Author Archives: Reuters News Agency

Evacuees urged not to return home after devastation from storm Ida

By Devika Krishna Kumar

NEW ORLEANS (Reuters) -Evacuees who fled Ida before the storm hammered southern Louisiana are being urged not to return home just yet as the U.S. Gulf Coast begins an arduous recovery from one of the most powerful storms ever to hit the region.

Three days after the Category 4 hurricane came ashore, more than a million homes and businesses remained without electricity. Power was restored to some customers in the eastern part of New Orleans on Wednesday morning, Entergy Corp said. But the utility warned it may take weeks to return service in some areas where transmission towers had crumpled into heaps of metal.

The storm killed at least four people and left many thousands more in misery. Countless homes were destroyed and towns were flooded, evoking memories of Hurricane Katrina, which killed some 1,800 and nearly destroyed New Orleans 16 years ago.

Although weakened, Ida still posed a threat to parts of the United States on Wednesday. The National Weather Service warned that the remnants of the storm could dump up to eight inches of rain across the Mid-Atlantic region into southern New England, triggering “potentially life-threatening” flooding.

Along the Gulf Coast, officials were unable to complete a full damage assessment because fallen trees were blocking many roads, U.S. Federal Emergency Management Agency chief Deanne Criswell said.

In one sign of desperation, cars lined up for nearly a mile on Tuesday as volunteers distributed drinking water at Lockport, Louisiana.

The community is near one of the hardest-hit towns, Houma, population 33,000 and about 50 miles (80 km) southwest of New Orleans. The storm ripped off roofs and felled power lines as it hovered over the area for hours, maintaining much of its strength.

Officials of Terrebonne Parish, which includes Houma, issued a statement imploring people not to return, saying there was no electricity, water service was unreliable, emergency shelters were damaged, and none of the hospitals were operating.

“Evacuees: DO NOT, DO NOT, DO NOT come back to Terrebonne Parish if you evacuated,” officials said in advisory posted on Twitter by a reporter for WWL television.

“There is NO medical care because there are no operating hospitals in Terrebonne Parish right now,” the notice said, adding that previously admitted patients were being moved.

Houma residents Scott and Daria Hebert told WAFB television they regretted not evacuating ahead of time and were attempting to flee on Tuesday.

“It was just so tenacious. It just stayed, probably seven or eight hours of just hammering us,” Scott Hebert said.

“This was our Katrina, basically,” Daria Hebert added.

Compounding the suffering, parts of Louisiana and Mississippi were under heat advisories, with a heat index in much of the area reaching 95 degrees Fahrenheit (35 degrees Celsius) on Tuesday, the National Weather Service said.

Even the power generators were hazardous. Nine people in St. Tammany Parish northeast of New Orleans were taken to hospital overnight for carbon monoxide poisoning from a gas-fueled generator, local media reported.

Power officials have told leaders in Jefferson Parish south of New Orleans that its roughly 440,000 people may have to manage without electricity for a month or longer after utility poles toppled across the county, councilman Deano Bonano said in a telephone interview.

“The damage from this is far worse than Katrina from a wind standpoint,” said Bonano.

Among the four deaths were two people killed in the collapse of a southeastern Mississippi highway that critically injured 10 others. One man died attempting to drive through high water in New Orleans and another when a tree fell on a Baton Rouge home.

(Reporting by Devika Krishna Kumar in New Orleans; Additional reporting by Dan Whitcomb in Los Angeles and Maria Caspani in New York; Writing by Daniel Trotta; editing by Richard Pullin and Steve Orlofsky)

Texas’s near-total abortion ban takes effect after Supreme Court inaction

By Andrew Chung and Gabriella Borter

(Reuters) -A Texas ban on abortions after six weeks of pregnancy took effect on Wednesday after the U.S. Supreme Court did not act on a request by abortion rights groups to block the law, which would prohibit the vast majority of abortions in the state.

Abortion providers worked until almost the midnight deadline, when the court’s inaction allowed the most restrictive ban in the country to be enforced while litigation continues in the groups’ lawsuit challenging its constitutionality.

