Rain and sorrow accentuate memorial for dead at Brazil club

Rain and sorrow accentuate memorial for dead at Brazil club

CHAPECO, Brazil

On a rainy Saturday that only accentuated the grief, 20,000 people filled a tiny stadium under umbrellas and plastic ponchos to say goodbye to members of the Chapecoense soccer club who died in a plane crash.

The accident Monday in the Colombian Andes claimed most of the team’s players and staff as it headed to the finals of one of Latin America’s most important club tournaments. Seventy-one of the 77 people on board died, including 19 players on the team.

Rain-soaked mourners jammed the modest stadium with four or five times that many outside to pay homage to a modest club that nearly reached the pinnacle of Latin American soccer. In total, about half the population of the southern Brazilian city of 210,000 gathered.

Syrian and allied troops advance in besieged Aleppo

ALEPPO, Syria

Syrian warplanes, artillery and mortar rounds pounded areas in eastern Aleppo on Saturday drawing rebel rockets, as government troops gain new ground in the shrinking opposition-held enclave.

After four years of holding nearly half of the divided city, rebel fighters have been increasingly squeezed into the center of the eastern enclave. Government and allied troops, including Lebanese, Iraqi and Iranian fighters, have concentrated their fight on the northeastern part of the enclave, swiftly taking new districts since their offensive began last week.

Another front on the southern outskirts of the city has been slower, as rebel fighters push back government advances there.

The advances have caused massive displacement. The U.N. estimated that more than 31,000 have already fled their homes, either to government or Kurdish areas, or deeper into the besieged enclave. The fighting has also intensified the rebel shelling of government-held areas in Aleppo.

Emergency officials: We won’t let pipeline protesters freeze

FARGO, N.D.

The head of North Dakota’s emergency management services says the state is prepared to respond to Dakota Access pipeline protesters who may need help during a winter storm or some other crisis.

State Homeland Security Director Greg Wilz said it would be a “huge challenge,” especially during a mass evacuation, but his office has winter shelter plans in place and various agencies are ready to respond.

“The bottom line here is, if we are in a situation of life and limb, we are going to be humane in anything and everything we do,” Wilz said. “We aren’t going to let somebody out there freeze. So if they start evacuating en masse looking for shelter – which I highly suspect will happen – we would take care of that.”

McConnell cautions replacement to health law to take time

LOUISVILLE, Ky.

The next Congress will begin work immediately next year toward repealing President Barack Obama’s health care law but delay the changes as Republicans try to come up with an alternative, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said Saturday.

The Kentucky Republican insisted that some 20 million Americans who have health care through the six-year-old law will not lose coverage, though the likely upheaval in the insurance industry suggests many could.

Asked about the Senate’s timetable to scrap the law, McConnell said: “We’re going to move to it after we go back in the first week in January.”

But during a speech in his hometown of Louisville, the senator cautioned patience from the law’s critics as Republicans create an alternative.

Green Party drops bid for statewide Pennsylvania recount

HARRISBURG, Pa.

The Green Party is dropping its court case seeking a statewide recount of Pennsylvania’s Nov. 8 presidential election. It had wanted to explore whether voting machines and systems had been hacked and the election result manipulated.

The decision came Saturday, two days before a court hearing in the case. Lawyers for the Green Party-backed voters who filed the case say they can’t afford the $1 million bond ordered by the court by 5 p.m. Monday. However, Green Party-backed efforts to analyze election software in scattered precincts are continuing.

Green Party presidential candidate Jill Stein has spearheaded a recount effort in Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, states where Republican Donald Trump won narrowly over Democrat Hillary Clinton. Trump and the Pennsylvania GOP had opposed the recount.

Associated Press