Nation and world digest

New AFL-CIO president

PITTSBURGH — Richard Trumka, who rose from the coal mines of Pennsylvania to the top ranks of the nation’s labor movement, took the helm of the AFL-CIO on Wednesday, ushering in a more-aggressive style of leadership and vowing to revive unions’ sagging membership rolls.

The first new AFL-CIO president in 14 years, Trumka pledged to make the labor movement appeal to a new generation of workers who perceive unions as “only a grainy, faded picture from another time.”

Trumka, 60, a charismatic, former head of the United Mine Workers, embraced the challenge of rebuilding union ranks that have fallen from a high of 35 percent in the 1950s to just 12.4 percent today.

Cuba: No concessions

HAVANA — Cuba will not make any political or policy concessions to improve relations with the U.S. — no matter how small, Foreign Minister Bruno Rodriguez said Wednesday, snubbing Washington’s suggestions that some reforms could lead to better ties.

He told a news conference that the United States must lift its 47-year-old trade embargo without waiting for anything in return.

Rodriguez said U.S. trade sanctions have cost the island $96 billion in economic damage since they took their current form in February 1962 as part of the Trading with the Enemy Act.

“The policy is unilateral and should be lifted unilaterally,” Rodriguez said.

Mudslide concerns in Calif.

LOS ANGELES — With the biggest fire in Los Angeles County history about 91 percent contained, concern is shifting to the threat of flash floods and mudslides.

The Station fire has blackened more than 160,000 acres in the San Gabriel Mountains, leaving barren and eroded hillsides towering over Los Angeles. When the winter rains start, there is little vegetation left in the burn areas to prevent water, silt, rocks and branches from coursing down steep canyons and ravines toward thousands of homes.

Although mudslides are a regular occurrence after fires, authorities are worried that this year’s flows could contain larger amounts of debris than usual. The San Gabriel mountains are made up of rock types that easily shatter and crumble.

Actor Henry Gibson dies

LOS ANGELES — Henry Gibson, the veteran comic character actor best known for his role reciting offbeat poetry on “Rowan & Martin’s Laugh-In,” has died. He was 73.

Gibson’s son, James, said Gibson died Monday at his home in Malibu after a brief battle with cancer.

After serving in the Air Force and studying at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts, Gibson — born James Bateman in Germantown, Pa., in 1935 — created his Henry Gibson comic persona, a pun on playwright Henrik Ibsen’s name, while working as a theater actor in New York. For three seasons on “Laugh-In,” he delivered satirical poems while gripping a giant flower.

After “Laugh-In,” Gibson went on to appear in several films, including “The Long Goodbye” and “Nashville,” which earned him a Golden Globe nomination. His most memorable roles included playing the menacing neighbor opposite Tom Hanks in “The ’Burbs,” the befuddled priest in “Wedding Crashers” and voicing Wilbur the Pig in the animated “Charlotte’s Web.”

World’s tallest man

LONDON — A towering Turk was officially crowned the world’s tallest man today after his Ukrainian rival dropped out of the running by refusing to be measured.

Guinness World Records said that 8-foot-1-inch Sultan Kosen, from the town of Mardin in eastern Turkey, is now officially the tallest man walking the planet. Although the previous record holder, Ukrainian Leonid Stadnyk, reportedly measured 8 feet 5.5 inches, Guinness said he was stripped of his title when he declined to let anyone confirm his height.

Road salt fouling streams

MINNEAPOLIS — Many urban streams have become salty enough to harm aquatic life, largely because of salt used for de-icing roads in the winter, according to a new government study released Wednesday.

The U.S. Geological Survey studied urban streams and groundwater for levels of chloride, a component of salt, in 20 states spanning from Alaska to the Great Lakes and Northeast.

It found chloride concentrations above federal recommendations designed to protect aquatic life in more than 40 percent of urban streams tested. The highest levels were measured in those streams during the winter — as much as 20 times the federal guidelines — when salt and other chemicals are commonly used for deicing.

Combined dispatches