AGENT’S LAPTOP STOLEN FROM HER CAR IN NYC
new york» A U.S. Secret Service agent has had a laptop stolen from her car in New York City.
The Secret Service said Friday that the laptop contains “multiple layers of security,” including disk encryption, and doesn’t carry classified information. The agency wouldn’t comment further.
Police say the agent’s car was parked near her Brooklyn home when someone broke in Thursday. Other items that were stolen were later recovered, including coins and a bag with the agency’s insignia.
Cold kills cherry blossoms
B washington» Cold weather has killed half of the blossoms on Washington’s famous cherry trees just as they were reaching peak bloom, park service officials said Friday.
It wasn’t the snow that really impacted the trees, but the cold. Park Service spokesman Mike Litterst had previously said that if the temperature got down to 24 degrees there could be a 90 percent loss of the blossoms that were expected to be at their peak between March 19 and 22.
Peak bloom is defined as the day when 70 percent of the Yoshino cherry trees around the Tidal Basin are blossoming. But that won’t happen this year because half of those blossoms are already gone.
Death toll climbs in Peru
B lima, peru» The number of people killed in Peru following intense rains and mudslides wreaking havoc around the Andean nation climbed to 67 Friday, with thousands more displaced from destroyed homes and others waiting on rooftops for rescue.
Across the country overflowing rivers caused by El Nino rains damaged 115,000 homes, collapsed 117 bridges and paralyzed countless roadways.
“We are confronting a serious climatic problem,” President Pedro Pablo Kuczynski said in a statement broadcast live Friday afternoon. “There hasn’t been an incident of this strength along the coast of Peru since 1998.”
New Florida prosecutor takes on death penalty fight B
orlando, fla.» Aramis Ayala, a Democrat and former public defender and assistant state attorney elected seven months ago, surprised many of her supporters when she announced this
Military attack kills Somali refugees B
hodeida, yemen» A military vessel and a helicopter gunship opened fire Friday night on a boat packed with dozens of Somali refugees, killing at least 42 people.
The attack, which Yemen’s Shiite rebels blamed on a Saudi-led coalition, highlighted the perils of a heavily used migration route running from the Horn of Africa to the oilrich Gulf, right through Yemen’s civil war.
The coalition has been heavily bombarding the nearby coast where it accuses rebels of smuggling weapons in small boats.
Social worker accused of hiding abuse resigns
B charlotte, n.c.» A veteran social worker accused of coaching congregants and their children on what to say during a 2015 child abuse investigation of her secretive religious sect has resigned, an attorney for a child welfare agency said Friday.
Andrea Leslie-Fite said Lori Cornelius left her position at the Cleveland County Department of Social Services. The development came less than two