MEYERS, Calif.
Winds drive wildfire; 165 homes destroyed
A wind-driven wildfire destroyed at least 165 homes and other structures and scorched 750 acres just southwest of Lake Tahoe, a spokesman for the El Dorado County Sheriff’s Department said Sunday.
Sheriff’s Lt. Kevin House said the fire is less than 5 percent contained and has more than 500 homes in its path, but no injuries or deaths have been reported. The cause of the fire is still unknown.
“This thing is raging out of control, and there’s no estimate as to when that may change,” House said.
The El Dorado County Board of Supervisors has issued a declaration of emergency, House said.
Meanwhile in Alaska, a wildfire on the Kenai Peninsula has burgeoned to 81 square miles since Tuesday, consuming 35 far-flung cabins, officials said. Forty other structures, including sheds and outhouses, also have been lost. The fire threatens 600 more homes and cabins, officials said. It began when sparks from a shovel-sharpening grinder fell into dry grass.
CAMARILLO, Calif.
Average price of gas drops to $3 a gallon
The average price of gas dropped about 11 cents over the past two weeks, according to a national survey released Sunday.
Regular gas, which peaked at $3.18 in May, dropped to $3 a gallon, industry analyst Trilby Lund berg said. Midgrade averaged $3.11, and premium was $3.22.
The lowest price was in Jackson, Miss., where a gallon of regular cost $2.75. The highest average price was in Chicago at $3.39, according to the survey of 7,000 stations.
WASHINGTON
No ID for thousands of human remains
The nation’s coroners and medical examiners receive about 4,400 unidentified human remains on average annually, and about 1,000 typically are not identified after a year, the government reported Sunday.
Overall, 13,500 unidentified human remains were on record at those offices as of 2004, the latest year for which such data were available, according to the Bureau of Justice Statistics.
The study of the approximately 2,000 offices was the first of its kind, the Justice Department agency said.
The city with the largest number of unidentified remains on record was New York, with 3,612, followed by Cleveland, 2,184; Los Angeles, 800; Houston, 411; and San Bernardino, Calif., 307.
FALLSVILLE, Ark.
Rainbow Family sets up camp in Ozarks
The Rainbow Family, whose annual gathering of thousands was held in Big Red Park north of Steamboat Springs last year, is setting up camp in the Ozark National Forest this year.
The mix of eccentrics, young people and hippie types from around the country has been meeting for decades each year in a national forest to pray for peace and to celebrate love.
Such a large group can harm forests, so the Forest Service has developed a team to “manage the impacts of Rainbow Family national gatherings.”
The gathering is July 1-7.
HONG KONG
Tiananmen Square crackdown defended
China’s leadership collectively decided to crack down on the Tiananmen Square pro-democracy demonstrations in 1989, the oldest daughter of late Chinese supreme leader Deng Xiaoping said Sunday.
The daughter, Deng Lin, said that crushing the demonstrations in Beijing was the right thing to do because China would have been thrown into chaos if the protesters were allowed to decide the nation’s fate.
China watchers have long debated about who decided to order the troops and tanks to break up the seven-week protest June 4, 1989, killing hundreds – perhaps thousands – of people.
Deng Lin said in an interview on Hong Kong’s government- run RTHK radio: “It was the leadership that made a collective decision. You shouldn’t say that one person was responsible for it.”
BUCHAREST, Romania
U.S. tourist killed when bear attacks
A bear attacked a group of U.S. tourists on a remote trail in the Carpathian Mountains, killing a woman and injuring two other people, authorities said Sunday.
The group of six tourists chased off the bear when it tried to approach them north of Bucharest, but the bear reappeared and attacked the group about 10 p.m. Saturday, mauling to death the woman, 31, and injuring two others.
Officials did not immediately disclose the victims’ identities.
