In brief | Nation & World | 4-4-14

Documents: Washington county considered buying up homes in area of deadly landslide

SEATTLE — A decade before a colossal landslide buried a Washington community, county officials considered buying up people’s homes there to protect them from such a disaster.

A 2004 Snohomish County flood-management plan said the cost of buying Oso properties and removing residents from the path of a potential slide “would be significant, but would remove the risk to human life and structures.”

But after weighing several options, the county instead recommended a project to shore up the base of the unstable hillside above the community about 55 miles north of Seattle, according to documents first reported by The Seattle Times.

A huge log wall was eventually built to reduce landslide and flood risks. But it wasn’t enough to hold back the square mile of dirt, sand and silt that barreled down the hillside March 22, leveling homes and killing at least 30 people.

Some area residents and their family members say they knew nothing of the landslide danger or home-buyout proposals.

David Letterman ‘wrapping things up’ as CBS ‘Late Show’ host, announces retirement next year

NEW YORK — David Letterman’s departure from the late-night realm won’t just end an unmatched run on television.

During a taping of Thursday’s edition of “Late Show,” Letterman startled his audience with the news that he will step down in 2015, when his current contract with CBS expires.

He specified no end date, saying he expects his exit will be in “at least a year or so, but sometime in the not too distant future — 2015, for the love of God, (band leader) Paul (Shaffer) and I will be wrapping things up.”

What he’ll be wrapping up is three decades on the air — the longest tenure of any late-night talk show host in U.S. television history — since he launched “Late Night” at NBC in 1982.

Texas executes serial killer with new supply of lethal drug from secret provider

HUNTSVILLE, Texas — A serial killer was put to death Thursday in Texas after the U.S. Supreme Court rejected his lawyers’ demand that the state release information about where it gets its lethal injection drug.

Tommy Lynn Sells, 49, was the first inmate to be injected with a dose of newly replenished pentobarbital that Texas prison officials obtained to replace an expired supply of the powerful sedative. When asked if he wanted to make a statement before his execution, Sells replied: “No.”

As the drug began flowing into his arms inside the death chamber in Huntsville, Sells took a few breaths, his eyes closed and he began to snore. After less than a minute, he stopped moving. He was pronounced dead at 6:27 p.m. CDT — 13 minutes after being given the pentobarbital.

Terry Harris, whose 13-year-old daughter, Kaylene Harris, was fatally stabbed by Sells in 1999 in South Texas, watched as Sells was executed, saying the injection was “way more gentle than what he gave out.”

Australia says more planes added to search for missing Malaysian passenger jet

PERTH, Australia — Search crews hunting for Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 headed back out to a remote patch of the Indian Ocean on Friday, a day after leaders of the two countries heading multinational efforts to find the missing jetliner vowed that no effort would be spared to give closure to the families of those on board.

More resources were committed to the search Friday, with 14 planes and nine ships planning to scour an 84,000-square-mile expanse about 1,100 miles northwest of Perth, the Joint Agency Coordination Center overseeing the search said. Ten planes were involved in Thursday’s search.

Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott met with staff on Friday at the Australian Maritime Safety Authority, which is running the search efforts, and acknowledged officials have no idea how long the hunt would continue.

By wire sources