Firefighters scrambled Friday to control a raging inferno in southeastern Oregon that’s spreading miles a day in windy conditions, one of numerous conflagrations across the West that are straining resources.
Authorities ordered a new round of evacuations Thursday amid worries the Bootleg Fire, which has already destroyed 21 homes, could merge with another blaze that also grew explosively amid dry and blustery conditions.
The Bootleg Fire, the largest wildfire currently burning in the U.S., had torched more than 377 square miles by Friday morning and was just 7% contained. It has stymied firefighters for nearly a week with erratic winds and extremely dangerous fire behavior.
Early on, the fire doubled in size almost daily, and strong winds from the south on Thursday afternoon yet again pushed the flames rapidly to the north and east.
The fire has the potential to move 4 miles or more in an afternoon, and there was concern it could merge with the smaller, yet still explosive Log Fire.
Afghan forces battle Taliban at border post with Pakistan
Afghan government forces battled Friday to retake a border crossing with Pakistan from Taliban insurgents, and the Reuters news agency said one of its photographers was killed in the area.
The Taliban had overrun the Spin Boldak crossing earlier in the week. On Friday, witnesses on the Pakistan side of the border said they saw intense fighting and reported seeing bodies.
Reuters said Pulitzer Prize-winning photographer Danish Siddiqui, who was embedded with the Afghan special forces, was killed as the commando unit sought to recapture Spin Boldak.
The agency said Siddiqui and a senior Afghan officer were killed in what they described as Taliban crossfire. “We are urgently seeking more information, working with authorities in the region,” Reuters President Michael Friedenberg and Editor-in-Chief Alessandra Galloni said in a statement.
Hundreds greet Aristide on return to troubled Haiti
Former President Jean-Bertrand Aristide returned to Haiti on Friday after a nearly a month in Cuba, thrilling hundreds of supporters who gathered at the airport at a time of tensions over the recent assassination of the country’s leader.
Aristide, a charismatic-yet-divisive figure in Haiti who was receiving unspecified medical treatment in Cuba, arrives back in a country simmering with tension over the July 7 assassination of President Jovenel Moise as new details about the investigation emerged.
Police Chief Leon Charles said 24 police officers were standing guard when a group of heavily armed men attacked the president’s private house. He said they have been interrogated and that a fifth high-ranking police official has been placed in isolated detention with four others, although none have been named as suspects.
Interim Prime Minister Claude Joseph said the government will continue to bring those responsible to justice.
“We will continue to pose questions,” he said.
3 men charged over 2018 fatal Missouri tourist boat accident
A local prosecutor on Friday filed a total of 63 felony criminal charges against three employees over a July 2018 tourist boat accident on a Missouri lake that killed 17 people.
The charges were filed in Stone County against the captain, the general manager and the manager on duty the day of the accident for the Ride the Ducks attraction on Table Rock Lake near the tourist mecca of Branson.
The charges against Capt. Kenneth Scott McKee of Verona, general manager Curtis Lanham of Galena and manager on duty Charles Baltzell of Kirbyville came seven months after a federal judge dismissed charges filed by federal prosecutors, concluding that they did not have jurisdiction.
Ramaphosa vows army will return order to South Africa
Standing at the entrance to a looted mall and surrounded by soldiers, South African President Cyril Ramaphosa vowed Friday to restore order to the country after a week of violence set off by the imprisonment of former President Jacob Zuma.
Visiting the port city of Durban in hard-hit KwaZulu-Natal province, Zuma’s home area, Ramaphosa said the chaos and violence had been “planned and coordinated” and that the instigators will be prosecuted.
“We have identified a good number of them, and we will not allow anarchy and mayhem to just unfold in our country,” he said.
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