The law amounts to a near-total ban on abortion procedures given that 85% to 90% of abortions occur after six weeks of pregnancy, and would likely force many clinics to close, the groups said.

Such a ban has never been permitted in any state since the Supreme Court decided Roe v. Wade, the landmark ruling that legalized abortion nationwide, in 1973, they said.

At Whole Women’s Health in Fort Worth, clinic staff worked up to midnight, serving 25 patients in the 2-1/2 hours before the deadline, said spokeswoman Jackie Dilworth.

The national group said its Texas locations, also including Austin and McKinney, remained open on Wednesday.

“We are providing all abortion medication and abortion procedures, but as long as the patient has no embryonic or fetal cardiac activity,” Dilworth said. “Our doors are still open, and we’re doing everything we can to come within the law but still provide abortion care to those who need us.”

Planned Parenthood and other women’s health providers, doctors and clergy members challenged the law in federal court in Austin in July, contending it violated the constitutional right to an abortion.

The law, signed on May 19, is unusual in that it gives private citizens the power to enforce it by enabling them to sue abortion providers and anyone who “aids or abets” an abortion after six weeks. Citizens who win such lawsuits would be entitled to at least $10,000.

Abortion providers say the law could lead to hundreds of costly lawsuits that would be logistically difficult to defend.

In a legal filing, Texas officials told the justices to reject the abortion providers’ request, saying the law “may never be enforced against them by anyone.”

“Texas Right to Life is thankful that the Texas Heartbeat Act is now in effect. We are now the first state ever to enforce a heartbeat law. We still await word from SCOTUS,” spokeswoman Kimberlyn Schwartz said in a statement, using an acronym for Supreme Court of the United States.

‘ALL-OUT EFFORT’

Democratic U.S. House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi blasted the Texas move.

“This radical law is an all-out effort to erase the rights and protections of Roe v Wade,” Pelosi wrote on Twitter. Using the legislation’s number, she added, “we will fight SB8 and all immoral and dangerous attacks on women’s health and freedoms with all our strength.”

A court could still put the ban on hold, and no court has yet ruled on its constitutionality, Stephen Vladeck, a professor at the University of Texas at Austin School of Law, wrote in a tweet.

“Despite what some will say, this isn’t the ‘end’ of Roe,” he wrote.

Texas is among a dozen mostly Republican-led states that have enacted “heartbeat” abortion bans, which outlaw the procedure once the rhythmic contracting of fetal cardiac tissue can be detected, often at six weeks – sometimes before a woman realizes she is pregnant.

Courts have blocked such bans.

The state of Mississippi has asked the Supreme Court to overturn Roe v. Wade in a major case the justices agreed to hear over a 2018 law banning abortion after 15 weeks.

The justices will hear arguments in their next term, which begins in October, with a ruling due by the end of June 2022.

The Texas challenge seeks to prevent judges, county clerks and other state entities from enforcing the law.

A federal judge rejected a bid to dismiss the case, prompting an immediate appeal to the New Orleans, Louisiana-based 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, which halted further proceedings.

On Sunday, the 5th Circuit denied a request by the abortion providers to block the law pending the appeal. The providers then asked the Supreme Court for an emergency ruling.

(Reporting by Andrew Chung in New York and Gabriella Borter in Washington; Editing by Scott Malone, Gerry Doyle and Jonathan Oatis)

Thousands displaced as wildfire threatens California’s Lake Tahoe resort area

By Sharon Bernstein

TRUCKEE, Calif. (Reuters) – Firefighters battled to protect homes on the fringe of tinder-dry forests near Lake Tahoe on Tuesday as a wildfire chased thousands of residents and tourists from the popular resort destination in California’s Sierra Nevada range.

The so-called Caldor fire, burning since mid-August in the mountains east of the state capital, Sacramento, crested a ridgeline and roared downslope toward communities at the southern end of the Tahoe basin on Monday, triggering mass evacuations.

