Colorado wildfires

Colorado wildfires

COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo.

At least four major wildfires broke out along the front of the Rocky Mountains in Colorado on Tuesday, burning a handful of houses and chasing people from thousands of homes in hot, gusty weather.

Thick smoke plumes visible for miles billowed from fires near Colorado Springs, in southern Colorado, and in Rocky Mountain National Park to the north.

A wildfire in a residential area northeast of Colorado Springs forced mandatory evacuations of 2,530 homes, including some worth more than $1 million, El Paso County Sheriff Terry Maketa said.

Video from a helicopter showed several large homes engulfed in flames. Maketa said about eight homes had burned but had no exact number because the fire was moving so quickly across parched forest.

Immigration debate clears Senate hurdle

WASHINGTON

In Spanish and English, the Senate pushed contentious immigration legislation over early procedural hurdles with deceptive ease Tuesday as President Barack Obama insisted the “moment is now” to give 11 million immigrants in the United States illegally a chance at citizenship.

Despite the lopsided votes, Republicans served notice they will seek to toughen the bill’s border- security provisions and impose tougher terms on those seeking to gain legal status.

Kentucky bus crash

LOUISVILLE, Ky.

A bus carrying students on a college-campus visit veered out of control and crashed on a Kentucky interstate Tuesday, and nearly three dozen people were taken to hospitals, authorities said.

Thirty students from Waggener High School in Louisville were taken to hospitals with various injuries, along with four adults aboard the bus — including the driver, said Jody Duncan, a spokeswoman for Metro Safe, the emergency management agency for Louisville and Jefferson County.

The injured were taken to at least five area hospitals, and all were reported to be in stable condition by early Tuesday evening, said Barbara DiMecurio, director of emergency services at University of Louisville Hospital.

Greek state radio, TV go off the air

ATHENS, Greece

Greek state TV and radio were gradually pulled off the air late Tuesday, hours after the government said it temporarily would close all state-run broadcasts and lay off about 2,500 workers as part of a cost-cutting drive demanded by the bailed-out country’s international creditors.

The conservative-led government said the Hellenic Broadcasting Corp., or ERT, will reopen “as soon as possible” with a new, smaller workforce. It wasn’t immediately clear how long that would take and whether all stations would reopen.

US: Manning hurt national security

FORT MEADE, Md.

The mountain of classified material Army Pfc. Bradley Manning gave to the anti-secrecy organization WikiLeaks revealed sensitive information about military operations and tactics, including code words and the name of at least one enemy target, according to evidence the government presented Tuesday.

Manning, a 25-year-old Oklahoma native, has said he didn’t believe that the more than 700,000 battlefield reports, diplomatic cables and video clips he leaked while working as an intelligence analyst in Baghdad would hurt national security. Prosecutors want to convict him of aiding the enemy, which carries a potential life sentence, for divulging information they say found its way to Osama bin Laden.

Associated Press