International
Historic winter storm leaves nearly 50 dead across US
| By AFP | Maggy Donaldson |
US emergency crews counted the grim costs of a colossal winter storm that brought Christmas chaos to millions, especially in hard-hit western New York, where the death toll reached 25 Monday in what authorities described as a “war with mother nature.”
Blizzard conditions continue to prevail in parts of the US Northeast, the stubborn remnants of a massive sprawl of extreme weather including severe cold that gripped the country over several days, causing widespread power outages, travel delays and at least 47 deaths nationwide.
The extreme weather forced the cancellation of more than 15,000 flights in recent days including more than 1,700 on Monday, according to tracking site Flightaware.com.
Buffalo — a US city that is no stranger to foul winter weather — has been buried under staggering amounts of snow, with the National Weather Service forecasting up to 14 inches (0.35 meters) Monday in addition to the several feet that have already left the city marooned, with a virtual collapse of emergency services.
The blizzard has stubbornly refused to release its grip on western New York’s Erie County, where Buffalo is located and which has become the epicenter of the crisis.
“In addition to the 13 confirmed deaths yesterday, the Erie County Department of Health medical examiner’s office has confirmed an additional 12 deaths, bringing the total for the blizzard to 25 deaths county-wide,” Erie County executive Mark Poloncarz said in a press briefing.
The ferocious weather makes this “the worst storm probably in our lifetime, and the history of the city,” Poloncarz said, noting the death toll in Erie will likely surpass that of Buffalo’s infamous blizzard of 1977, when nearly 30 people died.
With more snow in the forecast and most of Buffalo “impassable,” he warned residents to bunker down and stay in place.
“This is not the end yet, we are not there,” he said.
National Guard members and other teams have rescued hundreds of people from snow-covered cars and homes without electricity, but authorities have said more people remain trapped.
New York Governor Kathy Hochul, a native of Buffalo, said she was stunned by what she saw during a Sunday reconnaissance tour of the city.
“It is (like) going to a war zone, and the vehicles along the sides of the roads are shocking,” Hochul said, describing eight-foot (2.4-meter) snow drifts against homes and how power outages made for life-threatening conditions.
“This is a war with mother nature,” she said.
The extreme weather sent wind chill temperatures in all 48 contiguous US states below freezing over the weekend.
Sweeping power outages
At one point on Saturday, nearly 1.7 million customers were without electricity in the biting cold, according to tracker poweroutage.us.
That number has dropped substantially, although there were still some 50,000 without electricity Monday morning on the US east coast.
Due to frozen electric substations, some Erie County residents were not expected to regain power until Tuesday, with one substation reportedly buried under 18 feet of snow, a senior county official said.
Officials described historically dangerous conditions in the snow-prone Buffalo region, with hours-long whiteouts and bodies discovered in vehicles and under snow banks. Emergency workers continued the difficult search for those in need of rescue.
The city’s international airport remains closed until Tuesday and a driving ban remained in effect for Buffalo and much of Erie County.
Road ice and white-out conditions also led to the temporary closure of some of the nation’s busiest transport routes, including part of the cross-country Interstate 70 highway.
Drivers were being warned not to take to the roads — even as the nation reached what is usually its busiest time of year for travel.
International
Uribe requests freedom amid appeal of historic bribery conviction
Former Colombian President Álvaro Uribe on Monday requested that the Supreme Court restore his freedom while he appeals the historic 12-year house arrest sentence he received for bribery and procedural fraud.
Uribe, the most prominent figure of Colombia’s right wing, was convicted last week by a lower court for attempting to bribe paramilitary members into denying his ties to the violent anti-guerrilla squads.
Since Friday, the 73-year-old has been under house arrest at his residence in Rionegro, about 30 km from Medellín. The judge justified the measure by citing a risk of flight.
However, Uribe’s defense team rejected that argument and formally petitioned the court to immediately lift the detention order, claiming it lacks legal basis.
Uribe, a dominant force in Colombian politics for decades, is now the first former president in the country’s history to be convicted and placed under arrest, found guilty of witness tampering and obstruction of justice to prevent links to paramilitary groups.
He has repeatedly denounced the trial as politically motivated, blaming pressure from the leftist government currently in power.
His political party, Centro Democrático, has called for nationwide protests on August 7 in support of Uribe, who remains popular for his hardline stance against guerrilla groups.
Uribe has until August 13 to submit his written appeal. The case will then move to the Bogotá High Court, which has until October 16 to uphold, overturn, or dismiss the sentence. If the deadline passes without a decision, the case will be archived.
International
U.S. Embassy staff restricted as gunfire erupts near compound in Port-au-Prince
The poorest country in Latin America and the Caribbean is currently engulfed in a deep political crisis and a wave of violence driven by armed groups — a situation that an international security mission led by Kenya is attempting to stabilize.
Due to the worsening security conditions, the U.S. government has suspended all official movements of embassy personnel outside the compound in Port-au-Prince, the U.S. State Department announced Monday in a security alert posted on social media platform X.
“There are intense gunfights in the Tabarre neighborhood, near the U.S. Embassy,” the alert reads, urging the public to avoid the area.
Tabarre is a municipality located near Port-au-Prince International Airport, northeast of the Haitian capital.
According to a July report by the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, at least 3,141 people were killed in Haitibetween January 1 and June 30 of this year.
International
Israel says 136 food aid boxes airdropped into Gaza by six nations
The Israeli military announced on Sunday that 136 boxes of food aid were airdropped into Gaza by the United Arab Emirates, Jordan, Egypt, Germany, and Belgium.
“In recent hours, six countries conducted air drops of 136 aid packages containing food for residents in the southern and northern Gaza Strip,” read the statement, which added that the operation was coordinated by COGAT, the Israeli defense body overseeing civil affairs in the occupied Palestinian territories.
The Israeli military emphasized that they will “continue working to improve the humanitarian response alongside the international community” and reiterated their stance to “refute false allegations of deliberate famine in Gaza.”
The announcement comes as UN agencies warn Gaza faces an imminent risk of famine. More than one in three residents go days without eating, and other nutrition indicators have dropped to their worst levels since the conflict began.
The agencies also noted the difficulty of “collecting reliable data in current conditions, as Gaza’s health systems —already devastated by nearly three years of conflict— are collapsing.”
Meanwhile, Gaza’s Hamas-run Health Ministry reported on Sunday that hospitals in the enclave recorded six deaths from hunger and malnutrition on Saturday, all of them adults.
Uribe requests freedom amid appeal of historic bribery conviction
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