ZIMBABWEAN OPPOSITION OFFICIAL DENIED ASYLUM IN ZAMBIA

ZIMBABWE» A top Zimbabwean HARARE, opposition official fled to Zambia on Wednesday but was denied asylum and is expected to face arrest at home as concerns rose over a government crackdown after last week’s disputed presidential election.

Tendai Biti, a former finance minister and a leader of the opposition Movement for Democratic Change, said he is going to be deported, according to Dewa Mavinga, southern Africa director with Human Rights Watch. Mavhinga said Biti told him: “It looks like they have made a decision to hand us back to the junta. We are truly in God’s hands.”

Huge gas leak leads to $120 million settlement.

A Southern California utility reached a nearly $120 million settlement over a massive blowout at a natural gas storage field that became the nation’s largest known release of climatechanging methane and forced thousands to flee their Los Angeles homes almost three years ago, officials announced Wednesday. The settlement between Southern California Gas Co. and state and local governments aims to mitigate the greenhouse gases that spewed uncontrollably for nearly four months. The October 2015 blowout at an Aliso Canyon well sickened residents of the San Fernando Valley and led to evacuations of 8,000 homes.

Four years after Ferguson, white prosecutor ousted by black man.

MO.» Four FERGUSON, years after the deadly police shooting that triggered racial unrest in Ferguson and helped give rise to the Black Lives Matter movement, a black city councilman scored an election upset and ousted the white prosecutor criticized over his handling of the case. Wesley Bell’s stunning defeat of seven-term St. Louis County prosecutor Bob McCulloch in Tuesday’s Democratic contest all but assures Bell of victory in November.

Republicans have not put up a candidate. Bell said what resonated with voters was his platform of reforms such as holding police more accountable, revising the cash bail system and ending prosecution of low-level drug crimes.

Man upset by wife’s illness kills her, himself at hospital.

N.Y.» A man who said VALHALLA, he wanted to end his ailing wife’s suffering shot her to death in her bed at a hospital Wednesday and killed himself, police said.

Richard DeLucia, 71, left a note at the couple’s condo indicating he was distraught about how his wife, Ann, 70, was suffering and wanted to put a stop to her ordeal, Westchester County police spokesman Kieran O’Leary said. Then the husband went to his wife’s room at Westchester Medical Center with a licensed .38caliber revolver, fired a single shot that killed his wife and took his own life with another shot, police said.

No one else was in the room at the time, authorities said.

14,000 firefighters — from inmates to foreigners — aid California.

CALIF.» Firefighters UKIAH, said for the first time Wednesday that they have made good progress battling the state’s largest-ever wildfire but didn’t expect to have it fully under control until September.

The blaze north of San Francisco has grown to the size of Los Angeles since it started two weeks ago, fueled by dry vegetation, high winds and rugged terrain that made it too dangerous for firefighters to attack the flames directly. The fire now spans 470 square miles.

Crews, including inmates and firefighters from overseas, have managed to cut lines around half the fire to contain the flames, the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection said. The blaze about 100 miles north of San Francisco around the resort region of Clear Lake has destroyed 116 homes and injured two firefighters. Those lines have kept the southern edge of the fire from spreading into residential areas on the east side of the lake. — Denver Post wire services