Traffic crammed local roads as South Lake Tahoe, a town of 22,000 residents, rapidly emptied out along with several nearby villages, leaving an area normally thronged by summer vacationers largely empty – except for the smoke.

By Tuesday, the blaze had charred more than 191,000 acres (77,300 hectares) of drought-parched forests, some 14,000 acres (5,665 hectares) more than the day before, while firefighters had managed to carve containment lines around just 16% of its perimeter.

At least 669 homes and other structures were listed as destroyed on Tuesday, up nearly 200 from a day earlier, with 34,000 other buildings considered threatened, according to the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection (Cal Fire).

No deaths have been reported. Three firefighters and two civilians were injured in recent days.

As of Tuesday, nearly 4,000 personnel and a squadron of over two dozen water-dropping helicopters were assigned to the blaze, whose cause remained under investigation.

Only the Dixie fire, which has charred 771,000 acres (312,000 hectares) farther north in the Sierras, has engulfed more territory this year than Caldor.

Both fires are among nearly two dozen raging across California and scores of others elsewhere in the West, during a summer fire season shaping up as one of the most destructive on record. The blazes have been stoked by extremely hot, dry conditions that experts say are symptomatic of climate change.

More than 6,800 wildfires large and small have blackened an estimated 1.7 million acres (689,000 hectares) within California alone this season, stretching available firefighting forces and equipment dangerously thin. Cal Fire and U.S. Forest Service officials have described ferocious fire behavior seen across the region as unprecedented.

The Forest Service has closed all 18 national forests in California to the public through mid-September, an extraordinary measure the agency has taken only once before – amid last year’s catastrophic fire season. The shutdown officially begins at midnight on Tuesday.

(Reporting by Sharon Bernstein in Truckee, Calif; Writing and additional reporting by Steve Gorman in Los Angeles; Editing by Peter Cooney)

No evidence that Ivory Coast patient had Ebola, says WHO

(Reuters) -New testing has found no evidence that the woman in Ivory Coast who tested positive earlier this month for Ebola actually had the virus, the World Health Organization (WHO) said on Tuesday.

“WHO considers that the patient did not have Ebola virus disease and further analysis on the cause of her illness is ongoing,” it said in a statement.

The positive result was found by a lab in Ivory Coast but subsequent testing in France came back negative, WHO said.

The initial test led Ivory Coast on Aug. 14 to declare its first Ebola outbreak in over 25 years. The woman had travelled to Ivory Coast’s commercial capital Abidjan from northern Guinea, hundreds of kilometers (miles) away.

More than 140 of the woman’s contact were listed in Guinea and Ivory Coast but none of them developed symptoms or tested positive, WHO said.

Ebola typically kills about half of those it infects, although vaccines and new treatments have proven highly effective in reducing fatality rates.

(Reporting by Aaron Ross; Editing by Leslie Adler and Sandra Maler)

Pennsylvania governor issues mask mandate for schools, child care facilities

By Brendan O’Brien

(Reuters) -Pennsylvania Governor Tom Wolf on Tuesday issued a mask mandate for all K-12 school and child care facilities to protect against the spread of COVID-19, three weeks after the Democrat said he would leave the decision to individual districts.

The order, which goes into effect Sept. 7, comes amid a surge in COVID-19 cases due to the highly-contagious Delta variant of the virus.

Since July, Pennsylvania’s COVID-19 case load has increased from less than 300 a day to more than 3,000 a day, according to the state’s health department.

“With case counts increasing, the situation has reached the point that we need to take this action to protect our children, teachers and staff. The science is clear,” the state’s acting Health Secretary Alison Beam said in a statement.

The decision comes as millions of public education students head back to schools across the United States. School districts, state education agencies and governors across the nation are grappling with masking and vaccination requirements.

In South Carolina, for example, the state’s supreme court heard arguments on Tuesday in two cases involving mask mandates in city of Columbia schools.

The order in Pennsylvania requires students, teachers and staff to wear masks in all public and private K-12 schools. The order also applies to child care providers and early learning programs. The order does not apply to school sports or outdoor activities.

