Death toll in Florida collapse rises to 4; 159 still missing
SURFSIDE, Fla. — With nearly 160 people unaccounted for and at least four dead after a seaside condominium tower collapsed into a smoldering heap of twisted metal and concrete, rescuers used both heavy equipment and their own hands to comb through the wreckage on Friday in an increasingly desperate search for survivors.
As scores of firefighters in Surfside, just north of Miami, toiled to locate and reach anyone still alive in the remains of the 12-story Champlain Towers South, hopes rested on how quickly crews using dogs and microphones could complete their grim, yet delicate task.
“Any time that we hear a sound, we concentrate in that area,” Miami-Dade Assistant Fire Chief Raide Jadallah said. “It could be just steel twisting, it could be debris raining down, but not specifically sounds of tapping or sounds of a human voice.”
Buffeted by gusty winds and pelted by intermittent rain showers, two heavy cranes began removing debris from the pile using large claws in the morning, creating a din of crashing glass and metal as they picked up material and dumped it to the side. A smoky haze rose from the site.
GOP senators balk at terms of Biden infrastructure bill
WASHINGTON — President Joe Biden’s bipartisan infrastructure deal was thrown in doubt Friday as Republican senators felt “blindsided” by his insistence that it must move in tandem with his bigger package, while the White House doubled down on the strategy and said it should have come as no surprise.
The rare accord over some $1 trillion in investments faced new uncertainty barely 24 hours after Biden strode to the White House driveway, flanked by 10 senators from a bipartisan group, with all sides beaming over the compromise.
“I’ve been on the phone with the White House, my Democratic colleagues, my Republican colleagues, all darn day,” said Sen. Rob Portman of Ohio, the lead Republican negotiator, in an interview Friday.
“My hope is that we’ll still get this done. It’s really good for America. Our infrastructure is in bad shape,” he said. “It’s about time to get it done.”
From wire sources
Biden vows ‘sustained’ help as Afghanistan drawdown nears
WASHINGTON — President Joe Biden on Friday promised Afghanistan’s top leaders a “sustained” partnership even as he moves to accelerate winding down the United States’ longest war amid escalating Taliban violence.
Afghan President Ashraf Ghani and Abdullah Abdullah, chair of the High Council for National Reconciliation, met at the Pentagon with Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin before their sit-down with Biden at the White House later in the afternoon. While Biden vowed that the U.S. was committed to assisting Afghanistan, he also insisted that it was time for the American military to step back.
“Afghans are going to have to decide their future,” Biden said in brief remarks at the start of his meeting with the Afghan leaders. Biden did not elaborate on what a ”sustained” partnership might entail.
The leaders’ visit to Washington comes as the Biden administration has stepped up plans for withdrawal ahead of the president’s Sept. 11 deadline to end a nearly 20-year-old war that has come with a breathtaking human cost.
Ghani also paid a visit on his own Friday to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and with House Republican lawmakers. He met with Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell on Thursday.
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Historic heat wave blasts Northwest as wildfire risks soar
PORTLAND, Ore. — The Pacific Northwest sweltered Friday and braced for even hotter weather through the weekend as a historic heat wave hit Washington and Oregon, with temperatures in many areas expected to top out up to 30 degrees above normal.
The extreme and dangerous heat was expected to break all-time records in cities and towns from eastern Washington state to Portland to southern Oregon as concerns mounted about wildfire risk in a region that is already experiencing a crippling and extended drought.
Seattle was expected to edge above 100 degrees Fahrenheit over the weekend and in Portland, Oregon, weather forecasters said the thermometer could soar to 108 F by Sunday, breaking an all-time record of 107 F set in 1981. Unusually hot weather was expected to extend into next week for much of the region.
Seattle has only hit 100 F three times in recorded history, the National Weather Service said, and there was a chance it could eclipse the record of 103 F on Monday.
“If you’re keeping a written list of the records that will fall, you might need a few pages by early next week,” NWS Seattle tweeted, as it announced that the city had already tied a record Friday for the highest morning-low temperature.
Officer asks McCarthy to denounce GOP remarks on Jan. 6 riot
WASHINGTON — A police officer who was injured in the Jan. 6 Capitol insurrection confronted House Republican leader Kevin McCarthy in a meeting on Friday, asking him to publicly denounce statements by GOP members who have voted against honoring police and downplayed the violence of the attack.
Officer Michael Fanone has said for weeks that he wanted to meet with McCarthy, who has opposed the formation of a bipartisan commission to investigate the attack and has remained loyal to former President Donald Trump. It was a violent mob of Trump’s supporters that laid siege to the Capitol and interrupted the certification of Joe Biden’s presidential election victory after Trump told them to “fight like hell” to overturn his defeat.
Fanone said after the meeting that he had asked McCarthy to denounce 21 House Republicans who recently voted against giving police officers a congressional medal of honor for defending the Capitol and also Georgia Rep. Andrew Clyde, who had compared video of the rioters to a “tourist visit.”
He said McCarthy told him he would “address it in a personal level with some of those members,” a response he said wasn’t satisfactory. McCarthy’s office did not respond to a request for comment on the meeting.
As the House Republican leader, Fanone said, “it’s important to hear those denouncements publicly.” And as a police officer who served that day, he said, “that’s not what I want to hear.”
