From the Associated Press

MADRID (AP) — Spanish authorities arrested a 32-year-old man for the death of two police officers in February when a speedboat suspected to belong to drug smugglers smashed into their patrol craft, Spain’s Civil Guard said Thursday.

The incident occurred on Feb 9, when the Civil Guard craft was on patrol identifying speedboats spotted in the southern port of Barbate. Video footage showed a speedboat slamming into the craft in the port’s waters.

The Civil Guard said in a statement that it had arrested one suspect and asked a local court to issue international arrest warrants for three people who were in the speedboat, due to the belief that the others have been outside Spain since shortly after the incident.

Two other members of the six-person crew were hurt, the Civil Guard said in February.

Spain’s coast near the Strait of Gibraltar is a hotspot for drug smuggling from Morocco into Europe.

From the Associated Press

MANCHESTER, Vt. (AP) — Philip Bourn will soon be retiring as chief of the Manchester Fire Department for the second time, following almost 40 years of service as a Manchester firefighter.

Bourn, more affectionately referred to by his childhood nickname “Grub,” won’t be hanging his helmet just yet, however. He will continue to serve among the MFD’s ranks, under the leadership of incoming chief Chris Towslee.

“I’ve been here long enough; I need a break from it, they need a break from me, but I’m not going anywhere,” Bourn laughed. “I’ll still be around, and as Chris steps in I’ll be by his side.”

Towslee isn’t entirely new to the position. When Bourn stepped down after five years as chief in 1999, Towslee took control of the Fire Department until 2003.

Though he’s willing to take the reins once again, Towslee says that a lack of new recruits has been a factor in both his and Bourn’s recurring leadership.

“There’s not really anybody that wanted to step into the chief’s shoes per se, or wear the big helmet,” Towslee explained. “Some of the other firefighters asked me if I’d step up and take over for Grub, and try to make the transition easier.”

Attracting new recruits will be a major goal during his time as chief, Towslee says, alongside keeping morale strong. Those are important goals for a department that continues to age, Bourn explains, with no clear line of succession.

“Most of the guys that have been here for 25 or 30 years are getting older, and we need young members,” said Bourn, who has found hope in initiatives like Manchester’s zoning revision, intended to attract younger residents to the region among other goals. “Hopefully when you get those young people, you’ll also get some who want to join the Fire Department. In another five years, it’s not going to be pretty around here.”

“Hopefully the word gets out there that we are a good group of people, and more recruits will come forward and be willing to join this group of firefighters,” Towslee added. “We’re trying to get some more training for the guys below us, so that we’ll have more people who are willing to move up the ladder and someday be chief.”

Still, the position is an intensive one. Beyond the duty to respond to emergencies and train, the fire chief is expected to put in an average of twenty hours per week on top of other professional and familial obligations. As Towslee points out, there’s something that needs to be done every day.

“This town has gotten a lot bigger, and the responsibility of being fire chief in the town of Manchester has grown with it,” he said. “Fighting fires is one thing, but the responsibility behind it is a lot to take in, and a lot to cover.”

“Being chief, the firefighting is the easiest part,” Bourn said. “Managing 35 to 40 guys, and trying to keep everybody happy, is not easy.”

For Bourn, who has also owned the local Bourn’s Tire and Auto Center for over 40 years, that heavy workload eventually took its toll. After discovering health issues last year, he underwent heart surgery this summer. With a business to manage, a fire department to run, and more than 100 plowing accounts on his plate, Bourn says that it was time to slow down.

Though he now has a clean bill of health, Bourn has also decided to put his business on the market in the interest of retiring.

“When the doctor says you need to slow down, that you might have a heart attack or stroke, you pay attention to that,” Bourn said. “I hadn’t realized that I was sick; I lost my fight.”

His commitment to maintain an active role in the department has made the transition easier, Bourn said, and he’s proud of the work that he’s done for the Manchester community. In his time as chief, Bourn says that he has overseen the procurement of an upgraded radio system, a 95-foot tower truck, and the construction of a new public safety facility.

Though Bourn admits that his goals were lofty in retrospect, the chief notes that he had a family legacy to live up to.

“My father was fire chief for 18 years,” Bourn said. “He was chief when I was born in 1953, and he was chief until 1970. I was going through some paperwork the other day when I found some that had his signature on it, from the 1950’s.”

