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China warehouse explosion: New blasts and toxic winds and rising death toll

TIANJIN, China (AP) — Authorities pulled more bodies from a massive blast site in the Chinese port of Tianjin, pushing the death toll to 112 on Sunday as teams scrambled to clear dangerous chemical contamination.

Hundreds of people were injured and 85 firefighters and 10 others are missing since a fire and rapid succession of blasts late Wednesday hit a warehouse for hazardous chemicals in a mostly industrial area of Tianjin, 120 kilometers (75 miles) east of Beijing.

New small explosions continued to rock the locked-down disaster zone over the weekend.

Angry relatives of the missing firefighters stormed a government news conference Saturday to demand any information on their loved ones. The death toll includes at least 21 firefighters — making the disaster the deadliest for Chinese firefighters in more than six decades.

Two state-run Chinese news outlets, The Paper and the Southern Metropolis, reported that the warehouse was storing 700 tons of sodium cyanide — 70 times more than it should have been holding at one time, and that authorities were rushing to clean it up.

Sodium cyanide is a toxic chemical that can form a flammable gas upon contact with water.

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Smoke billows out from the site of an explosion that reduced a parking lot filled with new cars to c …

Authorities also detected the highly toxic hydrogen cyanide in the air slightly above safety levels at two locations, The Paper cited Tianjin environmental official Wen Wurui as saying. But the contamination was no longer detected later Saturday, the report said.

The disaster has raised questions about whether dangerous chemicals were being stored too close to residential compounds, and if poor decisions unnecessarily sent firefighters into the harm's way. The massive explosions Wednesday happened about 40 minutes after reports of a fire at the warehouse and after an initial wave of firefighters arrived and, reportedly, doused some of the area with water.

Rescuers pulled out a survivor from a shipping container on Saturday, state media reported. Fooage showed the 56-year-old man being carried out on a sketcher by a group of soldiers wearing gas masks. He remained in critical condition Sunday, local media reported.

Authorities were keeping residents, journalists and other people not involved in the disaster response outside a 3-kilometer (1.8-mile) radius around the site of the explosions in what media reports said was an operation to clean up the sodium cyanide.

Heavy smoke from a fire engulfing several cars rose as high as 10 meters (yards), accompanied by at least five explosions.

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Smoke rises from debris near a crater that was at the center of a series of explosions in northeaste …

Police and the military set up checkpoints on roads leading to the blast sites, and helicopters hovered in the overcast sky. The air had a metallic chemical smell, and there was fear that rains mixed the chemicals could set off more explosions.

Meanwhile, family members of missing firefighters barged in at the news conference complaining about lack of information.

"(The authorities) didn't notify us at all," said Liu Huan, whose son Liu Chuntao has been missing since late Wednesday. "Our son is a firefighter, and there was a team of firefighters who lost contact. We couldn't contact him."

Liu Longwang said she had not heard a word on her son Liu Ziqiao, also a firefighter. "We are extremely worried," she said. "He just turned 18."

State media reported that the casualties of the first three squads of firefighters to respond and of a neighborhood police station have not yet been fully determined.

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A firefighter walks among damaged vehicles as smoke rises amidst shipping containers at the site of …

Another firefighter, 19-year-old Zhou Ti, was found Friday morning and taken to a hospital.

Li Yonghan, a doctor at Teda Hospital, called Zhou's survival "miraculous" and said Zhou escaped death mainly because he was covered by his fallen comrades. Zhou had massive injuries, including burns and leg cuts.

From his hospital bed, Zhou told state broadcaster CCTV that the fire was spreading out of control. "I was knocked onto the ground at the first blast," recalled Zhou, his eyes swollen and closed. "I covered my head and don't know what happened after that."

Local officials have been hard-pressed to explain why authorities permitted hazardous goods warehouses so close to residential complexes and critical infrastructure, clearly in violation of the Chinese rule that hazmat storage should be 1,000 meters (yards) away from homes and public structures.

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Associated Press videojournalist Peng Peng in Tianjin and writers Didi Tang, Ian Mader, and Christopher Bodeen in Beijing contributed to this report.

High pressure system cranks up the heat across the West

PHOENIX (AP) — Much of the West was smothered in a blanket of heat Saturday with triple-digit temperatures hitting Phoenix, Los Angeles and other cities.

