NATION/WORLD
Thursday, May 3, 2018
East Oregonian
Page 7A
Nine killed in final flight of 60-year-old plane
Puerto Rican crew
dies after crashing
onto state highway
By RUSS BYNUM
Associated Press
PORT WENTWORTH,
Ga. — A crew of nine Puerto
Ricans were flying an Air
National Guard C-130 into
retirement in Arizona when
it crashed onto a highway in
Georgia on Wednesday, and
authorities said there are no
survivors.
The plane crashed onto
state highway 21 moments
after taking off from the
Savannah/Hilton Head Inter-
national Airport, narrowly
missing people on the ground
and sending an orange and
black fireball into the sky.
“It miraculously did not
hit any cars, any homes,”
Effingham County Sheriff’s
spokeswoman Gena Bilbo
Trump hires
lawyer who
represented
Clinton in
impeachment
said. “This is a very busy
roadway.”
Eight hours after the
crash, she added: “To our
knowledge there are no
survivors.”
The huge plane’s fuselage
appeared to have struck the
median, and pieces of its
wings, which spanned 132
feet, were scattered across
lanes in both directions. The
debris field stretched 600
feet in diameter, Bilbo said.
The only part still intact was
the tail section, said Chris
Hanks, a spokesman for the
Savannah Professional Fire-
fighters Association.
The plane was more than
60 years old, said Isabelo
Rivera, Adjutant General
of Puerto Rico’s National
Guard. Belonging to the
156th Air Wing, it was used
to rescue U.S. citizens
stranded in the British Virgin
Islands following Hurricane
Irma and ferry supplies to the
James Lavine via AP
Flames and smoke rise from an Air National Guard
C-130 cargo plane after it crashed near Savannah, Ga.
on Wednesday.
U.S. territory of Puerto Rico
after Hurricane Maria last
year.
“The planes that we have
in Puerto Rico — it’s not
news today that they are the
oldest planes on inventory”
of all National Guard planes
nationwide, Rivera said.
Puerto Rico’s National
Guard has five other similar
planes, two of which need
maintenance and aren’t being
used, he said.
It’s too early to say what
might have caused the acci-
dent, he said. The plane last
received maintenance at the
base in Savannah in April.
All nine crew members
had helped with hurricane
recovery efforts as part of
the 198th Fighter Squadron,
nicknamed the Bucaneros,
which flies out of Base
Muniz in the northern coastal
city of Carolina, Rivera said.
“This pains us,” Rivera
said of the deaths. They
aren’t releasing names until
all the families have been
contacted, but “most of them
already know and have come
to the base.”
Motorist Mark Jones told
the Savannah Morning News
that he saw the plane hit the
road right in front of him,
about a mile from the airport.
“It didn’t look like it
nosedived, but it almost
looked like it stalled and just
went almost flat right there in
the middle of the highway,”
Jones said, describing how
people stopped and got out
of their cars following the
explosion.
“I’m still shook up and
shaking. My stomach is in
knots because I know they’re
people just like me. I wasn’t
that far from it and I could
have just kept going and it
would have been me and
we wouldn’t be talking right
now,” Jones said.
The U.S. territory’s Gov.
Ricardo Rossello expressed
his sadness, tweeting that
“our prayers are with the
families of the Puerto Rican
crew.”
President Donald Trump
tweeted that he had been
briefed on the crash, and sent
“thoughts and prayers for the
victims, their families and
the great men and women of
the National Guard.”
BRIEFLY
WASHINGTON —
President Donald Trump
on Wednesday hired a
veteran attorney who
represented Bill Clinton
during his impeachment
process as the White
House shifted to a more
aggressive approach to the
Russia investigation that
has reached a critical stage.
The White House
announced the hiring of
lawyer Emmet Flood after
disclosing the retirement
of Ty Cobb, who for
months has been the
administration’s point
person dealing with special
counsel Robert Mueller.
It’s the latest shake-up
for a legal team grappling
with unresolved questions
on how to protect the
president from legal
and political jeopardy in
Mueller’s Russia probe,
which is nearing its
one-year anniversary.
White House
spokesman Sarah
Huckabee Sanders said that
Cobb had been discussing
the decision for weeks and
would retire at the end
of May, and that Flood
would be joining the White
House staff to “represent
the president and the
administration against the
Russia witch hunt.”
The replacement of
Cobb with Flood may
herald a more adversarial
stance toward the Mueller
team as Trump’s lawyers
debate whether to make the
president available for an
interview with the special
counsel and brace for the
prospect of a grand jury
subpoena if they refuse.
Trump could be
required to testify
WASHINGTON —
Can a president be forced
to testify?
While the Supreme
Court has never
definitively ruled on the
subject, the answer appears
to be yes.
The question was tested
during the Watergate
scandal in 1974, when
justices held unanimously
that a president could
be compelled to comply
with a subpoena for tapes
and documents. After the
ruling, President Richard
Nixon turned the materials
over to prosecutors and
then resigned.
Twenty-three years
later, in allowing Paula
Jones’ sexual harassment
suit to go forward against
President Bill Clinton,
Justice John Paul Stevens
wrote: “We have made
clear that in a criminal case
the powerful interest in
the ‘fair administration of
criminal justice’ requires
that the evidence be
given under appropriate
circumstances lest the ‘very
integrity of the judicial
system’ be eroded.”
In the same case,
Stevens also said that
presidents have given
testimony and produced
documents often enough
that “such interactions ...
can scarcely be thought a
novelty.”
Militants attack
Libyan election
commission,
14 killed
BENGHAZI,
Libya (AP) — Islamic
State suicide bombers
attacked Libya’s election
commission in the capital
on Wednesday, killing at
least 14 people in the worst
such attack in years that
aimed to disrupt a nation-
wide vote planned for later
this year.
