Workers try to save 83 trapped in mine

Workers try to save 83 trapped in mine

moscow

Rescue workers scrambled to save 83 people trapped in Russia’s largest underground coal mine after two explosions killed at least 12 people and injured dozens more, officials said. Among those still trapped early today were rescue workers who had entered the Siberian mine after the first blast.

A high level of methane gas after Sunday’s second, more powerful blast raised fears of further explosions and prevented more rescuers from going into the mine for the rest of the day.

Only early today was the first rescue team sent down to try to bring out five miners whose location had been established, said Valery Korchagin, a spokesman for the Emergency Ministry.

Experts: Sub likely sank S. Korean ship

tokyo

Experts say North Korea’s submarine fleet is technologically backward, prone to sinking or running aground, and all but useless outside its own coastal waters.

And yet many are asking: Could it have been responsible for the explosion that sank a South Korean warship in March? And if so, how could a sub have slipped through the defenses of South Korea, which, with significant American backing, maintains a fleet far more sophisticated than its northern neighbor’s?

Evidence collected thus far indicates a torpedo hit the Cheonan, killing 46 sailors, and suspicion is growing that it was launched from a small North Korean submarine.

Black valedictorian: a first at Notre Dame

chicago

Earlier this spring, Katie Washington was one of three finalists vying to become the University of Notre Dame’s senior class valedictorian. When it was her turn to be interviewed by the selection committee, she told members the honor wasn’t on her radar four years ago when she arrived on campus.

“I let them know that I came to Notre Dame with the hope of pushing myself to my fullest potential,” said Washington, 21.

Her hard work has paid off.

On Sunday, Washington became the first black valedictorian in Notre Dame’s 168-year history. In the fall, she will begin an eight-year joint M.D.-Ph.D. program at Johns Hopkins University in its medical-scientist training program.

DA seeks hate-crime charges in case

farmington, n.m.

Prosecutors in northwestern New Mexico said they will pursue hate-crime charges against three men accused of branding a swastika on a mentally challenged man’s arm using a heated metal clothes hanger.

Jesse Sanford, 24, William Hatch, 28, and Paul Beebe, 26, were charged Friday with kidnapping, aggravated battery causing great bodily harm and other felony charges. The men were jailed with bond set at $150,000 cash.

The three white men are accused of forcing the 22-year-old victim from the Navajo Indian reservation into a car April 29 and driving him to an apartment. Besides branding the man’s arm there, police say the suspects shaved a swastika into his hair and drew degrading words and pictures on his body with permanent marker.

Filipinos begin voting

manila, philippines

After a decade of corruption-tainted politics and untamed poverty, Filipinos stood in long linestoday to elect a new leader, and surveys indicate they’re pinning their hopes on the son of democracy icons who electrified masses with his family name and clean image.

Sen. Benigno Aquino III had a large lead in the last pre-election polls.

Combined dispatches