Above-normal temperatures were expected through the weekend as a high-pressure system centered over New Mexico acted like a lid to block cooler air, leaving valleys, deserts and mountains high and very dry.

Authorities warned people not to leave small children or pets in cars, where temperatures can quickly soar. Los Angeles and other cities were keeping libraries and other facilities open late to serve as cooling shelters for those without air conditioning.

Phoenix broke a daily record Saturday, reaching 115 degrees, topping a 1992 record by 3 degrees, the National Weather Service said.

"Stay inside if you can," Dan Leins, a weather service meteorologist in Phoenix, said. "It's dangerous, regardless of how acclimated you are to the climate, because it can be deadly."

Mike Stephens took precautions for an early-morning run in Estrella Regional Park, a desert and mountain wilderness area in Phoenix. He carried 1 ½ liters of water and was careful not to overdo it.

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Luis Soto, 8, cools off in the splash pad at Catalina Park in Tucson, Ariz., on Friday, Aug. 14, 201 …

"You have to know what your body can do," he said.

In the desert 50 miles south of Phoenix, Maricopa County Sheriff's deputies rescued three migrants who had been out of water for at least three days. Teams were searching for about 17 others who were heading from the Mexican border north.

The National Weather Service issued warnings of excessive heat throughout Southern California into Saturday night, with some areas expected to see highs of 10 to 15 degrees above normal, said Scott Sukup, a weather service meteorologist in Oxnard.

The mercury hit 96 degrees in downtown Los Angeles, with the San Fernando Valley and other inland valleys ranging up to 107. Palm Springs hit 118, tying an old record set in 1992, and Death Valley's high reached 123, according to the weather service.

The high in Las Vegas was 109 degrees.

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A boy tries to catch a fish in Echo Park Lake near downtown Los Angeles on Friday, Aug. 14, 2015. Th …

The Western heat wave began Thursday and was expected to continue through Sunday.

"There's been a big area of high pressure that was over New Mexico and it's been expanding westward," Sukup said.

The heat, coupled with low humidity, has increased the fire danger in California, where some two dozen major fires in recent weeks have destroyed thousands of acres of trees and brush left bone-dry by years of drought.

Winds were light "but it's so hot and dry right now that it's not going to take a lot of wind to spread fires," he said.

A brushfire that erupted Friday afternoon in forest foothills north and east of Los Angeles quickly grew to 4 square miles, torched several cabins and remained out of control Saturday. Firefighters worked in triple-digit heat and several were treated for dehydration or heat exhaustion.

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Visitors in a paddle boat cool themselves under a large fountain in Echo Park Lake near downtown Los …

Temperatures were expected to be cooler in California's coastal regions, with highs in the 80s.

About 1 million people were expected to hit 32 miles of Los Angeles County beaches this weekend, county lifeguard Capt. Kenichi Haskett said.

But they might have to share the water with some prickly guests.

Calm, warm waters have drawn the barb-tailed stingray to the surf line, where they bask in the shallows and burrow in the sand, Haskett said.

"We could have a couple of hundred at Santa Monica Bay," he said.

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Geese eat food left for them in the shade of a palm tree at Echo Park Lake near downtown Los Angeles …

About two dozen people were stung Thursday and Friday, he said.

The venomous stings are painful but not lethal.

Stingrays aren't aggressive but will respond if stepped on. Haskett said people can avoid stings by doing the "stingray shuffle" — shuffling their feet through the sand when entering the water to give the stingrays warning.

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Associated Press writer Robert Jablon contributed to this story from Los Angeles.

Washington (AFP) - A St Louis County police officer is being investigated after apparently bragging on Facebook about how he spent his "bonus" for working during recent protests in Ferguson, Missouri, the Guardian reported.

The officer, Todd J Bakula, apparently generated extra income while policing protests marking the first anniversary of the police shooting of black teen Michael Brown.

That shooting set off weeks of unrest last year and became one of a series of high-profile deaths calling into question how US police officers interact with black men.

The anniversary protests, initially peaceful, devolved into violence and looting on Sunday night.

