WORLD BRIEFLY
Wednesday, November 1, 2017
East Oregonian
California wildfire
insurance claims
top $3.3 billion
SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP)
— Property damage claims from a
series of deadly October wildfires
now exceed $3.3 billion, California
Insurance Commissioner Dave
Jones said Tuesday.
The figure represents claims
for homes and businesses insured
by 15 companies and is more than
triple the previous estimate of $1
billion. Jones said the number will
continue to rise as more claims are
reported.
The amount of claims now
reported means that the fires caused
more damage than California’s
1991 Oakland Hills fire, which was
previously the state’s costliest, with
$2.7 billion in damages in 2015
dollars, according to the Property
Casualty Insurers Association of
America.
Forty-three people were killed
in the October blazes that tore
through Northern California,
including the state’s renowned
winemaking regions in Napa and
Sonoma counties. They destroyed
thousands of buildings as more
than 100,000 people were forced to
evacuate. It was the deadliest series
of fires in California history.
The fires are now nearly
contained.
Facebook, Twitter,
Google defend their
security measures
As revelations emerged that
Russian-linked accounts reached
many more American voters than
previously thought, tech giants
Facebook, Twitter and Google on
Tuesday defended their security
measures and promised a Senate
subcommittee they would do
more to stop the misuse of their
AP Photo/Marcio Jose Sanchez, File
In this Oct. 14 file photo, an aerial view shows the devastation of the Coffey Park neighborhood after
a wildfire swept through in Santa Rosa, Calif.
platforms by foreign nations.
Lawyers for the three
companies acknowledged to U.S.
lawmakers that Russian-linked
accounts began exploiting their
services in 2015 to sway last year’s
presidential election.
They also said the abuses
continued after President Donald
Trump took office, in an attempt to
deepen divisions in the country.
The admissions came Tuesday
during appearances before a
Senate subcommittee looking into
Russia’s manipulation of influential
communication channels to
interfere in the 2016 election. The
mischief came through advertising
purchased on the services and posts
containing misleading or false
information.
All three companies vowed to
do a better job preventing similar
interference from Russia and other
“bad actors” in the future.
Early on, Sen. Lindsey Graham,
R-S.C., said the purpose of the
hearing was for the government to
“figure out how we can help” the
tech companies. But in the second
hour of the meeting, Democratic
Sen. Patrick Leahy of Vermont
said he’d been hearing a lot of
“Johnny-come-latelies” from the
companies when they could have
done something earlier.
Minnesota Sen. Amy
Klobuchar, meanwhile, pressed
the companies to declare whether
they will support the “Honest Ads”
bill she has introduced with Sen.
Mark Warner, which would bring
political ad rules from TV, radio
and print to the internet.
Each of the tech giants offered
qualified support rather than
answering “yes.”
“We stand ready to work with
you and your co-sponsors on
that legislation going forward,”
said Facebook general counsel
Colin Stretch, who was echoed by
Twitter and Google.
Trump administration
to defend Cuba
embargo at UN
WASHINGTON (AP) — The
Trump administration will
defend America’s decades-old
economic embargo on Cuba
in a United Nations vote this
week, the State Department said
Tuesday, in a reversal from the
Page 7A
Obama administration that reflects
deteriorating U.S.-Cuban relations.
Every year the U.N. votes to
condemn the embargo, and for
years the U.S. predictably voted
“no.” But last year, under President
Barack Obama, the U.S. abstained
for the first time, as Obama and
Cuban President Raul Castro
moved forward with the historic
warming of relations.
A “no” vote Wednesday
from U.S. Ambassador to the
U.N. Nikki Haley will return
the United States to a place of
extreme isolation within the global
community over its policy toward
Cuba, potentially undermining the
Trump administration’s broader
goals for engagement with Latin
America. The U.S. embargo on
Cuba is almost universally opposed
throughout the world.
The vote comes as an ongoing
crisis over U.S. government
workers in Havana harmed by
invisible “health attacks” has
created a new rift between the U.S.
and Cuba, putting the restoration of
ties in jeopardy. State Department
spokeswoman Heather Nauert
did not mention the attacks in
announcing the “no” vote, instead
emphasizing the need to promote
rights and democracy in Cuba.
“For far too long, Cuba has
engaged in human rights abuses —
human rights abuses that perhaps
past administrations have turned
and looked the other way,” Nauert
said. Still, she said the U.S. would
continue pursuing engagement
with the island that advances
American interests.
Proponents of improved ties
with Cuba had urged the Trump
administration to abstain instead of
voting “no.” In a letter to President
Donald Trump on Tuesday, 10
Democratic senators said U.S.
international credibility would
suffer if it continued pushing an
“outdated” policy seen as harmful
to the Cuban people.
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