In his own retirement, Bourn says that his goals are to “plow snow, teach, and play golf in the summer.” As a Vermont state fire instructor, the chief hopes to continue sharing the knowledge he’s accumulated over the years.

“I’m not going to stop working; it would kill me,” Bourn said. “I’ll go back to driving and pumping water, and I’m going to put more emphasis on teaching fire training.”

“His knowledge will be a big asset to the department,” Towslee said, expressing his gratitude for Bourn’s service to the town of Manchester. “We have a good group of firefighters. We’ll still be the same group of guys willing to go out there and do our job when we’re called upon.”

While Bourn is grateful to have been continually re-elected a chief over the last decade, he explains that it was time to take a step back, and keep an eye focused on the future.

“I’m going to miss it, but there’s a time when you’ve got to say that enough is enough,” Bourn said. “I’ve had a hell of a good run of this, and I felt that this was a good time to get out.”

By  EUGENE GARCIA and TRÂN NGUYỄN from the Associated Press

HIGHLAND, Calif. (AP) — Out-of-control wildfires in the foothills of a national forest east of Los Angeles and in a recreational area south of Reno, Nevada, threatened buildings and forced hundreds of residents to flee amid a days-long heat wave of triple-digit temperatures.

In California, the so-called Line Fire was burning along the edge of the San Bernardino National Forest, about 65 miles (105 kilometers) east of Los Angeles. As of Monday morning, the blaze had charred about 32 square miles (83 square kilometers) of grass and chaparral and blanketed the area with a thick cloud of dark smoke.

It remained uncontained, threatening more than 36,000 structures, including single and multi-family homes and commercial buildings, the U.S. Forest Service said.

About 20 miles outside Reno, Nevada, the Davis Fire, which started Sunday afternoon, has grown to about 10 square miles (26 square kilometers). It originated in the Davis Creek Regional Park in the Washoe Valley and was burning in heavy timber and brush, firefighters said. It, too, was not contained.

An emergency declaration issued for Washoe County by Gov. Joe Lombardo on Sunday said about 20,000 people were evacuated from neighborhoods, businesses, parks and campgrounds. Some of south Reno remained under the evacuation notice on Monday, firefighters said, and some homes, businesses and traffic signals in the area were without power.

The California fire burned so hot Saturday that it created its own thunderstorm-like weather systems of pyroculumus clouds, which can create more challenging conditions such as gusty winds and lightning strikes, according to the National Weather Service. Firefighters worked in steep terrain in temperatures above 100 degrees (38 Celsius), limiting their ability to control the blaze, officials said. State firefighters said three firefighters had been injured.

Evacuations were ordered Saturday evening for Running Springs, Arrowbear Lake, areas east of Highway 330 and other regions.

Running Springs resident Steven Michael King said he had planned to stay to fight the fire and help his neighbors until Sunday morning, when the fire escalated. He had prepped his house to prevent fire damage but decided to leave out of fear smoke could keep him from finding a way out later.

“It came down to, which is worse, being trapped or being in a shelter?” King said outside an evacuation center Sunday. “When conditions changed, I had to make a quick decision, just a couple of packs and it all fits in a shopping cart.”

Joseph Escobedo said his family has lived in Angelus Oaks for about three years and has never had to evacuate for wildfire. His family, with three young children, was among the remaining few who hadn’t left as of Sunday afternoon.

“It’s kind of frightening with the possibility of losing your home and losing everything we worked really hard for,” Escobedo said as his family packed up the essentials to leave. ”It’s hard to leave and not be sure if you’re gonna be able to come back.”

The affected area is near small mountain towns in the San Bernardino National Forest where Southern California residents ski in the winter and mountain bike in the summer. Running Springs is on the route to the popular ski resort town of Big Bear.

Smoke already blanketed downtown San Bernardino, where Joe Franco, a worker at Noah’s Restaurant, said his friends in the surrounding evacuation zones were gearing up to leave at a moment’s notice.

“They’re just kind of hanging on tight and getting their stuff ready to move,” Franco said. ”Normally they’re here, but a lot of people are not coming today.”

Redlands Unified School District cancelled Monday classes for roughly 20,000 students, and Gov. Gavin Newsom proclaimed a state of emergency for San Bernardino County.

