Background checks on Uber drivers

Background checks on Uber drivers

ATLANTA

A battle over background checks for Uber drivers at the world’s busiest airport comes as cities such as Los Angeles and Austin, Texas, consider more thorough screenings to prevent criminals from getting behind the wheel.

Uber has objected to the Atlanta airport’s plan to use fingerprints to check criminal records of its drivers, saying its own record checks are sufficient.

But the district attorney in Uber’s hometown of San Francisco has called the ride-booking firm’s process “completely worthless” since drivers aren’t fingerprinted.

Atlanta’s city council on Wednesday is set to consider the airport’s plan for screening drivers for Uber, Lyft and other ride-booking firms when proposed new rules go before the council’s transportation committee.

Italy rescues 730 migrants at sea

Italy rescued 730 people off the coast of Sicily on Sunday, while a German newspaper reported that because of restrictions along the so-called Balkan route, human traffickers were planning to redirect more migrants to Italian shores.

The Italian coast guard and navy carried out six rescue operations involving rubber dinghies. The rescued migrants were due to arrive at the Sicilian port of Pozzallo today, a coast guard statement said.

In Germany, the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung newspaper said traffickers were looking for new migrant smuggling routes in response to a European Union deal with Turkey, which restricts passages through the Balkans – until recently the main corridor for migrants trying to reach richer European countries farther north.

Crews battling wildfires get assist from snow, rain

KANSAS CITY, Mo.

Firefighters grappling with the biggest wildfire in Kansas history got a welcome Easter assist from pre-dawn snowfall over the hardest-hit area, though the looming prospect of flame-fanning winds threatened to undermine the effort.

The National Weather Service said about a half-inch of precipitation in the form of rain and snow fell early Sunday southwest of Wichita in Barber County, which accounts for 427 of the 620 square miles scorched during the blaze that began Tuesday in Oklahoma before spreading into Kansas.

Forestry officials in both states said Sunday the fires had been 45 percent contained, including roughly one-third of the blaze in Barber County. But shifting, stiffer winds were expected, potentially reigniting hot spots or extending flames beyond the fire line.

Ex-deputy accused of sex abuse found dead in Mo. jail

STE. GENEVIEVE, Mo.

Missouri state police are investigating the jail death of a former deputy sheriff who was facing federal and state charges of sexually abusing women and enticing a minor into prostitution.

Marty Rainey was found dead Saturday morning in the Ste. Genevieve County jail, sheriff’s Maj. Jason Schott told the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. The death of the 52-year-old Rainey, who lived in Sullivan and formerly worked as a deputy in Gasconade County in east-central Missouri, appears to be a suicide, Schott said. He declined to say whether Rainey had been on suicide watch.

The Missouri State Highway Patrol’s investigation of the “in-custody death” is standard procedure, Schott said.

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