In early August, Wolf said he intended to leave the decision to require masks in schools up to individual districts.

“Unfortunately, an aggressive nationwide campaign is spreading misinformation about mask-wearing and pressuring and intimidating school districts to reject mask policies that will keep kids safe and in school,” he said.

(Reporting by Brendan O’Brien in Chicago; Editing by Chris Reese and Bill Berkrot)

U.S. regulator rejects Canadian National’s voting trust to buy Kansas City Southern

(Reuters) – The U.S. Surface Transportation Board (STB) on Tuesday rejected a voting trust proposed by Canadian National Railway Co for its $29 billion deal to buy U.S. railroad operator Kansas City Southern.

Shares of Kansas City Southern were down 3% after the decision, while the U.S.-listed shares of Canadian National Railway were trading up 5%.

The rail regulator’s ruling is a blow to Canadian National, which is locked in a takeover battle for Kansas City with smaller rival Canadian Pacific Railway Ltd, as the companies jostle to create the first direct railway linking Canada, the United States and Mexico.

“The Board finds that the proposed use of a voting trust in the context of the impending control application does not meet the standards under the current merger regulations,” the regulator said in a statement.

Canadian Pacific’s voting trust was approved by the STB when the company had initially struck a $25 billion deal in March, only to be trumped later by Canadian National.

CP then improved its offer to $27 billion this month, hoping antitrust concerns will give it an edge over its larger rival, but Kansas City rejected the new bid though the offer remains on the table.

A voting trust would insulate the acquisition target from the acquirer’s control until the STB clears the deal on a permanent basis.

The ruling comes amid sweeping executive orders issued by President Joe Biden aimed at promoting competition in the U.S. economy.

One such order encouraged the STB to consider Amtrak’s statutory rights when assessing whether a rail merger is in public interest.

Passenger railroad Amtrak, which is majority owned by the U.S. government, had opposed the Canadian National’s voting trust, saying its pledge to divest the Baton Rouge to New Orleans line will harm future passenger service in Louisiana.

Canadian National and Kansas City Southern did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

(Reporting by Shreyasee Raj and Abhijith Ganapavaram in Bengaluru; Editing by Sriraj Kalluvila)

Taliban supporters hold mock U.S. funeral as troops leave Afghanistan

(Reuters) – Taliban supporters paraded coffins draped with American and NATO flags in the eastern city of Khost on Tuesday, part of celebrations across the country following the withdrawal of the last U.S. troops.

The mock funeral, in which coffins covered in French and British flags were also carried along the street through a large crowd, marked the end of a 20-year war and a hasty and humiliating exit for Washington and its NATO allies.

Some of the crowd held guns aloft, while others waved Taliban flags or snapped the procession on mobile phones.

“August 31 is our formal Freedom Day. On this day, American occupying forces and NATO forces fled the country,” Taliban official Qari Saeed Khosti told local television station Zhman TV during its coverage of the event.

Footage from Khost was shared widely on social media on Tuesday alongside other videos of celebratory gunfire in the capital Kabul and a man dangling from a U.S.-made Black Hawk helicopter circling above Afghanistan’s second-city Kandahar. Reuters could not verify all the videos.

The last U.S. soldier boarded the final flight out of Afghanistan a minute before midnight on Monday, ending a chaotic evacuation of 123,000 civilians from Afghanistan.

In a lightning sweep back to power, the Taliban ousted a government backed and equipped by the United States and captured U.S.-made weapons and hardware left behind by fleeing Afghan forces.

Other images shared online on Tuesday showed Taliban members walking through Kabul airport in U.S.-supplied fatigues, some brandishing gleaming rifles and others trying out state-of-the-art night vision goggles or sizing up U.S. helicopters.

Pentagon spokesman John Kirby said the U.S. military was not concerned by the images as the helicopters could not be flown. The departing U.S. troops destroyed more than 70 aircraft and dozens of armored vehicles. They also disabled air defenses that had thwarted an attempted Islamic State rocket attack on the eve of their departure.

