Buttigieg officially enters 2020 race
SOUTH BEND, Ind. -- Pete Buttigieg, an Indiana mayor who has risen to prominence in the early stages of the 2020 Democratic presidential race, made his official campaign entrance Sunday.
"I recognize the audacity of doing this as a Midwestern millennial mayor," he said to an audience assembled in a former Studebaker auto plant. "More than a little bold, at age 37, to seek the highest office in the land."
The South Bend mayor, a Rhodes scholar and Afghanistan war veteran, has joined more than a dozen Democrats vying to take on President Donald Trump.
"The forces of change in our country today are tectonic," he said. "Forces that help to explain what made this current presidency even possible. That's why, this time, it's not just about winning an election -- it's about winning an era."
Buttigieg will head this week to Iowa and New Hampshire, which hold the nation's first nominating contests, to campaign as a full-fledged candidate.
Buttigieg's campaign raised more than $7 million in the first three months of this year, a total that was eclipsed by the $18 million of Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont but was higher than the amounts raised by Sens. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota and Cory Booker of New Jersey.
Buttigieg is trying to become the first openly gay nominee of a major presidential party; he married his husband, Chasten, last year. Buttigieg also is trying to become the first mayor to go directly to the White House. And if elected, he would be the youngest person to become president, turning 39 the day before the Jan. 20, 2021, inauguration.
Cruise ship helps out in boat rescue
NEW ORLEANS -- The U.S. Coast Guard said Sunday that it worked with a cruise ship to rescue 23 people adrift for days in the Gulf of Mexico.
A Coast Guard statement issued Sunday said 22 Cubans started traveling on a wooden boat from Cuba to Mexico before losing power and drifting for three days. A Cuban-Mexican man took them aboard his sport-fishing boat, but then its engines malfunctioned and the group drifted for three more days.
The Coast Guard said it was contacted early Sunday by a brother of one of the Cubans. In addition to launching its own effort to find the disabled fishing boat, the Coast Guard alerted the Carnival Fantasy cruise ship.
The cruise ship took the 23 people aboard within hours, less than 150 miles off Mexico's Yucatan Peninsula.
The statement said two of the people rescued had minor medical issues and were treated by medical workers on the cruise ship. It added that the 23 people would be transferred Tuesday to U.S. Customs and Border Protection and the Coast Guard Investigative Service in Mobile, Ala.
Earthquake rattles Hawaiian island
KAILUA-KONA, Hawaii -- A magnitude-5.3 earthquake hit the west side of the Big Island of Hawaii on Saturday, the U.S. Geological Survey said.
The quake hit about 5 p.m. and had an epicenter about 15 miles southwest of Kailua-Kona, a city of nearly 12,000 people on the island's west coast, the agency said. The earthquake had a depth of about 10 miles.
There was no danger of a tsunami, the Pacific Tsunami Warning Center of the National Weather Service said.
Parts of the island may have experienced strong shaking, the center said. The U.S. Geological Survey said it had received 894 responses from people saying they had felt the earthquake.
Hawaii Electric Light tweeted that about 3,300 customers were without power in the community of Waikoloa. The utility later tweeted that crews had restored power for all customers.
Police seek clues in Dallas assault
DALLAS -- Police canvassed a Dallas neighborhood during the weekend in search of witnesses in the beating of a transgender woman.
Detectives were seeking clues in hopes of identifying the woman's assailant, police said in a statement.
They said the woman reported the assault while receiving hospital treatment Friday night. She told officers that the attack happened earlier Friday after she was involved in a minor traffic accident near an apartment complex in the southern part of Dallas, according to the police statement released Saturday.
A purported video of the attack posted on Facebook shows a man in a white shirt beating the woman, apparently into unconsciousness, while a crowd looks on and homophobic slurs are shouted.
Several women eventually carried the victim to safety.
Dallas Mayor Mike Rawlings said he is "extremely angry about what appears to be mob violence against this woman," adding that those responsible do not represent how most residents feel about the city's "thriving LGBTQ community."
"I am in contact with [Police Chief U. Renee Hall] and she assured me that the Dallas Police Department is fully investigating, including the possibility that this was a hate crime," Rawlings said in a statement Saturday.
-- Compiled by Democrat-Gazette staff from wire reports
A Section on 04/15/2019