Bus plunge kills 51, including 14 kids

Bus plunge kills 51, including 14 kids

LIMA, Peru

A makeshift bus carrying 51 Quechua Indians back from a party in southeastern Peru plunged off a cliff into a river, killing everyone on board, including 14 children.

The accident occurred Friday night as the red-and-yellow cargo truck made its way back from a party in the provincial capital of Santa Teresa, an area about 310 miles southeast of Lima. It went off the road and fell about 650 feet into a deep ravine, ending up in the Chaupimayo river, which courses through the ravine.

Rescuers equipped with little more than flashlights spent the night searching without success for survivors amid the twisted steel and large boulders, pulling bodies from the water. Authorities said bodies were found as far as 330 feet away from the impact site, suggesting they were thrown from the vehicle.

Giffords to attend gun show in NY

ALBANY, N.Y.

Former U.S. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, who survived an assassination attempt in 2011, is set to tour a New York gun show, the first such visit since she was shot.

Giffords and husband Mark Kelly, a former combat pilot and astronaut, are scheduled to be with New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman at the Saratoga Springs Arms Fair today to highlight a voluntary agreement and stricter state gun-control law.

It will be the latest event by Giffords and Kelly in their national campaign for expanded background checks for gun sales.

A state law enacted earlier this year with a push by Gov. Andrew Cuomo expanded a ban on military-style weapons, requires mental health professionals to report threats, limits magazines to seven bullets, taxes bullets and creates a registry to keep guns out of the wrong hands. It was approved a month after the Newtown, Conn., school massacre.

hKerry: Partial deal reached on security

KABUL, Afghanistan

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry on Saturday said a partial agreement was reached with Afghanistan on a security accord, but the potentially deal-breaking issue of jurisdiction for American forces remains unresolved.

Kerry spoke with President Hamid Karzai after a marathon series of meetings and repeated delays of his departure from Afghanistan. Both men said agreement had been reached on a series of contentious sovereignty issues and the safety of Afghan citizens at the hands of American and allied troops that had deadlocked talks in the past year.

Cousin arrested in ‘Baby Hope’ killing

NEW YORK

Detectives solved the decades-old mystery of “Baby Hope,” a little girl whose body was discovered inside a picnic cooler beside a Manhattan highway in 1991, and arrested a relative of the child Saturday after he admitted he sexually assaulted and smothered her, police said.

Conrado Juarez, 52, was arrested on a murder charge and was awaiting arraignment. Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly said Juarez claimed he killed the girl at his sister’s apartment and that she helped him dispose of the body.

Associated Press