Quake hits Taiwan

Quake hits Taiwan

TAIPEI, Taiwan

Rescuers in the southern Taiwanese city of Tainan pulled out 221 people and at least five dead from a residential high-rise complex that collapsed when a shallow magnitude-6.4 earthquake struck before dawn today, leaving others still trapped inside.

Firefighters and soldiers scrambled with ladders, cranes and other equipment to the two towers that folded like an accordion in a pile of rubble and twisted metal and extracted dazed survivors.

The emergency-response center told The Associated Press that three people were killed, including a 10-day-old infant, a 55-year-old woman and a 50-year-old man.

New England gets heavy snowfall

BOSTON

A winter storm packing heavy, wet snow gave New England its first real taste of winter Friday, toppling trees and knocking out power to more than 180,000 customers and threatening to cover some spots a foot deep.

A 6-year-old girl was hit by a falling tree limb that fell in her backyard in Canton, Mass., during the snowstorm and later died, according to family members. Police took to Twitter to warn town residents to stay indoors.

Numerous accidents and spin-outs were reported on New England highways, but there were no other immediate reports of serious injuries.

Astronaut Mitchell dies at age 85

MIAMI

Apollo 14 astronaut Edgar Mitchell, who became the sixth man on the moon when he and Alan Shepard helped NASA recover from Apollo 13’s “successful failure” and later devoted his life to exploring the mind, physics and unexplained phenomena such as psychics and aliens, has died in Florida. He was 85.

Mitchell died Thursday night at a West Palm Beach hospice after a short illness, his daughter, Kimberly Mitchell, said. Mitchell’s passing coincides with the 45th anniversary of the Apollo 14 mission, which ran from Jan. 31-Feb. 9, 1971.

Mitchell, one of only 12 humans to set foot on the moon, was not a typical strait-laced astronaut: In later years, he said aliens visited Earth and faith healers were legit. He attempted to communicate telepathically with friends at home during his Apollo mission. He had an “epiphany” in space that focused him on studying consciousness, physics and other mysteries.

Pope, Russian patriarch to meet

VATICAN CITY

In a historic step to heal the 1,000-year schism that split Christianity, Pope Francis and the leader of the Russian Orthodox Church will meet in Cuba next week in an attempt to begin bridging the church’s East-West divide.

The Feb. 12 meeting between Francis and Patriarch Kirill was announced Friday by both churches. It will be the first meeting between the leaders of the Catholic Church and the Russian Orthodox Church, which is the largest in Orthodoxy.

Francis is due to travel to Mexico from Friday to Feb. 18. He will stop in Cuba on the way and meet with Kirill at the Havana airport.

Actor seeks to open medical-pot business

HONOLULU

Actor and marijuana advocate Woody Harrelson was one of nearly 60 applicants to apply to open one of Hawaii’s first medical-marijuana dispensaries.

Harrelson, 54, applied for a license in Honolulu County under his company, Simple Organic Living.

The Hawaii Department of Health posted the list of 66 applications on its website Friday. The state is now reviewing applications for dispensary permits, which they will award in April.

Associated Press