Meanwhile, a small vegetation fire, less than a square mile (2.6 square kilometers), burned at least 30 homes and commercial buildings and destroyed 40 to 50 vehicles Sunday afternoon in Clearlake City, 110 miles (117 kilometers) north of San Francisco, officials said. Roughly 4,000 people were forced to evacuate by the Boyles Fire, which was about 10% contained Monday morning.

—-

Associated Press reporter Kathy McCormack in New Hampshire contributed to this story.

By  BRUCE SCHREINER from the Associated Press

LONDON, Ky. (AP) — More than a dozen school districts shut down classes Monday across a wide swath of southeastern Kentucky as a grueling search stretched into a third day for a gunman who opened fire on an interstate highway and wounded five people over the weekend.

Administrators in Rockcastle County, just north of where the shooting took place, told the school community they decided to close classes while the shooter is still at large ”out of an abundance of caution.”

“As always, the safety of our students and our staff is our Number One priority, ” the school district said in a social media message.

To the south of Laurel County, where the shooting took place, schools were also closed in Knox County “as a precautionary measure to ensure student and staff safety,” the district said in a social media message. Classes also were cancelled at three regional college campuses.

Fog temporarily delayed resumption of the search Monday morning, state police said.

Authorities vowed to keep up a relentless pursuit of the gunman as the stress level remained high for residents and law enforcement officers.

Searches have been combing through a rugged, hilly area of southeastern Kentucky since Saturday evening, when a gunman began shooting at drivers on Interstate 75 near London, a small city of about 8,000 people about 75 miles (120 kilometers) south of Lexington.

“We’re not going to quit until we do lay hands on him,” Laurel County Sheriff John Root said Sunday night.

Joseph A. Couch, 32, was named first as a person of interest and later as a suspect in the shooting after authorities said they recovered his SUV on a service road near the crime scene. They later found a semi-automatic weapon nearby that they believe was used in the shooting, said Deputy Gilbert Acciardo, a spokesperson for the local sheriff’s office.

Laurel County Attorney Jodi L. Albright said Sunday night that no tip from the public is too small and that Couch “will be brought to justice, and justice will be served.”

“That tip may be the tip that solves the case and brings him to justice,” Albright said.

But Albright also acknowledged the vastness of the search area.

“He could be there for a long time, if he’s still alive,” Albright said, adding, “I understand that people are afraid. I get that.”

Capt. Richard Dalrymple of the Laurel County Sheriff’s Office said authorities are doing everything they can.

“The longer we continue, and the more area we clear and the more places we are sure he is not, the safer people are going to be,” he said. “And I’m confident eventually we’ll figure it out and we’ll find him.”

On Sunday, as another day of searching was ending without any sign of the suspect, Acciardo acknowledged the frustration that law enforcement officers and people who live near the search area are feeling.

“As this continues, it becomes more stressful for the community, it becomes more stressful for the officers that are there because we’re looking … and we’re trying to find him, and we haven’t found him,” he said.

State police Master Trooper Scottie Pennington, a spokesman for the London state police post, said troopers are being brought in from around the state to aid in the search. He described the extensive search area as “walking in a jungle” with machetes needed to cut through thickets of woods.

Acciardo said it appears that the attacker planned the shooting for that location because it is very remote and the terrain is hilly, rocky and hard to navigate.

Pennington urged area residents to lock doors, keep porch lights on and monitor security cameras. The search was focused on a remote area about eight miles north of London.

Authorities said Couch purchased the weapon and about 1,000 rounds of ammunition Saturday morning in London. Couch has a military background, having served in the National Guard for at least four years, said Dalrymple of the Laurel County Sheriff’s Office.

The U.S. Army said in a statement that Couch was in the Army Reserve from March 2013 to January 2019 as a 12B combat engineer.

“He was a private at the end of service,” the Army said. “He has no deployments.”

Authorities initially said nine vehicles were struck by gunfire, but later increased that number to 12, saying some people did not realize their cars had been hit by bullets until they arrived home. They said the gunman fired a total of 20 to 30 rounds.

Couch most recently lived in Woodbine, a small community about 20 miles (32 kilometers) south of the shooting scene. Acciardo said authorities found his abandoned vehicle Saturday and then an AR-15 rifle on Sunday in a wooded area near a highway where “he could have shot down upon the interstate.” A phone believed to be Couch’s was also found by law enforcement, but the battery had been taken out.

Some residents of Laurel County were on edge as authorities searched with a drone, helicopter and on foot in a remote and sparsely populated wooded area near the busy interstate.

