Astronaut John Glenn laid to rest at Arlington National Cemetery

FILE PHOTO - STS-95 crewmember, astronaut and U.S. Senator John Glenn poses for his official NASA photo taken April 14,1998. Courtesy NASA/Handout via REUTERS

(Reuters) – John Glenn, the first American to orbit the earth who later became the world’s oldest astronaut and a longtime U.S. senator, was laid to rest on Thursday at Arlington National Cemetery in Virginia.

Glenn, who author Tom Wolfe once called “the last true national hero America has ever had,” died four months ago in his home state of Ohio at the age of 95.

After a private service at a chapel on the cemetery grounds, a horse-drawn carriage pulled Glenn’s flag-draped casket to his burial site. There was a short graveside ceremony broadcast online by NASA Television. Then, Gen. Robert Neller, Commandant of the Marine Corps, handed the flag that had draped the casket to Glenn’s 97-year-old widow, Annie Glenn. She kissed him.

Glenn was a Marine Corps test pilot when he was chosen to be one of the seven original U.S. astronauts. He was the third American in space, the first to orbit the earth.

His three laps around the world on Feb. 20, 1962, in a space capsule called Friendship 7, forged a powerful link between the former fighter pilot and the Kennedy-era quest to explore outer space as a “New Frontier.” After his mission, he received a hero’s welcome including a tickertape parade near Wall Street, in New York City’s “Canyon of Heroes.”

Wolfe chronicled the experiences of the original seven U.S. astronauts in his book, “The Right Stuff,” which later became a popular movie.

Glenn’s widespread popularity helped him get elected as a Democratic candidate to the U.S. Senator from his home state of Ohio, which he represented from 1974 to 1999.

Just before the end of his Senate career, in October 1998, the 77-year-old Glenn became the oldest astronaut, serving as a mission specialist on the seven-member crew of the space shuttle Discovery.

The NASA launch announcer at the time said, “Liftoff of Discovery with six astronaut heroes and one American legend.”

(Reporting by Bernie Woodall in Fort Lauderdale, Fla.)

Six dead, two missing as floods hit Indian-ruled Kashmir

People wade through a flooded street after incessant rains in Srinagar April 7, 2017. REUTERS/Danish Ismail

SRINAGAR, India (Reuters) – Six people were killed and two were reported missing in India’s northern region of Kashmir on Friday, after heavy rain and snowfall swept the region, setting off avalanches and turning mountain rivers into raging torrents.

Helicopters were deployed to rescue people cut off by flash floods that revived memories of 2014, when the Jhelum River flowing through the region’s main city, Srinagar, burst its banks, swamping homes and killing 200 people.

Snowfalls triggered multiple avalanches, defense spokesman Rajesh Kalia told Reuters.

“A post in Batalik sector was buried,” he added. “Two out of five soldiers have been rescued. A rescue operation for three soldiers was in progress and three bodies have been recovered.”

In the Poonch region, an Indian Air Force helicopter was guided by a soldier holding a flare toward a group of villagers stranded on the far bank of a river. They climbed a rope ladder into the craft, which then flew them to safety.

Rajiv Pandey, senior superintendent of police in Poonch, said 17 people were evacuated from the area.

In Srinagar, the summer capital of the state of Jammu and Kashmir, some low-lying districts along the Jhelum were swamped but residents said the river was starting to recede.

“We are relieved as the water level is receding and the rains are reducing,” said one resident. “We are praying that rain should stop.”

(Reporting by Fayaz Bukhari and Reuters Television; Writing by Douglas Busvine; Editing by Clarence Fernandez)

Israeli soldier killed in Palestinian car ramming in West Bank: army

Israeli forces inspect the scene of a Palestinian car ramming attack near the Jewish settlement of Ofra near the West Bank city of Ramallah April 6, 2017. REUTERS/ Ammar Awad

JERUSALEM (Reuters) – The Israeli military said a car driven by a Palestinian deliberately rammed two Israeli soldiers, killing one and injuring the other, in the occupied West Bank on Thursday.

The death brings to 39 the number of Israelis killed in a wave of Palestinian street attacks that began in October 2015, while at least 242 Palestinians have been killed in Israel and the Palestinian Territories over the past 18 months.

The driver was detained after the incident near the Jewish settlement of Ofra, the army said in a statement. Witnesses told Israeli media that as he approached a bus stop, he accelerated and directed the vehicle at two soldiers waiting there.

Israeli government development of settlements in the West Bank has been a focus of friction with Palestinians and contributed to the breakdown of peace talks. Israel disputes the view that the settlements are illegal, and argues it has biblical and historical ties to the land.

Israel says at least 162 of the Palestinians killed had launched stabbing, shooting or ramming attacks. Others died during clashes and protests.

Israel has accused the Palestinian leadership of inciting the violence. The Palestinian Authority, which exercises limited self-rule in the occupied West Bank, denies incitement and charges that in many cases, Israel has used excessive force in thwarting attackers armed with rudimentary weapons.

Photos from the scene of Thursday’s incident showed the driver, bound, blindfolded and guarded by a soldier, seated next to his damaged car, in the undergrowth behind the bus stop. The vehicle had Palestinian license plates.

Five days ago, Israeli paramilitary police officers shot dead a Palestinian after he stabbed three Israelis in Jerusalem’s Old City.

