LITTLE ROCK — QUOTE OF THE DAY
“This is like a puzzle.”
Abdul Wali,
deputy head of the governing council in Afghanistan’s Logar province, on what two U.S. sailors were doing
driving in the dangerous region where they were abducted and killed Article, this page
Russians flee as wildfires ring city
MOSCOW - Forest fires ringed a southern Russian city and tore through provincial villages Thursday, forcing evacuations, as Moscow endured a record, weeks-long heat wave and a smog cloud caused by peat-bog fires.
Some 212,506 acres were burning nationwide, and flames all but encircled the city of Voronezh, 300 miles southeast of Moscow. Forest fires on Moscow’s outskirts reached the city’s western fringe, in the Krylatskoye district, but were extinguished toward nightfall.
State television pictures showed the evacuation by ambulance of a Voronezh city hospital. Channel One said more than 800 patients were transferred to other facilities as flames approached the city.
Hundreds of homes in surrounding villages burned to the ground, the ministry said. The Interfax news agency reported that 340 homes were destroyed in a village near Nizhny Novgorod, about 250 miles east of Moscow.
There were no reports of deaths.
Mom admits suffocating 8 newborns
VILLERS-AU-TERTRE, France - A French woman who admitted suffocating eight of her newborns and concealing their corpses in the garden and garage of her home has been charged with manslaughter, a prosecutor said Thursday.
Dominique Cottrez, a 46-year-old nurse’s aide with two grown daughters, said that after a bad experience with her first pregnancy she never again wanted to see a doctor.
She admitted delivering the babies herself and placing the corpses in plastic bags. She buried two of the newborns in the garden and hid the other bodies in the garage, prosecutor Eric Vaillant said.
Cottrez’s husband, who was not charged, was in a state of shock but the family remained united behind the mother, his lawyer said.
Cottrez and her husband, Pierre-Mariewere, were detained Wednesday after two corpses in plastic bags were discovered in a garden by the new owners of a house that had belonged to the woman’s father in the town of Villersau-Tertre in northern France. Under questioning, the woman admitted that there were six other corpses and told investigators that they were in plastic bags in the garage of her home, where they were found, officials said.
The woman remained in detention and will undergo further psychiatric testing, Vaillant said.
80 die when boat capsizes in Congo
KINSHASA, Congo - A boat ferrying about 200 passengers to Congo’s capital capsized after hitting a rock, and a government spokesman said Thursday that at least 80 people were confirmed dead.
Rescuers were searching for dozens of missing people after the boating disaster on the Congo River near Maluku district about 80 miles from its destination, Information Minister Lambert Mende said.
The boat was heading to Kinshasa from western Bandundu province’s district of Kwilu.
Congo is a vast country of jungles and rivers in central Africa with little more than 300 miles of paved roads. Many people prefer to take boats even if they do not know how to swim. The boats are often in poor repair and filled beyond capacity.
Mexican troops kill drug-cartel boss
MEXICO CITY - One of the top three leaders of Mexico’s most powerful drug cartel died in a gunfight with soldiers Thursday, the Mexican army said.
The death of Ignacio “Nacho” Coronel near the city of Guadalajara is the biggest strike yet against the Sinaloa cartel led by Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman, Mexico’s top drug lord, since President Felipe Calderon launched a military offensive against drug traffickers in late 2006.
According to the FBI, which offered a $5 million reward for the 56-year-old Coronel, he was believed to be “the forerunner in producing massive amounts of methamphetamine in clandestine laboratories in Mexico, then smuggling it into the U.S.”
Gen. Edgar Luis Villegas said army raiders were closing in one of Coronel’s safe houses in an upscale suburb of the western city of Guadalajar when the drug lord opened fire on soldiers.
“Nacho Coronel tried to escape and fired on military personnel, killing one soldier and wounding another,” Villegas said at a news conference in Mexico City.
Villegas said the raid “significantly affects the operational capacity and drug distribution of the organization run by Guzman.”
Front Section, Pages 6 on 07/30/2010