The two bombers
infiltrated the building in
central Tripoli and fired
on people inside, then
detonated their explosives
when their ammunition ran
out, IS said in a statement
circulated by its affiliated
Amaq news agency. The
Health Ministry earlier said
the attack also set fire to
the building, which could
be seen in online videos
showing thick black smoke
billowing upward and
security forces engaging in
a gun battle.
IS and other Islamic
extremists in Libya oppose
democratic elections,
which the United Nations
and Libya’s foreign
backers are urging to take
place this year despite
security problems in the
oil-rich North African
country. Militants have
often targeted elections in
other countries, and IS has
called for attacks on voting
infrastructure in Libya.
Trump seeks reset
with Pompeo
WASHINGTON —
President Donald Trump
is trying to hit reset at the
State Department on the
eve of a critical decision on
the Iran nuclear deal and
a potential summit with
North Korean leader Kim
Jong Un.
Trump made his first
visit to the department
on Wednesday for the
ceremonial swearing-in of
Secretary of State Mike
Pompeo, highlighting his
relationship with the head
of a Cabinet agency he
largely neglected during
the tenure of Rex Tillerson.
The former Exxon Mobil
CEO was unceremoniously
dumped by Trump as the
top U.S. diplomat in March
after months of personality
and policy clashes.
Tillerson felt undercut
in the job and was viewed
overseas as an unreliable
emissary for the mercurial
Trump. Tillerson went
unmentioned during
Wednesday’s brief
ceremony, but Pompeo’s
contrasting status was on
full display. The former
CIA director is personally
close to the president and
gained stature abroad after
his secret visit to North
Korea last month to meet
with Kim.
“That’s more spirit than
I’ve heard from the State
Department in a long time,”
Trump said as he took
the podium to applause
from the crowd on ornate
seventh floor.
AP Photo/Charles Krupa
In this March 1 photo, Tatum Weir, center, carries a tool box she built as her twin brother Ian, left, follows after
a Cub Scout meeting in Madbury, N.H. Fifteen communities in New Hampshire are part of an “early adopter”
program to allow girls to become Cub Scouts and eventually Boy Scouts.
As girls arrive, Boy Scouts change
name of their flagship program
By DAVID CRARY
AP National Writer
NEW YORK — For 108
years, the Boy Scouts of
America’s flagship program
has been known simply as
the Boy Scouts. With girls
soon entering the ranks, the
group says that iconic name
will change.
The organization on
Wednesday announced a
new name for its Boy Scouts
program: Scouts BSA. The
change will take effect in
February.
Chief Scout Executive
Mike Surbaugh said many
possibilities were considered
during lengthy and “incred-
ibly fun” deliberations before
the new name was chosen.
“We wanted to land
on something that evokes
the past but also conveys
the inclusive nature of the
program going forward,” he
said. “We’re trying to find
the right way to say we’re
here for both young men and
young women.”
The parent organization
will remain the Boy Scouts
of America, and the Cub
Scouts — its program serving
children from kindergarten
through fifth grade — will
keep its title, as well.
But the Boy Scouts — the
program for 11- to 17-year-
olds — will now be Scouts
BSA.
The organization already
has started admitting girls
into the Cub Scouts, and
Scouts BSA begins accepting
girls next year.
Surbaugh
predicted
that both boys and girls in
Scouts BSA would refer to
themselves simply as scouts,
rather than adding “boy” or
“girl.”
The program for the older
boys and girls will largely
be divided along gender-
lines, with single-sex units
pursuing the same types of
activities, earning the same
array of merit badges and
potentially having the same
pathway to the coveted Eagle
Scout award.
Surbaugh said that having
separate units for boys
and girls should alleviate
concerns that girls joining
the BSA for the first time
might be at a disadvantage
in seeking leadership oppor-
tunities.
So far, more than 3,000
girls have joined roughly
170 Cub Scout packs partici-
pating in the first phase of the
new policy, and the pace will
intensify this summer under
a nationwide multimedia
recruitment campaign titled
“Scout Me In.”
On social media, there
was widespread criticism of
the name change, generally
suggesting it’s a misguided
display of political correct-
ness that undercuts the Boy
Scouts’ legacy. But many
other people dismissed such
criticism as an overreaction.
“Get over it,” Kevin
Aldrich, a member-at-large
with a Boy Scout council
in central Indiana, told The
Indianapolis Star. “There is
every reason to be co-ed. The
Future Farmers of America is
co-ed. 4-H is co-ed. Band in
school is co-ed.”
Dr. Eugene Gu, a physi-
cian at Vanderbilt University
Medical Center and CEO
of a biotech company, said
on Twitter that the outrage
is misplaced. He views the
name change as a business
decision.
“With declining member-
ship, they need the girls or
it would be called Bankrupt
Scouts,” Gu tweeted.
The name change comes
amid strained relations
between the Girl Scouts and
Boy Scouts of America.
Girl Scout leaders said
they were blindsided by the
move, and they are gearing
up an aggressive campaign
to recruit and retain girls as
members.
Among the initiatives is
creation of numerous new
badges that girls can earn,
focusing on outdoor activities
and on science, engineering,
technology and math. The
organization is expanding
corporate partnerships in
both those areas, and devel-
oping a Girl Scout Network
Page on LinkedIn to support
career advancement for
former Girl Scouts.
“Girl Scouts is the premier
leadership
development
organization for girls,” said
Sylvia Acevedo, the Girl
Scouts’ CEO. “We are, and
will remain, the first choice
for girls and parents who
want to provide their girls
opportunities to build new
skills ... and grow into happy,
successful, civically engaged
adults.”
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