Page 10A
NATION/WORLD
East Oregonian
Saturday, April 1, 2017
Three arrested in fire that
Chicago police to saturate
neighborhood where 7 killed collapsed highway overpass
CHICAGO (AP) — The
gun violence in one South
Side Chicago neighborhood
that left seven dead in a
12-hour period was mostly
due to gang conflict, Police
Superintendent
Eddie
Johnson said Friday.
On Thursday afternoon,
four people were fatally shot
in or near a restaurant after a
man approached and opened
fire. Two men were found
dead from bullet wounds
inside the restaurant. A third
person was found unrespon-
sive outside the restaurant.
A fourth man who sustained
gunshot wounds was found
unresponsive a block away.
Two people were killed
late Thursday when a vehicle
pulled alongside a van in the
city’s South Shore neigh-
borhood. A man and woman
were shot, police said, and
the van crashed into a pole.
“I’m angry and sick,”
Johnson said during a news
conference. “You have
my promise that CPD will
utilize the full weight of
our resources to go after the
individuals responsible for
yesterday’s incidents.”
Johnson said investiga-
tors have determined most
of the victims were targeted
and had known gang affilia-
tions. He added the woman’s
killing wasn’t gang related.
Johnson said there will
be a heavy and aggressive
police presence in the South
Shore neighborhood until the
perpetrators of Thursday’s
violence are in custody. He
Chris Sweda/Chicago Tribune via AP
Georgia Jackson, 72, is overcome with emotion upon
learning that her two grandsons, Raheem, 19, and Dil-
lon Jackson, 20, were found fatally shot in the South
Shore neighborhood in Chicago on Thursday.
added coordinated police
operations will target the
people who are driving the
violence in the neighbor-
hood and where retaliatory
violence may occur.
“You lose count of the
shootings after a while,”
Kyra Carr, who lives a few
blocks away and said she
heard the gunfire, told the
Chicago Sun-Times. “But
seven bodies in a day. Crazy.
Something is wrong.”
The Cook County medical
examiner’s office identified
three of the victims as
brothers Raheem and Dillon
Jackson, ages 19 and 20
respectively, and 28-year-old
Emmanuel Stokes. The
identity of the fourth victim
was withheld pending notifi-
cation of family.
The Chicago Tribune
reports that the Jacksons’
grandmother,
Georgia
Jackson, 72, said the two had
gone to the restaurant to get
food and to see their mother,
who works there. She said
their mother called her about
the shooting.
“She only said one at first
but when I got here they
said they found the other,”
Georgia Jackson said.
Also on Thursday, about a
mile from the restaurant, the
body of 26-year-old Patrice
L. Calvin was discovered in a
home. The medical examin-
er’s office says Calvin, who
was four months pregnant,
suffered a gunshot wound to
the head.
Johnson said the woman
likely knew her killer, and
her death wasn’t gang
related.
No arrests have been
reported by police.
BRIEFLY
Dem opposition to Gorsuch
grows; Schumer warns GOP
WASHINGTON (AP) — Senate
Democratic opposition to President Donald
Trump’s Supreme Court nominee swelled
Friday as Democrats neared the numbers
needed for a filibuster, setting up a showdown
with Republicans who have the votes to
confirm Neil Gorsuch.
Sens. Claire McCaskill of Missouri,
Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut and
Brian Schatz of Hawaii became the latest
Democratic senators to announce their
opposition to Gorsuch, a 49-year-old federal
appeals court judge in Denver whose
conservative rulings make him an intellectual
heir to the justice he would replace, the late
Antonin Scalia.
McCaskill’s decision came a day after she
said she was torn over the decision. She said
she’s opposing the federal appeals court judge
because his opinions favor corporations over
workers and he’s shown “a stunning lack of
humanity” in some of those decisions.
She also criticized Trump in her statement
announcing her opposition, saying “the
president who promised working people he
would lift them up has nominated a judge
who can’t even see them.”
