56,000 cases put on fast-track in US immigration courts

56,000 cases put on fast-track in US immigration courts

LOS ANGELES

Rosita Lopez said armed gang members demanded money from her and her partner at their small grocery store on the Guatemalan coast and threatened to kill them when they couldn’t pay. When her partner was shot soon afterward, they sold everything and fled north.

Lopez was eight months pregnant when the couple arrived at the U.S.-Mexico border last year with their 1-year-old daughter. Just over a year later, an immigration judge in Los Angeles heard her case, denied her asylum and ordered her deported.

“I’m afraid of going back there,” she told the judge.

The decision for 20-year-old Lopez – who now has an American-born baby – was swift in an immigration court system so backlogged with cases that asylum seekers often wait years for a hearing, let alone a ruling on whether they can stay in the country.

But her case is one of 56,000 in a Trump administration pilot program in 10 cities from Baltimore to Los Angeles aimed at fast-tracking court hearings to discourage migrants from making the journey to seek refuge in the United States. The administration selected family cases in those cities from the past 10 months.

Moscow police detain more than 800 at protest, monitor says

MOSCOW

Police in Moscow cracked down hard on an unsanctioned election protest for the second weekend in a row Saturday, detaining more than 800 people at a rally against the exclusion from city council contests of some independent and opposition candidates, an arrest monitoring group said.

Election officials rejected signatures several candidates needed to qualify for next month’s local ballot. The decision tapped dissatisfaction with a political environment dominated by the Kremlin-aligned United Russia party, in which dissenting voices are marginalized, ignored or repressed.

The OVD-Info organization, which tracks arrests in Russia, said 828 people were detained Saturday.

The Russian Interior Ministry said the number was about 600 in a crowd of about 1,500 protesters, although police are widely believed to understate crowd estimates for opposition events.

The detentions came a week after authorities arrested nearly 1,400 people at a similar protest.

Hong Kong protesters and police face off in familiar cycle

HONG KONG

On one end of a Hong Kong street, protesters dressed in black ducked behind umbrellas and makeshift barricades, occasionally throwing bricks or slinging rocks. On the other end, police decked out in riot gear shouted warnings and fired tear gas.

As the late hours of Saturday stretched into the early hours of today, neither side budged.

Standoffs between demonstrators and authorities have become a weekly occurrence in Hong Kong, a semi-autonomous Chinese territory that has been roiled by a summer of fiery protest. What began as demonstrations against a now-suspended extradition bill has ballooned into a broader call for greater democratic freedoms and government accountability.

The now-familiar cycle of rallies, police interventions and clashes between the two sides have splintered the city. While tens of thousands marched Saturday through Mong Kok, a bustling shopping area, to call for an inquiry into alleged police brutality, another several thousand in a different part of the city gathered to show support for law enforcement.

Message in bottle from Hawaii found in California

SANTA ROSA, Calif.

A message in a bottle from Hawaii was discovered floating in a California river after traveling for more than a decade across the Pacific, a newspaper reported.

Eric McDermott, 30, said he found the message, dated 2006, in April with the names of three siblings, ages 4, 7 and 10, and an Oklahoma street address, The Press Democrat reported Friday.

McDermott was volunteering his time cleaning up the Russian River about 77 miles north of San Francisco when he spotted the bottle in the water, he said.

He spent months searching for the family in the note and finally tracked them down a few miles from where he discovered the note, he said.

“The world works in mysterious ways,” McDermott said. “What are the odds?”

Romanian tourist dies in accident at Yosemite National Park

YOSEMITE NATIONAL PARK, Calif.

A Romanian tourist has died in a fall near a waterfall in Yosemite National Park in California.

Authorities said 21-year-old Lucian Miu was scrambling on wet rocks below Bridalveil Fall on Wednesday when he fell about 20 feet. He died at a hospital.

The Fresno Bee said two other people were injured in separate falls in the park this week.

One had hiked to a viewing platform below Bridalveil Fall on Monday and then slipped while climbing up a boulder field toward a pool at the base.

The other slipped off a boulder at Lower Yosemite Fall and fell into a creek Thursday, becoming trapped underwater between rocks before managing to escape.

Water in Hawaii volcano could trigger explosive eruptions

HONOLULU

A small pond of water has been discovered inside the summit crater of Hawaii’s Kilauea volcano for the first time in recorded history, possibly signaling a shift to a more explosive phase of future eruptions.

The U,S. Geological Survey said that after a week of questions about a green patch inside Kilauea’s Halemaumau crater, researchers were able to confirm the presence of water Thursday.

USGS scientist Don Swanson says the pond has grown in size over the past week.

Swanson says the bottom of the crater, which once housed Kilauea’s famed lava lake, is now below the water table and researchers believe the pond is coming from that groundwater.

Lava interacting with the water table can cause explosive eruptions.

Two United pilots held for alleged intoxication before flight

LONDON

Police in Scotland say two pilots have been arrested on suspicion of being under the influence of alcohol or drugs before a scheduled flight to New Jersey.

The flight, United Airlines 162 to Newark, New Jersey, was due to leave Glasgow Airport at 9 a.m. today. It was canceled after the arrests.

Police Scotland said the 61-year-old and 45-year-old pilots were held under the section of a transportation safety law that covers on the job intoxication and impairment for aviation.

Under the law, the legal alcohol limit for pilots, navigators and other flight personnel subjected to breath tests is less than half the drink-drive limit for motorists on Scotland’s roads.

Ohio vehicle crash burns down barn, kills cows

SANDUSKY

The State Highway Patrol says a one-car accident in northern Ohio has resulted in a vehicle crashing into a barn, igniting a fire and killing about a dozen cows.

The patrol said the crash occurred around 1:30 a.m. Saturday in Sandusky County’s Townsend Township.

The 26-year-old driver was taken to a hospital for injuries the patrol said are not considered life-threatening.

The patrol said the woman veered off state Route 412 and drove into a barn that erupted in flames. Between 10 and 15 cows were thought to have been inside the barn at the time.

Witnesses helped get the woman to safety.

The patrol said it appears the woman was impaired at the time of the crash.

Associated Press