(Writing by John Geddie; editing by Philippa Fletcher)

U.S. consumer confidence falls to 6-month low; house prices post record gains

By Lucia Mutikani

WASHINGTON (Reuters) -U.S. consumer confidence fell to a six-month low in August as concerns about soaring COVID-19 infections and higher inflation dampened the outlook for the economy.

The survey from the Conference Board on Tuesday also showed consumers were less upbeat about the labor market. They were less inclined to buy a home and big-ticket items like motor vehicles and major household appliances over the next six months, supporting the view that consumer spending will cool in the third quarter after two straight quarters of double-digit growth.

Still, more consumers planned to go on vacation, indicating a rotation in spending from goods to services was underway as economic activity continues to normalize following the upheaval caused by the coronavirus pandemic. Increased spending on services, which account for the bulk of economic activity, should keep a floor under consumer spending.

“While the resurgence of COVID-19 and inflation concerns have dampened confidence, it is too soon to conclude this decline will result in consumers significantly curtailing their spending in the months ahead,” said Lynn Franco, senior director of economic indicators at the Conference Board in Washington.

It mirrored the University of Michigan’s survey of consumers, which showed sentiment tumbling in August because of rising prices for goods like food and gasoline, as well as the resurgence in COVID-19 cases that has been driven by the Delta variant of the coronavirus.

The Conference Board’s so-called labor market differential, derived from data on respondents’ views on whether jobs are plentiful or hard to get, slipped to 42.8 this month from 44.1 in July. This measure closely correlates to the unemployment rate in the Labor Department’s closely watched employment report.

Fewer households intended to buy long-lasting manufactured goods such as motor vehicles and household appliances like washing machines and clothes dryers, the survey showed. But the share of consumers planning to go on vacations rose, with most expecting to travel domestically and many intending to fly to their destinations. That should help to offset the drag from reduced spending on goods.

Despite the anticipated slowdown, the foundation for consumer spending remains strong, with households sitting on at least $2.5 trillion in excess savings accumulated during the pandemic. Gross domestic product growth estimates for the third quarter are around a 5% annualized rate. The economy grew at a 6.6% pace in the second quarter.

Stocks on Wall Street were trading mostly lower after recent strong gains. The dollar was largely flat against a basket of currencies. U.S. Treasury prices were lower.

HOME PRICES JUMP

The Conference Board survey also showed less enthusiasm among consumers for home purchases over the next six months amid higher house prices, which are sidelining some first-time buyers from the market.

Demand for housing soared early in the pandemic as Americans sought more spacious accommodations for home offices and home schooling, but supply severely lagged, fueling house price growth. COVID-19 vaccinations have allowed some employers to recall workers to offices. Schools and universities have reopened for in-person learning.

A separate report on Tuesday showed the S&P CoreLogic Case-Shiller national home price index jumped a record 18.6% in June from a year ago after rising 16.8% in May. Economists, however, believe that house price inflation has peaked, with homes becoming less affordable especially for first-time buyers.

“Some early data suggests that the buyer frenzy experienced this spring is tapering, though many buyers still remain in the market,” said Selma Hepp, deputy chief economist at CoreLogic. “Nevertheless, less competition and more for-sale homes suggest we may be seeing the peak of home price acceleration. Going forward, home price growth may ease off but stay in the double digits through year-end.”

A separate report from the Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA) showed its house price index rose a record 18.8% in the 12 months through June. House prices surged 17.4% in the second quarter compared to the same period in 2020. FHFA believes house prices peaked in June.

The FHFA index is calculated by using purchase prices of houses financed with mortgages sold to or guaranteed by mortgage finance companies Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.

(Reporting by Lucia Mutikani; Editing by Paul Simao)

U.S. agency says Tigrayan forces looted aid warehouses in Ethiopia’s Amhara region

ADDIS ABABA (Reuters) – Forces from Ethiopia’s Tigray region in recent weeks looted warehouses belonging to the U.S. government’s humanitarian agency in the Amhara region, USAID’s Ethiopia director said on Tuesday.

