GM recalls 221,558 sedans for fire risk

GM recalls 221,558 sedans for fire risk

DETROIT

General Motors is recalling 221,558 Cadillac XTS and Chevrolet Impala sedans because the brake pads can stay partially engaged even when they’re not needed, increasing the risk of a fire.

The recall involves Cadillacs from the 2013-2015 model years and Impalas from the 2014 and 2015 model years. There are 205,309 vehicles affected in the U.S.; the rest of the vehicles are in Canada and elsewhere.

GM says it knows of no accidents or injuries related to the defect.

GM will notify owners and repair the vehicles for free.

Tour ship gets stuck near Statue of Liberty

NEW YORK

A 120-foot-tall schooner ran aground and got stuck in shallow waters near the Statue of Liberty on Saturday, officials said. No injuries were reported, and the 121 tourists on board were ferried in small boats to a lower Manhattan marina.

The Clipper City, a 158-foot-long steel-hulled boat that has six sails, two topsails and two steel masts, “hit something soft, like mud or a shoal” and ran aground off Liberty Island just after 1 p.m., said Thomas Berton, owner of Manhattan by Sail, which operates the tall tourist ship. He said the vessel was not damaged.

Calif. authorities seek 5 jail escapees

SAN FRANCISCO

Authorities were on the hunt Saturday for five men who escaped from a central California jail.

The men broke out of the Madera County lockup late Friday night, sheriff’s spokeswoman Erica Stuart said. The inmates were gone for about an hour before corrections officers discovered they were missing about 9:15 p.m., she said.

Authorities from across the state were looking for Juan Lopez, 33, Jorge Lopez-Diaz, 26, Abel Ramos, 25, Ricardo Cendejas, 19, all of Madera and Roel Soliz, 29, of Chowchilla.

The men were jailed on various charges including attempted murder and armed robbery, Stuart said. It’s unclear how they escaped, she added.

Country struggles with Ebola isolation

FREETOWN, Sierra Leone

Some in Sierra Leone ran away from their homes Saturday and others clashed with health workers trying to bury dead Ebola victims as the country struggled through the second day of an unprecedented lockdown to combat the deadly disease.

Despite the setbacks, officials said most of Sierra Leone’s 6 million people were complying with orders to stay at home as nearly 30,000 volunteers and health-care workers fanned out to distribute soap and information on how to prevent Ebola.

The virus, spread by contact with bodily fluids, has killed more than 560 people in Sierra Leone and more than 2,600 in West Africa since the outbreak began last December, according to the World Health Organization.

Kurdish fighters heading to Syria

beirut

Hundreds of Kurdish fighters raced from Turkey and Iraq into neighboring Syria on Saturday to defend a Kurdish area under attack by Islamic State militants. As the fighting raged, more than 60,000 mostly Kurdish refugees streamed across the dusty and barren border into Turkey, some hobbling on crutches as others lugged bulging sacks of belongings on their backs.

The large-scale displacement of so many and the movement of the Kurdish fighters into Syria reflected the ferocity of the fighting in the northern Kobani area, which borders Turkey.

Associated Press