Hurricane Julia pelts Nicaragua with heavy rainfall, strong winds
MEXICO CITY — Hurricane Julia hit Nicaragua’s central Caribbean coast on Sunday and dumped torrential rains across Central America before an expected reemergence over the Pacific.
Julia hit as a Category 1 hurricane with maximum sustained winds of 85 mph, though its winds had dipped to tropical storm force of 60 mph as it pushed across Nicaragua.
The U.S. National Hurricane Center said Julia was centered about 20 miles north-northeast of Managua, the capital, and was moving west at 16 mph.
It said life-threatening flash floods and mudslides were possible across Central America and southern Mexico through Tuesday, with the storm expected to bring as much as 15 inches of rain in isolated areas.
Colombia’s national disaster agency reported Sunday that Julia blew the roofs off several houses and knocked over trees as it blasted past San Andres Island east of Nicaragua. There were no immediate reports of fatalities
In Nicaragua, Vice President Rosario Murillo told TN8 television that there had been no reports of deaths, but power and communications were cut to some areas. She said that 9,500 people had been evacuated to shelters.
Local news media showed images of trees toppled across roads and local flooding.
Heavy rains and evacuations were also reported in Panama, Honduras and Costa Rica, where some highways were closed due to the downpours.
The storm was forecast to emerge over the Pacific and skirt the coasts of El Salvador and Guatemala, a region already saturated by weeks of heavy rains.
In Guatemala, storms since early May had already caused at least 49 confirmed deaths, with six people missing. Roads and hundreds of homes have been damaged, Guatemalan officials say.
In El Salvador, where 19 people have died this rainy season, the worst rainfall was expected Monday and Tuesday, said Fernando López, the minister of environmental and natural resources.
Officials said they had opened 61 shelters with the capacity to house more than 3,000 people.
Colorado bar death: One person was killed and four people sent to the hospital for injuries after a man drove his pickup truck through a crowd gathered outside a Colorado bar following an altercation early Sunday, authorities said.
Three people were taken into custody by the Jefferson County Sheriff ’s Office following the fatal hit-andrun attack at about 1:40 a.m. Sunday in Golden.
Sheriff’s office spokesperson Jenny Fulton said bouncers at the Rock Rest Lodge had broken up a “verbal altercation” between two parties when three men got into a pickup truck and drove into the crowd standing in the road outside the bar, KDVR-TV reported.
The truck later returned to the scene and was stopped by deputies, who took the three men into custody.
The driver could face charges including vehicular homicide and vehicular assault, Fulton said. She said the involvement of the others in the vehicle was not yet known.
Israeli financial settlement:
Israel’s Defense Ministry said Sunday that it had reached a settlement to compensate the family of a Palestinian American man who died earlier this year after he was detained by Israeli troops in the occupied West Bank.
The settlement marks a rare case of compensation in a Palestinian claim against alleged wrongdoing by Israeli military forces and comes after U.S. criticism against Israel.
In January, Israeli troops detained Omar Asaad, 78, at a checkpoint in the occupied West Bank, binding his hands and blindfolding him. Israeli troops then unbound his hands and left him facedown in an abandoned building.
Asaad, who had lived in the U.S. for four decades, was pronounced dead at a hospital after other Palestinians who had been detained found him unconscious.
On Sunday, the Defense Ministry said that it had reached a settlement with Asaad’s family, which had filed a claim against the state in an Israeli court. The ministry said that “in light
of the unfortunate event’s unique circumstances,” it agreed to pay the family $141,000.
Venezuela landslide: A landslide fueled by flooding and days of torrential rain swept through a municipality in central Venezuela, leaving at least 22 people dead as it dragged mud, rocks and trees through neighborhoods, authorities said Sunday.
Dozens of people are missing, authorities said.
Residents of Las Tejerias in Santos Michelena, an agro-industrial town in Aragua state about 55 miles southwest of Caracas, had just seconds to reach safety late Saturday as debris swept down a mountainside onto them.
The official death toll rose to 22 after the recovery of 20 bodies Sunday, Vice President Delcy Rodriguez told state-owned Venezolana de Television.
“There are still people walled in,” Rodriguez said. “We are trying to rescue
them, to rescue them alive.”
She said shelters will be set up for people who lost their homes.
During the past week, torrential rains have caused flooding in 11 of Venezuela’s 23 states.
Manila jail rampage: Philippine police killed three detained militants linked to the Islamic State group after they staged a jail rampage Sunday that saw a police officer stabbed and a former opposition senator briefly held hostage in a failed escape attempt from the maximum-security facility in the police headquarters in the capital, police said.
National police Chief Gen. Rodolfo Azurin Jr. said former Sen. Leila de Lima was unhurt and taken to a hospital for a checkup following the brazen escape attempt and hostage-taking at the detention center for high-profile inmates at the main police camp in Metropolitan Manila.
One of the three inmates stabbed a police officer who
was delivering breakfast after dawn in an open area, where inmates can exercise outdoors.
A police officer in a sentry tower fired warning shots, and then shot and killed two of the prisoners, including Abu Sayyaf commander Idang Susukan, when they refused to yield, police said.
The third inmate ran to de Lima’s cell and briefly held her hostage, but he was also gunned down by police commandos, Azurin said.
Austrian election: Austria’s liberal president was on course to win a second sixyear term outright Sunday, avoiding a runoff vote after a campaign in which he portrayed himself as the stable option in uncertain times.
Preliminary results gave President Alexander Van der Bellen 54.6% of the vote and his closest rival, far-right Freedom Party candidate Walter Rosenkranz, 19.1%.
Those figures didn’t include postal ballots, which will be counted Monday.