Cody Shepherd, waiting to watch a football game at the Pour Boyz Sports Lounge in London on Sunday, said locals were abuzz with speculation. A resident of London, he was at a party Saturday at a friend’s house about 10 miles (16 kilometers) south of where the shooting happened.

“We were listening to the police scanners all night,” he said, adding they heard sirens and saw a helicopter overhead.

Acciardo said specially trained officers were deployed through the night in strategic locations in the woods to prevent the gunman from slipping through.

“We’ve got to get him,” Acciardo said.

From the Associated Press

LONDON (AP) — A fire engulfed an apartment building in east London early Monday, forcing its evacuation and sending two people to the hospital.

The London Fire Brigade said the fire was reported at 2:44 a.m. and the entire building was affected, including scaffolding surrounding the property and the roof.

The London Ambulance Service said four people were treated at the scene and two were taken to a hospital.

As many as 40 fire engines and about 225 firefighters responded to the fire at the building, which has both residential and commercial units. The cause of the blaze isn’t yet known.

Shortly after midday, the London Fire Brigade announced that all residents of the building had been accounted for.

From the Associated Press

BRUNSWICK, Maine (AP) — Firefighting foam in a hangar at Brunswick Executive Airport has been been removed, and mitigation is underway on four retention ponds following Maine’s biggest accidental spill of the fire suppressant on record, officials said Monday.

The Maine Center for Disease Control and Prevention advised the public not to consume or to limit consumption of freshwater fish from four nearby bodies of water following the accidental discharge of firefighting foam containing harmful chemicals known as PFAS.

An investigation is underway into why a fire suppression system discharged Aug. 19 in Hangar 4, releasing 1,450 gallons (5,490 liters) of firefighting foam concentrate mixed with 50,000 gallons (190,000 liters) of water at the former Navy base. Federal records show the spill is the biggest accidental discharge in Maine since its recordkeeping began in the 1990s.

Aircraft that were doused are undergoing a final cleaning inside the hangar, and then the hangar will be cleaned for a final time, officials said Monday. Four vacuum trucks were deployed to remove foam from the retention ponds, officials said.

PFAS are associated with health problems including several types of cancer, and they are found in everything from food packaging to clothing, in addition to firefighting foam. Last year, the Environmental Protection Agency, for the first time, proposed limits on the so-called forever chemicals in drinking water.

The Maine Department of Environmental Protection is overseeing the remediation at the former Brunswick Naval Air Station, now known as Brunswick Landing. The base, which officially closed in 2011, had automated fire suppression in large hangars that once housed P-3 Orion patrol aircraft and other planes.

PLEASANT HILL, Iowa (AP) — A water buffalo is on the loose in an Iowa town, and police are warning people that it is injured and aggressive.

Police in the Des Moines suburb of Pleasant Hill responded Saturday to a call about an animal in the road. It turned out to be a water buffalo, and the owner told police the animal was aggressive.

That proved to be the case when police and animal rescue and control groups began trying to contain the water buffalo and return it to the owner’s property. Those efforts “led the animal to show its aggressiveness toward Pleasant Hill officers which resulted in one round being fired from a shotgun, injuring the animal,” police said in a Facebook posting on Monday.

The wounded water buffalo got away. Police used drones and ATVs to try and find it and brought in people with expertise in water buffaloes. As of Tuesday morning, the animal was still on the lam in the town of about 11,000 residents.

“If anyone sees a Water Buffalo, DO NOT APPROACH IT,” police said on Facebook.

Water buffaloes can weigh up to 2,650 pounds, according to the website for National Geographic, though the Iowa animal appears smaller in photos. Often domesticated, the water buffalo is the largest member of the Bovini tribe, which includes yak, bison, African buffalo, various species of wild cattle, and others, the website said.

By CHARLOTTE GRAHAM-McLAY from the Associated Press

WELLINGTON, New Zealand (AP) — A man who died when the helicopter he was flying crashed onto a hotel roof in Australia was an employee of the aviation company that owned the aircraft, but he did not work as a pilot and had not flown in Australia before, the company said Tuesday.

Nautilus Aviation said in a statement that he was a member of its ground crew and while he held a helicopter pilot’s license in New Zealand, he was not authorized to fly the company’s helicopters. The man’s name was not released to the public.

