NATION/WORLD
Wednesday, September 20, 2017
East Oregonian
Page 7A
149 killed as quake fells buildings in Mexico
AP Photo/Richard Drew
U.S. President Donald Trump addresses the 72nd
session of the United Nations General Assembly, at
U.N. headquarters Tuesday.
In stark UN speech, Trump
threatens to ‘destroy’ NKorea
NEW YORK (AP)
— Trump’s overheated
language was rare for a U.S.
president at the rostrum
of the United Nations, but
the speech was textbook
Trump, dividing the globe
into friends and foes and
taking unflinching aim at
America’s enemies. North
Korea’s ambassador and
another top diplomat left the
General Assembly chamber
before he spoke to boycott
his speech, leaving behind
two empty chairs.
The president urged
nations to work together to
stop Iran’s nuclear program
and defeat “loser terrorists”
who wage violence around
the globe. He denounced
“radical Islamic terrorism,”
an inflammatory label he
had shied away from in
recent months after trum-
peting it on the campaign
trail. He called Syrian
President Bashar Assad’s
government a “criminal
regime.”
He said violence-plagued
regions of the world “are
going to hell.” He made
little mention of Russia.
For all of that, he said
there was still hope the
United Nations could solve
“many of these vicious and
complex problems.”
But he focused more on
the problems than the hopes.
His lashing of North
Korea was a vigorous
restatement of what’s
been said by U.S. leaders
before, but delivered with
new intensity in the august
setting of the General
Assembly. After a litany
of accusations — the
starvation of millions, the
abduction of a Japanese
girl and more — he ques-
tioned the legitimacy of the
communist government by
referring to it as a “band of
criminals.”
Trump, who has previ-
ously warned of “fire and
fury” if Pyongyang does
not back down, claimed that
“no one has shown more
contempt for other nations
and for the well-being of
their own people than the
depraved regime in North
Korea.” And he scolded
that it was “an outrage” to
enable and trade with North
Korea, seeming to point a
finger at China, although he
did not mention it by name.
Despite the speech’s
bombast, it signaled little in
the way of policy change.
Trump stopped short of
demanding regime change,
which North Korea regards
as the ultimate American
intention and treats as a
reason for its development
of nuclear weapons. That
may offer some reassurance
to China and Russia, which
have urged the U.S. to tone
down its rhetoric and restart
dialogue with North Korea.
MEXICO CITY (AP) —
A powerful earthquake shook
central Mexico on Tuesday,
collapsing
buildings
in
plumes of dust and killing at
least 149 people. Thousands
fled into the streets in panic,
and many stayed to help
rescue those trapped.
Dozens of buildings
tumbled into mounds of
rubble or were severely
damaged in densely popu-
lated parts of Mexico City and
nearby states. Mayor Miguel
Angel Mancera said buildings
fell at 44 places in the capital
alone as high-rises across the
city swayed sickeningly.
Hours after the magnitude
7.1 quake, rescue workers
were still clawing through
the wreckage of a primary
school that partly collapsed
in the city’s south looking for
any children who might be
trapped. Some relatives said
they had received Whatsapp
message from two girls inside.
President Enrique Pena
Nieto visited the school late
Tuesday and said 22 bodies
had been recovered there, two
of them adults. He added in
comments broadcast online
by Financiero TV that 30 chil-
dren and eight adults were still
reported missing. Rescuers
were continuing their search
and pausing to listen for
voices from the rubble.
The quake is the deadliest
in Mexico since a 1985 quake
on the same date killed thou-
sands. It came less than two
weeks after another powerful
quake caused 90 deaths in the
country’s south.
Luis Felipe Puente, head
of the national Civil Defense
agency, reported Tuesday
night that the confirmed death
toll had been raised to 149.
His tweet said 55 people
died in Morelos state, just
south of Mexico City, while
49 died in the capital and 32
were killed in nearby Puebla
state, where the quake was
centered. Ten people died in
the State of Mexico, which
surrounds Mexico City on
three sides, and three were
killed in Guerrero state, he
said.
AP Photo/Marco Ugarte
A man walks out of the door frame of a building that collapsed after an earthquake
in the Condesa neighborhood of Mexico City on Tuesday.
The count did not include
one death that officials in
the southern state of Oaxaca
reported earlier as quake-re-
lated.
The federal government
declared a state of disaster
in Mexico City, freeing up
emergency funds. President
Enrique Pena Nieto said he
had ordered all hospitals
to open their doors to the
injured.
Mancera, the Mexico City
mayor, said 50 to 60 people
were rescued alive by citizens
and emergency workers in
the capital. Authorities said at
least 70 people in the capital
had been hospitalized for
injuries.
The
federal
interior
minister, Miguel Angel
Osorio Chong, said author-
ities had reports of people
possibly still being trapped
in collapsed buildings. He
said search efforts were slow
because of the fragility of
rubble.