In a Facebook posting under the user name TJ Thekoola, Bakula wrote he was "spending my annual Michael Brown bonus on a nice relaxing bicycle ride trip" and staying at a bed and breakfast with his wife, the Guardian said.

St Louis County police spokesman Shawn McGuire told the Guardian that the post was "controversial" and would be investigated by the department.

Bakula did not respond to questions from the newspaper.

Cop brags of 'Michael Brown bonus' on Facebook

A St. Louis County officer said he was taking a "nice relaxing bicycle ride trip" after policing protests in Ferguson, Mo.
Investigation

A man walks past the AT&T store in New York's Times Square, June 17, 2015. REUTERS/Brendan McDermid

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Telecommunications powerhouse AT&T Inc has provided extensive assistance to the U.S. National Security Agency as the spy agency conducts surveillance on huge volumes of Internet traffic passing through the United States, the New York Times reported on Saturday, citing newly disclosed NSA documents.

The newspaper reported that the company gave technical assistance to the NSA in carrying out a secret court order allowing wiretapping of all Internet communications at the headquarters of the United Nations, an AT&T customer.

The documents date from 2003 to 2013 and were provided by fugitive former NSA contractor Edward Snowden, the Times reported.

The company helped the spy agency in a broad range of classified activities, the newspaper reported.

The documents describe how the NSA's working relationship with AT&T has been particularly important, enabling the agency to conduct surveillance, under various legal rules, of international and foreign-to-foreign Internet communications that passed through network hubs in the United States.

AT&T installed surveillance equipment in at least 17 of its U.S. Internet hubs, far more than competitor Verizon Communications Inc , the Times reported. AT&T engineers also were the first to use new surveillance technologies invented by the NSA, the Times reported.

"This is a partnership, not a contractual relationship," according to one NSA document describing the link between the agency and the company.

AT&T's "corporate relationships provide unique accesses to other telecoms and I.S.P.s," or Internet service providers, according to another NSA document.

AT&T started in 2011 to provide the NSA more than 1.1 billion domestic cellphone calling records daily after "a push to get this flow operational prior to the 10th anniversary of 9/11," referring to the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on the United States, the Times reported.

AT&T's providing of foreign-to-foreign Internet traffic has been especially important to the NSA because large amounts of the world's Internet communications pass across U.S. cables, the Times reported. The company gave access to contents of transiting email traffic years before Verizon started in March 2013, the Times reported.

Asked to comment on the Times report, AT&T spokesman Brad Burns told Reuters by email: "We do not voluntarily provide information to any investigating authorities other than if a person’s life is in danger and time is of the essence. For example, in a kidnapping situation we could provide help tracking down called numbers to assist law enforcement."

Burns said AT&T would have nothing further to say on the report.

(Reporting by Will Dunham; Editing by Peter Cooney)

Report: AT&T gave extensive assistance to NSA

The telecom giant helped the spy agency in a broad range of activities including wiretapping at the UN.
'This is a partnership'

Jerusalem (AFP) - Hundreds of Israeli Arabs staged a peaceful protest Saturday in support of a Palestinian held by Israel who has slipped into a coma after nearly two months on hunger strike.

Approximately 200 people including members of parliament joined the rally led by Sheikh Raed Salah, a firebrand preacher who heads the Islamic Movement's radical northern wing.

Demonstrators at the rally in Wadi Ara, north Israel, carried Palestinian flags and placards calling for the immediate release of 31-year-old Mohammed Allan and an end to his administrative detention, a procedure allowing indefinite detention without charge.

Allan, an Islamic Jihad activist who has been held since November, has been on hunger strike since June 18, according to the Palestinian Prisoners Club.

On Friday, he lost consciousness at the Barzilai hospital in Ashkelon and was given fluids and salts intravenously, and is breathing with the aid of an artificial respirator.

A hospital spokeswoman on Saturday said his condition was stable, noting that the treatment was approved by Allan's family and adding that he would stay on the respirator at least until Sunday.

Allan had been refusing food as well as medical treatment, and it was feared he might be force-fed just weeks after Israel passed a law enabling the controversial procedure.

In the southern West Bank city of Hebron dozens of demonstrators also held a peaceful rally for Allan, holding his picture and demanding his immediate release, an AFP reporter said.