About 400 people were evacuated from the DoubleTree Hilton in the far north Queensland city of Cairns on Monday morning when the helicopter crashed onto the roof and burst into flames.

Two hotel guests were briefly hospitalized for smoke inhalation. No one else on the ground was hurt.

Authorities were investigating how the helicopter was able to take off from Cairns Airport and the man’s reason for making the flight, they said in Cairns on Monday. Queensland Police Service Acting Chief Superintendent Shane Holmes said they believed the crash was an isolated incident and there was no ongoing public safety threat.

The man had worked at Nautilus Aviation for four months and had recently been promoted to a ground crew job at another of the company’s bases, the company said. Before the crash, the man had attended a social event with colleagues to mark his departure to the new position, it said.

Search suspended for pilot and passenger after tour helicopter crash off Hawaii’s Kauai island
The flight was unauthorized and the helicopter “misappropriated,” the company added.

Cairns Airport CEO Richard Barker said in a statement Tuesday that a review showed “no compromise of our airport fence or access points.”

The airport operated under “a federally approved, multi-layered transport security program,” Barker said.

The crash happened in a busy tourist district of Cairns, a tropical city of 150,000 people where it is currently peak season for holidaymakers.

From the Associated Press

PETERSBURG, Va. (AP) — A shooting injured four people at Virginia State University early Wednesday, police said. Charges are pending against multiple suspects, and there was no further threat to the community, officials said.

Officers responded to a report of a shooting at the university south of Richmond around 12:30 a.m. and found four people who were shot, Chesterfield County Police said in a news release. All four were taken to hospitals with injuries not considered life-threatening, police said.

None of the victims or suspects are enrolled for the fall semester, according to university spokesperson Gwen Williams Dandridge. Classes start next week, but freshmen and student leaders are already on campus this week, she said.

County and university police are investigating. No officers discharged firearms, police said.

The university enrolls about 4,000 students, according to its website.

By  GEIR MOULSON from the Associated Press

BERLIN (AP) — Part of a hotel in a winemaking town on the Mosel River in western Germany collapsed, authorities said, leaving two people dead and trapping seven others in the wreckage overnight. The last person was rescued some 24 hours later, on Wednesday night.

Fourteen people were in the hotel in Kroev when one story of the building collapsed at about 11 p.m. on Tuesday. Police said five were able to get out of the building unhurt because they were not in the part that collapsed, but others were trapped.

Rescuers were able to contact some of them by cellphone. But getting to them proved difficult because the collapse of one story left two ceilings lying on top of each other, according to Joerg Teusch, fire and disaster protection inspector for the Bernkastel-Wittlich district.

“We have to proceed with caution because the entire building structure is like a house of cards. If we pull on the wrong card, this building is sure to collapse,” he said as rescuers worked through the wreckage on Wednesday morning.

A woman who was among the seven trapped was the last to be rescued Wednesday night, police said.

Michael Ebling, the top security official in Rhineland-Palatinate state, where Kroev is located, said the fact that so many people could be rescued “stands out in view of this event, the damage and the dimensions one can see with the naked eye.”

Among the first to be saved was a 2-year-old child, who was pulled out unharmed, and the child’s mother, who was rescued with minor injuries. The child’s father was rescued later.

“We all had tears in our eyes and I still feel the same now. The whole story has a very emotional component, because when we arrived, when we looked at the building, it looked like we weren’t taking anyone out,” Teusch said at a news conference.

Teusch said the cause of the structural collapse is yet to be determined.

The original hotel building is believed to date back to the 17th century, but additional stories were added around 1980, he said. He added that work was being done on the building on Tuesday, but it wasn’t clear whether there was any link between that and the collapse.

Regional public broadcaster SWR said that witnesses reported hearing a bang and seeing a large cloud of dust at the time of the collapse.

The rescue operation involved 250 emergency workers, including drone specialists, as well as rescue dogs.

“There was no option (to use) stairs, house entrances, doors or windows, because they were simply no longer there,” Teusch said.

Authorities also evacuated 21 people from three buildings immediately around the damaged hotel. The hotel guests at the time of the collapse were largely German, apart from a Dutch family.

Two Germans, a man and a woman, died. Rescuers were able to recover one of the bodies but police said they would have to remove a section of the building on Thursday to recover the other.

Kroev is located along a picturesque section of the Mosel near the larger resort town of Traben-Trarbach. It has about 2,200 inhabitants.