Gang with past abductions blamed for kidnapping missionaries
PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti — A notorious Haitian gang known for brazen kidnappings and killings was accused by police Sunday of abducting 17 missionaries from a U.S.-based organization. Five children were believed to be among those kidnapped, including a 2-year-old. The 400 Mawozo gang kidnapped the group in Ganthier, a community that lies east of the capital of Port-au-Prince, Haitian police inspector Frantz Champagne told The Associated Press. The gang was blamed for kidnapping five priests and two nuns earlier this year in Haiti. The gang, whose name roughly translates to 400 “inexperienced men,” controls the Croix-des-Bouquets area that includes Ganthier, where they carry out kidnappings and carjackings and extort business owners, according to authorities. Ohio-based Christian Aid Ministries said the kidnapped group consisted of 16 U.S. citizens and one Canadian, for a total of five children, seven women and five men. The organization said they were on a trip to visit an orphanage.
CG: 1,200-foot ship dragged California oil pipeline
Investigators believe a 1,20 0-foot cargo ship dragging anchor in rough seas caught an underwater oil pipeline and pulled it across the seafloor, months before a leak from the line fouled the Southern California coastline with crude. A team of federal investigators trying to chase down the cause of the spill boarded the Panama-registered MSC DANIT just hours after the massive ship arrived this weekend off the Port of Long Beach, the same area where the leak was discovered in early October. During a prior visit by the ship during a heavy storm in January, investigators believe its anchor dragged for an unknown distance before striking the 16-inch steel pipe, Coast Guard Lt. j.g. SondraKay Kneen said Sunday. The impact would have knocked an inch-thick concrete casing off the pipe and pulled it more than 100 feet, bending but not breaking the line, Kneen said. Still undetermined is whether the impact caused the October leak, or if the line was hit by something else at a later date or failed due to a preexisting problem, Kneen said.
Bill Clinton back home after hospitalization
from infection
ORANGE, Calif. — Bill Clinton arrived Sunday at his home in New York to continue recovering from an infection that left him in treatment for six days at a Southern California hospital, officials said. The former president left the University of California Irvine Medical Center around 8 a.m. with Hillary Clinton on his arm.Bill Clinton’s “fever and white blood cell count are normalized, and he will return home to New York to finish his course of antibiotics,” Dr. Alpesh N. Amin said in a statement shared on Twitter by a Clinton spokesman. Clinton, 75, was admitted Tuesday to the hospital southeast of Los Angeles with an infection unrelated to COVID-19. He arrived Sunday evening at his home in Chappaqua, New York, to continue his recovery.
By wire sources