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer
of New York warned Republicans against
changing Senate rules, which could prove
momentous for the chamber and would allow
all future Supreme Court nominees to get on
the court regardless of opposition from the
minority party. He says President Donald
Trump should just pick a new nominee if
Gorsuch is blocked.
Civilian casualties in Iraq,
Syria undercut U.S. victories
BAGHDAD (AP) — Islamic State group
and al-Qaida-linked militants are quickly
moving to drum up outrage over a sharp
spike in civilian casualties said to have been
caused by U.S. airstrikes in Iraq and Syria,
posting photos online of a destroyed medical
center and homes reduced to rubble. “This
is how Trump liberates Mosul, by killing its
inhabitants,” the caption reads.
The propaganda points to the risk that
rising death tolls and destruction could
undermine the American-led campaign
against the militants.
During the past two years of fighting
to push back the Islamic State group, the
U.S.-led coalition has faced little backlash
over casualties, in part because civilian deaths
have been seen as relatively low and there
have been few cases of single strikes killing
large numbers of people. In Iraq — even
though sensitivities run deep over past
American abuses of civilians — the country’s
prime minister and many Iraqis support the
U.S. role in fighting the militants.
But for the first time anger over lives lost
is becoming a significant issue as Iraqi troops
backed by U.S. special forces and coalition
airstrikes wade into more densely populated
districts of Iraq’s second-largest city, Mosul,
and U.S. -backed Syrian fighters battle closer
to the Islamic State group’s Syrian stronghold
of Raqqa.
That has the potential to undercut victories
against the militants and stoke resentments
that play into their hands.
U.S. enrolls volunteers in large
test of possible Zika vaccine
WASHINGTON (AP) — U.S. health
officials have begun enrolling volunteers for
critical next-stage testing of an experimental
AP Photo/Susan Walsh, File
In this March 22 photo, Supreme Court
Justice nominee Neil Gorsuch testifies
on Capitol Hill in Washington before the
Senate Judiciary Committee.
vaccine to protect against Zika, the mosquito-
borne virus that can cause devastating birth
defects in pregnant women.
The first volunteer was vaccinated
Wednesday at Baylor College of Medicine in
Houston, as the National Institutes of Health
gears up for a two-part study that aims to
enroll at least 2,400 people in Texas, Florida,
Puerto Rico and five at-risk countries: Brazil,
Mexico, Panama, Costa Rica and Peru.
Zika has caused an epidemic of birth
defects — including babies with abnormally
small heads and brains — in parts of Latin
America and the Caribbean, and continues
to spread to a creeping list of other countries.
For the U.S. the risk has largely been to
travelers, although mosquitoes spread the
virus in parts of southern Florida and Texas
last year, where health officials remain on
guard.
But while Zika largely disappeared from
the headlines over the winter, mosquito
season is fast approaching — and the risk
persists internationally.
“It is imperative that public health research
continue to work to contain the spread of the
virus,” Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of NIH’s
National Institute of Allergy and Infectious
Diseases, said Friday in announcing the $100
million study.
Three airliners in near-misses
with drones in London
LONDON (AP) — Three planes narrowly
missed colliding with drones near London’s
Heathrow Airport in the space of three weeks
last year, underscoring increasing concerns
about the devices being used near aircraft, a
report Friday said.
The report by the U.K. Airprox Board,
which catalogs air safety incidents, offered
new details on the close calls that took
place in October and November. In the
most unusual incident, the pilots of an A320
passenger plane descending into Heathrow
noticed a gadget with multiple arms and
rotors passing below the plane’s right wing at
10,000 feet.
“Was that a drone?” the pilots exclaimed.
“At 10,000 feet!”
The separation between drone and plane
was just 100 feet vertically and 656 feet
horizontally. The pilot said there was no time
to react, the report said.
While actual collisions are rare, the
number of near-misses has increased dramat-
ically in recent years as the popularity of
drones has grown. There were 70 near-misses
between objects identified as drones and
aircraft in 2016, compared to 29 in 2015 and
six in 2014, the board said.
The A320 incident was one of three
near-misses involving planes near Heathrow
in the February report. In the other two cases,
the board said it was either good luck or
divine providence that no serious accident
had taken place.
