The nation in brief

QUOTE OF THE DAY

“The minute you got into the space, the electricity of the moment absolutely took you over. You were captivated.You were swept away.”

Tonne Goodman, now the fashion director for Vogue magazine, on attending The Beatles’ first live appearance on U.S. television during The Ed Sullivan Show in February 1964 Article, this page

Rubber-fueled fire rages at Georgia port

SAVANNAH, Ga. - Firefighters battled a blaze fueled by 5,600 tons of rubber Saturday at the Port of Savannah, where a towering column of black smoke could be seen from miles away and prompted police to urge nearby hotels and college buildings to evacuate or keep people inside.

Firefighters were trying to contain and extinguish a fire raging inside a warehouse covering 226,000 square feet at the port’s Ocean Terminal just west of downtown Savannah.

The cause of the fire wasn’t immediately known, but all port workers were accounted for and unharmed.

“The warehouse is full of rubber, so it’s a rubber fire,” said Robert Morris, spokesman for the Georgia Ports Authority.

Morris said a firewall had contained the blaze to just half of the vast warehouse and the burning area contained about 5,600 tons of imported raw rubber used in manufacturing.

Savannah-Chatham County police closed some streets near the port terminal west of downtown Savannah and smoke slowed traffic on the Talmadge Bridge that spans the Savannah River to South Carolina. Police also asked a few hotels near the port terminal and the Savannah College of Art and Design, which has buildings in the area, to either evacuate or keep people inside.

Cabin pressure lost, plane lands safely

CHICOPEE, Mass. - A U.S. military transport plane that lost cabin pressure Saturday while flying over the Atlantic Ocean made an emergency landing at its home base in western Massachusetts.

Master Sgt. Tim Huffman said the C-5B plane that was traveling from Germany to Dover Air Force Base in Delaware landed safely at Westover Air Reserve Base in Chicopee just before 2:30 p.m.

The base said a woman was taken to a hospital with a minor injury.

The plane lost cabin pressure at 34,000 feet shortly after 11 a.m. while flying from Ramstein Air Base with 25 passengers and crew members.

The incident prompted the military to deploy emergency vehicles at Pease Air National Guard Base in Portsmouth, N.H.; Hanscom Air Force Base in Bedford, Mass.; and Westover Air Reserve Base.

Refocus lengthens wait for green cards

Hundreds of thousands of Americans seeking green cards for foreign spouses or other immediate relatives have been separated from them for a year or more because of swelling bureaucratic delays at a U.S. immigration agency in recent months.

The long waits came when the agency, Citizenship and Immigration Services, shifted attention and resources to a program President Barack Obama started in 2012 to give deportation deferrals to young illegal aliens, according to administration officials and official data.

Until recently, an American could obtain a green card for a spouse, child or parent - probably the easiest document in the immigration system - in five months or less.

Over the past year, waits for approvals of those resident visas stretched to 15 months, and more than 500,000 applications became stuck in the pipeline, playing havoc with international moves and keeping families apart.

After floor wobbles, rock fans cleared out

ATLANTA - A century-old concert hall in downtown Atlanta was being inspected by engineers Saturday after fans were evacuated during a Friday night rock concert.

Panic at the Disco was performing Friday night when the floor of The Tabernacle was deemed unsafe, Atlanta police spokesman Kim Jones said. A fire marshal evacuated the building shortly before 10:30 p.m.

Concertgoers at the sold-out show said the problem left the floor at a different angle than when they had arrived.

“The floor was flat when we walked in, and when we were walking out it was like walking up a slight hill,” said Chelle Leary, 15, of Roswell, Ga. No injuries were reported.

The building opened in 1910 as a religious hall. It was converted to a House of Blues club around the time of the 1996 Olympic Games in Atlanta and is now operated by Live Nation.

Front Section, Pages 4 on 02/09/2014

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