“It has to be done very
carefully,” he said. And “time
is against us.”
At one site, reporters saw
onlookers cheer as a woman
was pulled from the rubble.
Rescuers immediately called
for silence so they could
listen for others who might be
trapped.
Mariana
Morales,
a
26-year-old nutritionist, was
one of many who sponta-
neously participated in rescue
efforts.
She wore a paper face
mask and her hands were still
dusty from having joined a
rescue brigade to clear rubble
from a building that fell in a
cloud of dust before her eyes,
about 15 minutes after the
quake.
Morales said she was in a
taxi when the quake struck,
and she got out and sat on a
sidewalk to try to recover
from the scare. Then, just a
few yards away, the three-
story building fell.
A dust-covered Carlos
Mendoza, 30, said that he
and other volunteers had been
able to pull two people alive
from the ruins of a collapsed
apartment building after three
hours of effort.
“We saw this and came to
help,” he said. “It’s ugly, very
ugly.”
Alma Gonzalez was in
her fourth floor apartment
in the Roma neighborhood
when the quake pancaked the
ground floor of her building,
leaving her no way out —
until neighbors set up a ladder
on their roof and helped her
slide out a side window.
Gala Dluzhynska was
taking a class with 11 other
women on the second floor of
a building on trendy Alvaro
Obregon street when the
quake struck and window
and ceiling panels fell as the
building began to tear apart.
She said she fell in the
stairs and people began
to walk over her, before
someone finally pulled her
up.
“There were no stairs
anymore. There were rocks,”
she said.
They reached the bottom
only to find it barred. A secu-
rity guard finally came and
unlocked it.
The quake sent people
throughout the city fleeing
from homes and offices, and
many people remained in the
streets for hours, fearful of
returning to the structures.
Alarms blared and traffic
stopped around the Angel of
Independence monument on
the iconic Reforma Avenue.
Electricity and cellphone
service was interrupted in
many areas and traffic was
snarled as signal lights went
dark.
BRIEFLY
of governors and state education chiefs,
Common Core sought to bring scholastic
standards to the same high level nationwide.
The standards became controversial when
the Obama administration offered states
federal dollars to nudge them to adopt it.
Hurricane Maria aims
at Puerto Rico after
slamming Dominica
SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico (AP) —
Hurricane Maria barreled toward Puerto
Rico on Tuesday night after wreaking
widespread devastation on Dominica and
leaving the small Caribbean island virtually
incommunicado.
As rains began to lash Puerto Rico,
Gov. Ricardo Rossello warned that Maria
could hit “with a force and violence that we
haven’t seen for several generations.”
“We’re going to lose a lot of infrastructure
in Puerto Rico,” Rossello said, adding
that a likely island wide power outage and
communication blackout could last for days.
“We’re going to have to rebuild.”
Authorities warned that people in
wooden or flimsy homes should find safe
shelter before the storm’s expected arrival
Wednesday.
“You have to evacuate. Otherwise, you’re
going to die,” said Hector Pesquera, the
island’s public safety commissioner. “I don’t
know how to make this any clearer.”
One last chance: GOP strains
for Obamacare repeal votes
WASHINGTON (AP) — Time growing
short, President Donald Trump and
Republican Senate leaders dove into a frantic
hunt for votes Tuesday in a last-ditch effort
to repeal and replace “Obamacare.” The
pressure was intense, the outcome uncertain
in a Capitol newly engulfed in drama over
health care.
Senate Majority Leader Mitch
McConnell, whose failure to pass an
Obamacare repeal bill in July opened a bitter
public rift with Trump, pressed hard for the
newly revived effort, which had been left
for dead as recently as a week or two ago.
But in a sign he remained short of votes,
McConnell refused to commit to bringing
the legislation to the floor.
As in July, much of the focus was on
Arizona Sen. John McCain. Would he step
back in line with fellow Republicans now
that there was a bill co-written by Lindsey
Graham of South Carolina, his best friend
in the Senate? McCain wasn’t saying. Lisa
Murkowski of Alaska, another crucial vote,
wasn’t disclosing her views either.
Republicans must act by Sept. 30 in the
Senate, or face the prospect of a Democratic
filibuster. That blocking action is currently
staved off by budget rules that will expire
at the end of the fiscal year. The new
legislation, by Graham and Sen. Bill Cassidy
of Louisiana, would undo the central pillars
of former President Barack Obama’s health
care law, and replace them with block grants
to the states so they could make their own
health care coverage rules.
Democrats are unanimously opposed,
arguing that the legislation would result in
millions of Americans losing their health
insurance, decrease access to affordable care
Key California farm district
rejects governor’s tunnel plan
AP Photo/Carlos Giusti
David Cruz Marrero watches the waves at Punta Santiago pier hours before the
imminent impact of Maria, a Category 5 hurricane that threatens to hit the eastern
region of the island with sustained winds of 165 miles per hour.
and damage the Medicaid health program for
the poor.
