Elderly, homeless get aid as fierce heat blankets U.S.
New York – Broiling temperatures in the 90s and beyond gripped large swaths of the country Monday, sending people scrambling for the shade and prompting officials to open air-conditioned buildings and take to the streets to rescue the homeless and elderly.
On the streets of New York, a spot in the shade competed with a parking space as a valuable commodity. “Any walking around today, and you are just burning up,” said Elia Escuerdo, 37, from the Bronx.
The temperature reached 94 in the city, with a heat index – meaning the combined effects of heat and humidity – of 99.
In Illinois, state officials made more than 130 office buildings available as cooling centers. Detroit cranked up the air conditioning in 11 of its libraries and invited the public to take refuge from the heat. In Kentucky, Louisville officials offered free fans or air conditioners to those in immediate need.
There were no immediate reports of any heat-related deaths. Fierce heat blanketed the nation from the southern Plains to the Northeast. Hays, Kan., topped 100 by early afternoon. Parts of Oklahoma hit 109.
The Northeast could get a break starting tonight, with scattered showers and thunderstorms expected for parts of the region, but the heat was likely to persist in the southern Plains until Friday.
BOSTON
Tests find 1,100 Big Dig weak spots
Gov. Mitt Romney said Monday that tests show more than 1,100 bolt assemblies that used epoxy and more than 300 other areas in a Big Dig connector tunnel where the ceiling collapsed are unreliable. He said all will have to be reinforced.
Last week, days after 12 tons of ceiling panels came loose and fell on a car, crushing a passenger, the governor announced that inspections had found at least 242 points where bolts were separating from the tunnel roof.
Two Big Dig tunnels have since been closed, and Romney has not cleared the way for them to reopen.
The $14.6 billion Big Dig – the most expensive highway project in U.S. history – buried a highway network that used to slice through the city, replacing it with a series of tunnels.
SANTIAGO, Chile
Ruling clears the way for Pinochet trial
Chile’s Supreme Court has upheld a ruling that stripped Gen. Augusto Pinochet, 90, of his immunity against trial for the killing of two bodyguards of Salvador Allende, the Marxist president he toppled in a 1973 coup.
The ruling announced Monday affirms a lower court decision to remove the immunity that the ailing Pinochet enjoys as a former president and allows the judge handling the case, Victor Montiglio, to try him on homicide charges.
The two bodyguards – Wagner Salinas and Francisco Lara – were arrested the day of the coup, Sept. 11, 1973, and executed by a firing squad four weeks later.
Their deaths were part of the so-called Caravan of Death, a military operation that killed 75 jailed dissidents across Chile in the weeks after the coup.
