Tsunami sweeps away homes on Indonesian island of Sulawesi

Tsunami sweeps away homes on Indonesian island of Sulawesi

JAKARTA, Indonesia

A powerful earthquake rocked the Indonesian island of Sulawesi on Friday, triggering a 10-foot-tall tsunami that an official said swept away houses in at least two cities.

Disaster agency spokesman Sutopo Purwo Nugroho said the tsunami hit Palu, the capital of central Sulawesi province, as well as the smaller city of Donggala and several other coastal settlements.

Indonesian TV showed a smartphone video of a powerful wave hitting Palu, with people screaming and running in fear. The water smashed into buildings and a large mosque that collapsed under the force.

Houses were swept away and families were reported missing, Nugroho said, adding that communications and power to the area were disrupted.

“The cut to telecommunications and darkness are hampering efforts to obtain information,” he said.

Calif. divorce courts go to dogs as pets gain custody status

LOS ANGELES

California courts could be going to the dogs – and maybe the cats too – under a new law signed by Gov. Jerry Brown.

The law, signed Thursday, gives judges the discretion of applying rules similar to those in child-custody cases when determining who gets the family pet following a divorce.

It takes effect Jan. 1.

Under current law, pets are considered community property like cars and TV sets.

Deciding who gets to keep them hasn’t been easy when both parties say they love and want them.

Under the new law, pets are still considered community property.

But judges may now consider several factors, including who feeds a family pet, who protects it and plays with it, before ruling on who ultimately gets to keep it.

Judge strikes down Kentucky law in win for abortion clinic

LOUISVILLE, Ky.

In a victory for abortion-rights supporters, a federal judge struck down a Kentucky law that had put the state’s last abortion clinic at risk of closing when Gov. Matt Bevin’s administration cited it in a licensing fight with the facility.

U.S. District Judge Greg Stivers, in a long-awaited ruling, said Friday that the two-decade-old law violates constitutionally protected due process rights. The law required Kentucky’s abortion clinics to have written agreements with a hospital and an ambulance service in case of medical emergencies.

Stivers said the so-called transfer agreements “do not advance a legitimate interest” in promoting the health of women seeking abortions.

“The court has carefully reviewed the evidence presented in this case and concludes that the record is devoid of any credible proof that the challenged regulations have any tangible benefit to women’s health,” Stivers wrote in his 60-page ruling.

The ruling was welcomed by the American Civil Liberties Union, which joined the legal fight on behalf of the Louisville abortion clinic. A spokeswoman for Kentucky Gov. Matt Bevin said the decision will be appealed.

Major GOP group pulls support for two imperiled congressmen

DENVER

A major Republican political group is pulling its support of two endangered GOP House members.

The Congressional Leadership Fund confirmed Friday it was ending spending to support Rep. Mike Bishop in Michigan and Rep. Mike Coffman in Colorado.

The group is aligned with House Speaker Paul Ryan and is Republican leadership’s main financial vehicle for preserving the GOP House majority.

In dropping two swing district congressmen it sends a signal of how difficult those races will be, given Democratic energy and President Donald Trump’s sagging poll numbers.

Prosecutors want death penalty for bike-path attacker

NEW YORK

Federal prosecutors say a man accused of using a truck to kill eight people last year on a New York City bike path should face the death penalty.

The decision to seek the death penalty in the case of Sayfullo Saipov was revealed Friday in court papers after defense complaints about tweets by President Donald Trump calling for Saipov’s execution.

Prosecutors said the attack met several standards for a death-penalty case.

Saipov has pleaded not guilty. After his arrest, he told the authorities he was inspired by Islamic State videos and had used a truck in the attack to inflict maximum damage against civilians.

Saipov’s lawyers had argued that Trump’s tweets made a fair decision impossible. They said Friday they were disappointed by the outcome.

Pope defrocks Chilean priest at center of abuse scandal

VATICAN CITY

Pope Francis has defrocked a Chilean priest who was a central character in the global sex-abuse scandal rocking his papacy, invoking his “supreme” authority to stiffen an earlier sentence because of the “exceptional amount of damage” the priest’s crimes had caused.

In a statement Friday, the Vatican said Francis had laicized 88-year-old Rev. Fernando Karadima, who was originally sanctioned in 2011 to live a lifetime of “penance and prayer” for having sexually abused minors in the upscale Santiago parish he ran.

The Vatican said Francis was doing so for “the good of the church.”

“It is without doubt an exceptional measure, but Karadima’s grave crimes have caused exceptional damage in Chile,” Vatican spokesman Greg Burke said.

The “penance and prayer” sanction has been the Vatican’s punishment of choice for elderly priests convicted of raping and molesting children. It has long been criticized by victims as too soft and essentially an all-expenses-paid retirement, and Karadima’s whistleblowers had pressed for it to be toughened.

Hamilton’s First Bank gets funds to help it reopen as museum

PHILADELPHIA

Pennsylvania’s governor has announced an $8 million grant to help reopen the First Bank of the United States as a museum.

Gov. Tom Wolf was at the First Bank in Philadelphia on Friday to announce the funding to restore the bank founded by Alexander Hamilton in the 1790s.

The Democrat says the project “will help to restore Philadelphia’s rightful place in the remarkable Hamilton story that has captured the nation’s curiosity.”

The building, not far from Independence Hall and the Liberty Bell, has been closed to the public for years and is owned by the National Park Service.

Palestinians ask court to order US embassy out of Jerusalem

THE HAGUE, Netherlands

The Palestinian Authority has filed a case with the United Nations’ highest court asking its judges to order Washington to remove the recently relocated U.S. embassy from Jerusalem.

The move announced Friday by the Hague-based International Court of Justice comes against a backdrop of deeply strained ties between Washington and the Palestinians, in part because of the Trump Administration’s decision in December to recognize Jerusalem as Israel’s capital and to move the U.S. embassy there from Tel Aviv in May. The Palestinian Authority broke off contact with the U.S. after the Jerusalem announcement.

The court says that the Palestinians’ case asks the court “to order the United States of America to withdraw the diplomatic mission from the Holy City of Jerusalem.”

Cases at the court can take years to complete.

Associated Press