So McConnell must win the votes of 50
of the 52 Senate Republicans. That would
amount to victory in the 100-member Senate,
because GOP Vice President Mike Pence
would then break a tie.
Rohingya Muslims are being
wiped off Myanmar’s map
YANGON, Myanmar (AP) — For
generations, Rohingya Muslims have called
Myanmar home. Now, in what appears to be
a systematic purge, the minority ethnic group
is being wiped off the map.
After a series of attacks by Muslim
militants last month, security forces and
allied mobs retaliated by burning down
thousands of Rohingya homes in the
predominantly Buddhist nation.
More than 500,000 people — roughly
half their population — have fled to
neighboring Bangladesh in the past year,
most of them in the last three weeks.
And they are still leaving, piling into
wooden boats that take them to sprawling,
monsoon-drenched refugee camps in
Bangladesh.
In a speech Tuesday, Myanmar leader
Aung San Suu Kyi did not address a U.N.
statement that the army has engaged in a
“textbook case” of ethnic cleansing. Instead,
she told concerned diplomats that while
many villages were destroyed, more than
half were still intact.
U.N. General-Secretary Antonio Guterres
told the General Assembly on Tuesday that
“I take note” of Suu Kyi’s speech.
“This is the worst crisis in Rohingya
history,” said Chris Lewa, founder of the
Arakan Project, which works to improve
conditions for the ethnic minority, citing the
monumental size and speed of the exodus.
“Security forces have been burning villages
one by one, in a very systematic way. And
it’s still ongoing.”
Common Core used widely,
despite continuing debate
WASHINGTON (AP) — Most of the
states that first endorsed the Common Core
academic standards are still using them
in some form, despite continued debate
over whether they are improving student
performance in reading and math.
Of the states that opted in after the
standards were introduced in 2010 — 45
plus the District of Columbia — only eight
have moved to repeal the standards, largely
due to political pressure from those who saw
Common Core as infringing on local control,
according to Abt Associates, a research and
consulting firm. In Oklahoma, Gov. Mary
Fallin signed a bill to repeal the standards in
2014 less than six months after defending
them in a speech. She said Common Core
had become too divisive.
Twenty-one other states have made or are
making revisions — mostly minor ones — to
the guidelines. Illinois kept the wording
while changing the name. In April, North
Dakota approved new guidelines “written
by North Dakotans, for North Dakotans,”
but some educators said they were quite
similar to Common Core. Earlier this month,
New York moved to revise the standards
after parents protested new tests aligned to
Common Core, but much of the structure has
been kept.
“The core of the Common Core
remains in almost every state that adopted
them,” said Mike Petrilli, president of the
conservative Thomas B. Fordham Institute.
Launched in 2010 by a bipartisan group
FRESNO, Calif. (AP) — A group of
powerful California farmers pulled their
support Tuesday from a pair of massive, $16
billion tunnels that would have re-engineered
the state’s water system in a decisive move
that dealt a major blow to the project pushed
by Gov. Jerry Brown.
The board of Westlands Water District,
the nation’s largest supplier of irrigation
water to farms, voted to withdraw its
participation from the project after more than
an hour of tense discussions and comments
from farmers who overwhelmingly
concluded it was too expensive.
After the vote, John Laird, secretary of
the California Natural Resources Agency,
said the aging water infrastructure must be
modernized.
“Failing to act puts future water supply
reliability at risk,” he said in a statement.
“This vote, while disappointing, in no way
signals the end” of the project known as
WaterFix.
Tuesday’s vote leaves the project’s
future in peril, potentially heightening a
longstanding feud between typically dry
Southern and Northern California, where
much of the state’s water originates.
Trump’s lawyer to publicly
testify in Senate next month
WASHINGTON (AP) — President
Donald Trump’s lawyer will return to Capitol
Hill for a public hearing next month after
the Senate intelligence committee abruptly
canceled a closed-door staff interview
Tuesday morning.
Committee leaders said they called off
the interview after Michael Cohen sent a
public opening statement to the media just
as the meeting was about to start. Senate
intelligence committee Chairman Richard
Burr, R-N.C., and the panel’s top Democrat,
Sen. Mark Warner of Virginia, issued a sharp
statement saying the panel had asked Cohen
to “refrain from public comment” and that
they would request he return — this time for
a public hearing.
“We declined to move forward with
today’s interview and will reschedule Mr.
Cohen’s appearance before the committee
in open session at a date in the near future,”
Burr and Warner said in the statement.
“The committee expects witnesses in this
investigation to work in good faith with the
Senate.”
The committee scheduled the public
hearing for Oct. 25. Cohen’s lawyer,
Stephen Ryan, said Cohen had accepted the
invitation.