War broke out in the mountainous region last November between Ethiopian troops and the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF), which controls the region. The conflict has killed thousands and caused a humanitarian crisis.

After retaking control of most of Tigray in late June and early July, Tigrayan forces pushed into the neighboring Afar and Amhara regions, displacing several hundred thousand more people from their homes.

“We do have proof that several of our warehouses have been looted and completely emptied in the areas, particularly in Amhara, where TPLF soldiers have gone into,” the director Sean Jones told state broadcaster EBC in a televised interview.

“I do believe that the TPLF has been very opportunistic,” he added.

Representatives for the TPLF and Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed’s office did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

Up to 900,000 people in Tigray are already in famine conditions, while five million others are in desperate need of humanitarian assistance, USAID estimates.

For the first time in nine months of war, aid workers will run out of food this week to deliver to millions of people who are going hungry, the head of USAID said last week, blaming the government for restricting access.

The Tigrayan forces and the federal government have repeatedly traded accusations of hampering the flow of aid.

(Reporting by Nairobi newsroom; Writing by Duncan Miriri; Editing by Maggie Fick and Grant McCool)

Haiti former first lady calls for help in unraveling husband’s murder

By Dave Sherwood

(Reuters) – The widow of Haiti’s slain President Jovenel Moise called on the international community to help track down those responsible for gunning down her husband in a late night raid by suspected mercenaries at the couple’s home in July.

Moise’s assassination plunged the Caribbean nation, already plagued by hunger and gang violence, further into chaos, and triggered a hunt for the masterminds across the Americas.

Wearing a black dress and sling following the injuries she suffered during the attack, Martine Moise told Reuters in a room flanked by bodyguards on Monday that while Haitian authorities had made some advances, she feared progress had slowed.

“I feel that the process is… stalling a little,” she said. “The people that did this are still out there, and I don’t know if their name will ever be out. Every country that can help, please help.”

Nearly two months after the July 7 assassination of her husband, key aspects of the murder remain shrouded in mystery. Haitian police have arrested more than three dozen suspects, including 18 Colombian mercenaries, an obscure Haitian-American doctor they say aspired to be president, and the head of Moise’s security team.

But they have made public little in the way of evidence.

“Those people (they have arrested) did it, but someone gave the orders, someone gave the money,” Moise told Reuters.

She said she had spoken twice with the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and felt they could “find the people that financed that odious crime.”

As security worries have dogged the investigation in Haiti, one judge investigating the case stepped down, citing concerns for his safety.

First lady Moise said Haiti’s Prime Minister Ariel Henry, who is also now dealing with the aftermath of an August earthquake that killed more than 2,000 people, must call for elections as soon as possible to ensure stability.

“I think the advice that my husband would give him (is) try to have an election. With the election you can have peace, you can think long term,” she said.

Elections initially slated for September have been postponed until November, and some have speculated they could be delayed further following the quake.

“If they want elections to happen, (they) will,” said Moise.

Moise confirmed previous comments she had made in interviews on her interest in running for president herself but said that she would take care of her family first.

“I want to run for president. I won’t let the vision of the president die with him. With the earthquake too, there’s a lot to be done in Haiti,” she said.

HAITI RUMOR MILL

Amid the ongoing investigation and arrests, conspiracy theories about the murder in Haiti have swirled for weeks.

Friends of the murdered president have told Reuters he feared for his life immediately before he was killed.

His wife on Monday said he had not talked to her of a specific plot against him.

“If he knew he would talk about it… but he never did,” she said. “Because having Colombians, having soldiers here in Haiti, they are here for something.”

She denied social media rumors that Moise had squirreled away millions in cash in his official residence in the upscale suburb of Petion-Ville.

“It is a president. There is some money. But the amount of $48 million that I heard in social media, that can’t be true. Where in the room (can you stick) $48 million?”

(Reporting by Dave Sherwood, Editing by Rosalba O’Brien)