ATLANTA (AP) —
Three people were arrested
Friday in connection with
a raging fire that collapsed
an elevated portion of
Interstate 85 in Atlanta
and shut down the heavily
traveled route through the
heart of the city.
Deputy
Insurance
Commissioner Jay Flor-
ence said Basil Eleby
faces a charge of criminal
damage to property, and
Sophia Bruner and Barry
Thomas each were charged
with criminal trespass.
“We believe they were
together when the fire was
set and Eleby is the one
who set the fire,” Florence
told The Atlanta Jour-
nal-Constitution.
Florence would not
discuss how the fire was
started or why, saying
those details would be
released as the investiga-
tion progresses.
Traffic was bumper to
bumper on streets near the
shut-down portion of the
interstate as drivers were
forced to take a detour the
day after the blaze.
The
collapse
took
place a few miles north of
downtown, and the effects
could fall most heavily on
commuters from Atlanta’s
densely populated northern
suburbs. They will have to
find other routes to work or
ride mass transit.
Connie Bailey-Blake, of
Dacula, 37 miles northeast
of Atlanta, waited for a
MARTA commuter train to
reach her job downtown.
She typically drives, often
by way of the interstate.
“I’m supposed to be at
work at 9 a.m. and it’s 9:15
a.m.,” Bailey-Blake said.
“The first few days are
going to be difficult. This
will be my new life.”
Amelia Ford picked a
new route to work by car
and said it took her 45
minutes to travel 3 miles
from her Atlanta home to
the nearest open on-ramp
to the interstate.
Georgia Transportation
Commissioner
Russell
McMurry said 350 feet of
highway will need to be
WSB-TV via AP
In this aerial image made from a video provided by
WSB-TV, a large fire that caused an overpass on In-
terstate 85 to collapse burns in Atlanta, Thursday.
replaced in both directions
on I-85, which carries about
400,000 cars a day through
the city and is one of the
South’s most important
north-south routes.
He said repairs will take
months but declined to be
more specific.
The collapse effectively
“puts a cork in the bottle,”
Georgia
State
Patrol
Commissioner
Mark
McDonough said.
The fire broke out
Thursday afternoon in
an area used to store
state-owned construction
materials and equipment,
sending flames and smoke
high into the air. Fire
authorities said they had
not determined how the
blaze started.
McMurry said his
department stored coils of
plastic conduit used in fiber
optic networks beneath the
span but insisted they were
noncombustible.
No
injuries
were
reported from the fire
and collapse. Firefighters
shut down the section of
highway before it gave
way, and made it to safety
themselves after hearing
the road cracking and
seeing concrete go flying,
authorities said.
In
the
meantime,
MARTA increased rail
service and said additional
staff would be on hand to
help passengers figure out
how to get where they’re
going.
U.S.
Transportation
Secretary Elaine Chao
promptly released $10
million for the initial
repair work, and the
Federal Highway Admin-
istration promised more in
emergency repair funds.
Officials gave no estimate
of how much the job would
cost.
Built in 1953 and reno-
vated in 1985, the span
scored high in its most
recent inspection, receiving
a rating of 94.6 out of 100
in 2015, said Natalie Dale,
a spokeswoman for the
Georgia
Transportation
Department.
Lauren
Stewart,
director of the Structural
Engineering and Materials
Laboratory at Georgia Tech
in Atlanta, said intense
heat can compromise even
steel-reinforced concrete.
“With fires, especially
fires that burn for long
periods and with high heat,
you can see structures,
anything from buildings
to bridges, can have
their material properties
degrade,” Stewart said.
It’s happened before.
In 1996, a fire in a big
pile of tires beneath I-95
in Philadelphia left a span
too weak to handle cars,
forcing authorities to
shut down 4 miles of the
busy East Coast route for
repairs.
Andy Herrmann, a
retired partner with the
New York-based engi-
neering firm Hardesty &
Hanover, said there have
also been a few instances
of gasoline trucks crashing
and causing intense heat
that damaged overpasses.