Chicago subway fire sends 19 to hospital

Chicago subway fire sends 19 to hospital

chicago

Authorities say a fire in a Chicago subway has injured 19 people, five of them seriously, and sent black smoke billowing from grates along city streets.

The Chicago Transit Authority says a small fire broke out along the Red Line tracks Sunday afternoon just north of downtown.

Chicago Fire Department spokesman Richard Rosado said 19 people were taken to hospitals, most with respiratory complaints, though none had life-threatening injuries.

He said five people were transported in serious to critical condition, three were in fair to serious and 11 had minor injuries.

Report: Van der Sloot has mental problems

amsterdam

Joran van der Sloot, the chief suspect in the murder of one woman and the disappearance of another, suffers mental problems, his mother was quoted Sunday as saying.

Van der Sloot, a 22-year-old Dutchman, is suspected in the disappearance of American teenager Natalee Holloway in Aruba in 2005. He sits now in a prison compound on the dusty outskirts of Peru’s capital, Lima, held on suspicion of killing 21-year-old Stephany Flores on May 30 — five years to the day after Holloway vanished while on vacation.

“My son is sick in his head,” the Dutch newspaper De Telegraaf quoted Anita van der Sloot as saying in an interview published on its website Sunday. The comments were her first since her son’s most recent arrest.

Police in Peru say van der Sloot has confessed killing Flores. He is scheduled to be interviewed by a judge in Lima next week.

Ex-defense minister wins runoff election

bogota, colombia

Juan Manuel Santos, who as Colombia’s defense minister oversaw a major weakening of leftist rebels, won Sunday’s presidential runoff election in a rout of an eccentric outsider.

With three-fourths of voting stations reporting, Santos had 69 percent of the votes against 28 percent for former two-time Bogota Mayor Antanas Mockus, who ran atop the Green Party ticket.

Israel issues new list of banned goods

jerusalem

Israel pledged Sunday it will immediately allow all goods into Gaza except weapons and items deemed to have a military use under its decision to ease its three-year-old blockade of the Palestinian territory.

The list of banned goods replaces an old list of allowed items that permitted only basic humanitarian supplies for the 1.5 million Gazans. Under the new system, the government said practically all nonmilitary items can enter Gaza freely.

Patrol: Tornado hit

billings, mont.

A tornado that ripped the roof off a sports arena in Billings, Mont., Sunday evening also tore apart a casino, bar and Laundromat in the city’s downtown area.

The tornado struck about 5 p.m. as a big storm system with golf ball-sized hail passed through the area, Trooper Toman Baukema of the Montana Highway Patrol said.

A good chunk of the center’s 10,000-seat Rimrock Auto Arena was torn off when the tornado hit as a big storm system with golf ball-sized hail passed through the city. Debris was seen strewn for hundreds of yards in the area.

There were several employees inside the arena when it struck, but there were no reports of injuries, Baukema said.

Law enforcement didn’t know of any event going on at the arena when the tornado hit. No deaths or injuries have been reported.

Associated Press