Migrants at sea for months are rescued

Migrants at sea for months are rescued

LANGSA, Indonesia

More than 370 migrants stranded at sea for months were rescued and taken to Indonesia, officials said today, the latest in a stream of Rohingya and Bangladeshi migrants to reach shore in a growing crisis confronting Southeast Asia.

“They were suffering dehydration; they are weak and starving,” Khairul Nove, head of Langsa Search and Rescue Agency in Indonesia’s eastern Aceh province, said of one of the boats of migrants. The boat was crammed with 102 people, including 26 women and 31 children.

It arrived late Tuesday, he said. An additional 272 migrants arrived on eight Indonesian fishing boats this morning.

Shootout started with parking dispute

WACO, Texas

A deadly weekend shootout involving rival motorcycle gangs apparently began with a parking dispute and someone running over a gang member’s foot, police said Tuesday.

Waco police Sgt. W. Patrick Swanton said an uninvited group appeared for Sunday’s meeting of a loose confederation of biker gangs at a restaurant.

One man was injured when a vehicle rolled over his foot. That caused a dispute that continued inside the restaurant, where fighting and then shooting began, before the melee spilled back outside, Swanton said.

Man sues over wrongful jailing

CLEVELAND

A man who spent nearly 40 years in prison for a murder he did not commit filed a federal lawsuit Tuesday against the city of Cleveland and the police officers who he says helped frame him in 1975.

Ricky Jackson was convicted at age 18 along with two others because of the testimony of a 12-year-old boy. Jackson, 58, was exonerated in November after that witness, a man now in his early 50s, recanted his testimony.

The witness, Eddie Vernon, said in 2013 that police detectives threatened to put his parents in jail and coerced him into implicating Jackson and brothers Wiley and Ronnie Bridgeman in the slaying of salesman Harold Franks outside a corner store.

Jackson and the Bridgemans received death sentences that later were commuted to life in prison.

Cruise ship runs aground in Bermuda

SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico

Thousands of passengers bound for Boston were spending Tuesday night stuck aboard a Norwegian cruise ship after it ran aground as it tried to depart Bermuda, officials and passengers said.

Small boats, divers and tug boats circled the Norwegian Dawn ship as officials tried to figure out how to solve the situation, according to officials.

An official with Bermuda’s Rescue Coordination Center, speaking on condition of anonymity, told The Associated Press the ship hit the reef near Bermuda’s North Channel. The official, who was not authorized to talk to the media, said there are 2,675 passengers and 1,062 crew members aboard the ship.

Another temporary fix for highway aid

WASHINGTON

States would continue to receive highway and transit aid for an additional two months under a bill the House passed Tuesday, the 12th such temporary patch in six years and a reflection of lawmakers’ lack of consensus on how to solve the nation’s infrastructure-financing woes.

The bill was approved by a vote of 387 to 35. The current authorization to spend money from the federal Highway Trust Fund, which finances most aid to states, expires May 31. A Senate vote is expected later this week.

Associated Press