skipper may face charges in crash that killed US tourist
ROME — The skipper of a rented motorboat involved in a crash off the Amalfi Coast that killed a U.S. tourist is being investigated for suspected manslaughter, a prosecutor in southern Italy said Saturday.
Salerno Chief Prosecutor Giuseppe Borrelli told a news conference in the port city that the skipper, an Italian who hasn’t been publicly identified, is also being investigated on suspicion of causing a shipwreck. No charges have been filed against him, and the investigation is ongoing.
Adrienne Vaughan, 45, was killed and her husband and the skipper of the rented motorboat were injured in the accident Thursday off a stretch of coastline popular with tourists. The motorboat slammed into a chartered sailboat, where some 70 guests aboard were enjoying a wedding reception.
Blood samples were taken from the skipper to determine alcohol and drug levels. Borrelli indicated that for now the results were inconclusive.
On Friday, Italian news reports said the blood toxicology tests had found traces of cocaine.
Investigators have questioned the skipper, who remains hospitalized with what Italian media said are pelvis and rib fractures. The victim’s husband, Mike White, is being treated at another hospital for a shoulder injury, according to reports. Authorities have spoken to him and plan follow up, Borrelli said.
The couple’s two children were uninjured. They’re now in the care of one of the their grandfathers, who traveled to Italy to help, the prosecutor said.
Borrelli said when the crash happened, Vaughan was sunning herself on the bow of the boat and “bounced” into the water upon the impact.
He declined to detail her injuries, saying the results of an autopsy are still pending.
The sailboat’s captain has told Italian media that the motorboat was speeding when it smashed into the stationary sailboat’s bow.
Vaughan was president of Bloomsbury Publishing’s U.S. branch, which counts writers ranging from bestselling novelists Sarah J. Maas and Susanna Clarke to historian Mark Kurlansky among its roster of authors.
For the first time in 72 years, Oregon motorists can grab a fuel nozzle and pump gas into their cars on their own, as a decades-old ban on selfserve gas stations has been revoked.
Gov. Tina Kotek signed a bill Friday allowing people across the state to choose between having an attendant pump gas or doing it themselves. The law took effect immediately.
That leaves New Jersey as the only state that prohibits motorists from pumping their own gas.
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Pakistan’s former Prime Minister Imran Khan was arrested Saturday after a court handed him a three-year jail sentence for corruption, a development that could end his future in politics.
The court ruled that Khan, who was ousted in a no-confidence vote in April 2022 but remains the country’s leading opposition figure, had concealed assets after selling state gifts.
Police moved quickly to take the former cricket star from his home in the eastern city of Lahore to the Pakistani capital, Islamabad, senior police officer
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Ali Nasir Rizvi said.
Efforts to put the divisive politician behind bars have stepped up ahead of general elections this year because his popularity and large support base, combined with his ability to mobilize massive crowds, pose a threat to the ruling coalition and its backers in Pakistan’s powerful military that has been the final arbiter of the country’s politics since its independence from Britain.
Khan is the seventh former prime minister to be arrested in Pakistan. Zulfikar Ali Bhutto was arrested and hanged in 1979.
China flooding: Rain on Saturday continued to pelt northeastern China in the wake of Typhoon Doksuri, as authorities reported more fatalities and missing people and called for the evacuation of thousands.
One person died and five went missing in the city of Shulan in Jilin province, which has seen five straight days of rainfall, according to
state media.
More than 14,300 people were evacuated from the city of more than 700,000, according to the local disaster relief agency.
China is struggling with record-breaking rainfall in some areas, while others suffer scorching summer heat and drought that threatens crops.
The heavy rains have battered northern China since late July, disrupting the lives of millions. Flooding near Beijing and in neighboring Hebei province last week killed at least 22 people.
Slovenia flooding: Slovenia has faced the worst-ever natural disaster in its history, Prime Minister Robert Golob said Saturday, after devastating floods caused damage estimated at $550 million.
Floods Thursday and Friday killed three people and destroyed roads, bridges and houses in the small Alpine country. Two-thirds
of the territory had been affected, Golob said.
After three weather-related deaths were reported Friday, Slovenian media said Saturday that one more person was found dead in Ljubljana, the capital.
The floods were caused by torrential rains. Slovenia’s weather service said a month’s worth of rain fell in less than 24 hours.
A tugboat sank Saturday in Egypt’s Suez Canal after it collided with a Hong Kongflagged tanker, the waterway’s authorities said.
In a statement, the Suez Canal Authority, which oversees the operation of the key water passage, said its teams were working to recover the tugboat after it launched an operation to save the seven-person crew.
The canal, which connects the Mediterranean Sea and the Red Sea, sees periodic groundings of mega-large transport ships that go through it, many
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of them traveling between China and Europe and the Western Hemisphere. Tugboats help guide ships passing through.
The tanker involved in Saturday’s collision, the authority said, was the Chinagas Legend, which it said was now waiting in Port Said.
Monster hunters: The Loch Ness Centre in Scotland is calling for “budding monster hunters” and volunteers to join in what it dubs the largest search for the Loch Ness Monster since the 1970s.
The visitor attraction said this week that modern technology like drones that produce thermal images of the lake will “search the waters in a way that has never been done before.”
The new surface water search for the fabled “Nessie,” planned for the weekend of Aug. 26 and 27, is billed as the largest of its kind since the Loch Ness Investigation Bureau studied the loch for signs of the mythical beast in 1972.