Last body found after mudslide

Last body found after mudslide

SEATTLE

Searchers on Tuesday pulled what they believe was the last missing body from debris left by a landslide in Washington state that researchers said heavy rainfall likely played a key role in triggering.

The intensive search for the 43 people killed in the March 22 disaster in Oso ended in April, but workers have been screening debris and watching for the body of 44-year-old Kris Regelbrugge.

Her husband, Navy Cmdr. John Regelbrugge III, also was killed when the slide crossed the North Fork of the Stillaguamish River and decimated their home in the community about 55 miles northeast of Seattle.

Iraq car bombing kills at least 21

BAGHDAD

A suicide driver rammed his explosive-laden car into a police checkpoint in the Iraqi capital, killing 21 people, including more than a dozen civilians en route to a Shiite shrine in the final days of the Islamic holy month.

At least 13 people killed in the attack were civilians, according to police and hospital officials. At least 35 people were wounded — more than half of them civilians.

The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they are not authorized to speak with the media.

The attack occurred at the entrance to Baghdad’s Khazimiyah district, where many cars were en route to the Imam Al-Khadim Shrine in the lead-up to the Eid feast commemorating the end of Ramadan.

Black leaders worry about low turnout

LAS VEGAS

Civil-rights leaders at the NAACP annual convention in Las Vegas on Tuesday worried that dwindling African-American turnout in November could lead to the expansion of voter-identification laws that make it harder for that community to vote in subsequent contests.

In 2012, blacks turned out at a higher rate than whites for what is believed to be the first time in American history and helped re-elect President Barack Obama. But in the prior midterm election, in 2010, blacks turned out at a much lower rate, and Republicans won control of the House of Representatives and many state and local offices.

Crews make gains on Wash. wildfire

OLYMPIA, Wash.

Firefighters made progress Tuesday in their efforts to get the largest wildfire in Washington state’s history under control, with wetter weather bringing some relief but also raising concerns about flash flooding.

The Carlton Complex of fires, which has burned nearly 400 square miles in the north-central part of the state, was 16 percent contained as of Tuesday, fire spokeswoman Jessica Payne said. A day earlier, the fire was just 2 percent contained.

Court allows Ariz. execution to proceed

TUCSON, Ariz.

The U.S. Supreme Court on Tuesday allowed an Arizona execution to go forward amid a closely watched First Amendment fight over the secrecy surrounding lethal-injection drugs in the country.

The court ruled in favor of Arizona officials in the case of Joseph Rudolph Wood, who was convicted of murder in the 1989 shooting deaths of his estranged girlfriend and her father. The state plans to execute him today.

Wood, 55, argued he has a First Amendment right to details about the state’s lethal-injection method, the qualifications of the executioner and who makes the drugs. Such demands for greater transparency have become a new legal tactic in death-penalty cases in recent months.

Associated Press