WORLD DIGEST || Storm hits Calif., chopper saves homeless, 10 dogs

Storm hits Calif., chopper saves homeless, dogs

LOS ANGELES

A pre-winter storm drenched California with rain and dumped nearly three feet of snow to help bolster the vital Sierra Nevada snowpack but also triggered mud flows, street flooding and the dramatic rescue Friday of two homeless women and 10 dogs from a flooded river island near Los Angeles.

With thousands of acres of wildfire burn scars all over the state, authorities were warily monitoring barren slopes where parched earth soaked with rain can cause life-threatening mudslides.

Mud from the San Gabriel Mountains flowed into the foothill city of Duarte east of Los Angeles before dawn, affecting 18 homes where residents were told to not to leave, KCBS-TV reported. Firefighters rescued two people stuck in cars.

A helicopter was sent Friday morning to a homeless encampment on the small island in the San Gabriel River, where it hovered in rain between power lines as the two women, six puppies and four adult dogs were hoisted to safety.

Gymnastics doctor indicted on child porn charges

GRAND RAPIDS, Mich.

A Michigan doctor who formerly worked for USA Gymnastics and is facing sexual-assault charges has been indicted on child pornography charges.

The child pornography indictment against Dr. Larry Nassar was unsealed Friday in federal court in Grand Rapids. He’s already charged with sexual assault in state court and is a target in civil lawsuits filed by former female gymnasts.

The indictment says Nassar received child pornography and possessed thousands of images, from 2003 through 2016.

7 admit plotting international online fraud

GULFPORT, Miss.

Federal prosecutors say seven Africans have admitted being part of a global fraud network that used online dating sites to reach potential victims.

A news release Friday said six Nigerians and a South African pleaded guilty this week to conspiracy to commit mail and wire fraud.

They’re among 21 defendants in federal court in Gulfport, Miss. Investigators in Washington and New Orleans also were involved.

Documents with the guilty pleas show that the investigation started in 2011, when a Biloxi, Mississippi, woman told police that a man she’d met online through a dating website had asked her to repackage and reship cellular phones.

New data show spike in severe black lung disease

MORGANTOWN, W.Va.

New data show many more coal miners across Appalachia suffering from the most serious form of black lung disease than federal regulators previously reported.

National Public Radio reported Friday that its investigation shows cases 10 times more prevalent, with data from 11 black lung clinics in Virginia, West Virginia, Pennsylvania and Ohio showing 962 cases so far this decade. Some clinics had incomplete records and others declined to provide data about their “complicated” black lung cases.

On Thursday, the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health said that 60 current and former miners – from Pike, Floyd, Letcher and Knott counties in Kentucky – were diagnosed with progressive massive fibrosis, the most severe form of black lung, between January 2015 and last August.

Associated Press