(Writing by Jeffrey Heller; editing by Ralph Boulton; Editing by Hugh Lawson)

Assad tells paper he sees no ‘option except victory’ in Syria

Syria's President Bashar al-Assad speaks during an interview with Croatian newspaper Vecernji List in Damascus, Syria, in this handout picture provided by SANA on April 6, 2017. SANA/Handout via REUTERS

BEIRUT (Reuters) – Syrian President Bashar al-Assad said there is no “option except victory” in the country’s civil war in an interview published on Thursday, saying the government could not reach “results” with opposition groups that attended recent peace talks.

The interview with Croatian newspaper Vecernji List appeared to have been conducted before U.S. President Donald Trump accused Assad of crossing “many, many lines” with a poison gas attack on Tuesday.

Assad was not asked about the chemical attack in the northwestern Syrian town of Khan Sheikhoun, a text of the interview published by the Syrian state news agency SANA showed. The government has strongly denied any role.

More than six years into the Syrian conflict, Assad appears militarily unassailable in the areas of western Syria where he has shored up his rule with decisive help from the Russian military and Iranian-backed militias from across the region.

The interview published on Thursday underlined Assad’s confidence as he reiterated his goal of dealing a total defeat to the insurgency. He also reiterated his rejection of federalism sought by Kurdish groups in northern Syria.

“As I said a while ago, we have a great hope which is becoming greater; and this hope is built on confidence, for without confidence there wouldn’t be any hope. In any case, we do not have any other option except victory,” he said.

“If we do not win this war, it means that Syria will be deleted from the map. We have no choice in facing this war, and that’s why we are confident, we are persistent and we are determined,” he said.

More than 70 people, including at least 20 children, were killed in the chemical attack on Tuesday.

The Russian allies say the deaths were caused by a leak from an arms depot where rebels were making chemical weapons, after it was hit in a Syrian air strike. Rebels deny this.

Rebels have in recent weeks launched two of their boldest offensives in many months, attacking in Damascus and north of the government-held city of Hama. The army says both assaults have been repelled.

Assad, citing recent rebel offensives in Damascus and near the northern city of Hama, said “the opposition which exists is a jihadi opposition in the perverted sense of jihad”.

“That is why we cannot, practically, reach any actual result with this part of the opposition (in talks). The evidence is that during the Astana negotiations they started their attack on the cities of Damascus and Hama and other parts of Syria, repeating the cycle of terrorism and the killing of innocents.”

The Russian-backed Astana talks were launched with support from Turkey, a major backer of the opposition to Assad. They sponsored a ceasefire between the government and rebels which has been widely violated since it was declared in December.

A new round of indirect peace talks concluded in Geneva in late March without any major breakthrough towards ending the conflict that has killed hundreds of thousands of people and created millions of refugees.

The Syrian government views all the groups fighting it as terrorists with agendas determined by foreign governments including Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the United States.

(Writing by Tom Perry; Editing by Hugh Lawson)

Conference on Syria overshadowed by chemical attack

European Union foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini takes part in a joint news conference during an international conference on the future of Syria and the region, in Brussels, Belgium, April 5, 2017. REUTERS/Yves Herman

By Robin Emmott and Gabriela Baczynska

BRUSSELS (Reuters) – The European Union’s aid chief called for more humanitarian access in Syria on Tuesday at an international conference meant to support the country’s ailing peace prospects, but one that quickly got overshadowed by a chemical attack inside Syria.

As Christos Stylianides spoke at the gathering in Brussels, a suspected gas attack hit the rebel-held Idlib province, killing at least 58 people, including children.

The United Nations’ Syria envoy said the ‘horrific’ attack came from the air and that the U.N. Security Council would meet to demand accountability.

The EU’s top diplomat Federica Mogherini said Syrian President Bashar al-Assad held “primary responsibility”.

“Chemical weapons are the worst of war crimes,” she said.

The Brussels conference comes as Syria’s civil war enters its seventh year, raging on in large part due to the inability of regional and global powers to agree on how to end it.

“Humanitarian access is at a new low due to continued deliberate obstruction by all parties to the conflict,” Stylianides told the two-day conference.

“You remember east Aleppo, where no aid could enter for months despite our collective calls,” he said, referring to the government siege of rebel-held areas last year. “More Aleppos are everywhere in Syria.”

The United Nations has appealed for $8 billion this year to deal with one of the world’s worst humanitarian crises, with millions of people displaced inside Syria and in neighboring countries.

Qatar and Kuwait joined the EU, Norway and the United Nations to organize the latest international effort following conferences in Berlin, London and Helsinki to raise funds.

The European Union has already pledged 1.2 billion euros ($1.28 billion) for 2017. Other governments will come under pressure to make good on promises made in February 2016 at the London conference, which raised $11 billion over four years.

EU LACKS HARD LEVERAGE

Speaking on the sidelines of the conference, Nancy Wilson, the head of Relief International, said problems getting access and providing supplies were chief obstacles on the ground.

“You can’t run a health clinic if you don’t have clean water and medical supplies,” she said. “Some kind of political solution that would cease the fighting would be the biggest challenge.”

The EU called the conference to show support for the peace process by bringing together prime ministers, foreign ministers and ambassadors from some 70 countries.

But the bloc’s role in international attempts at bringing the war to an end has been largely marginal, as highlighted again by the absence in Brussels of top-level officials from Russia, Turkey and the United States.

Five million Syrians have fled into Turkey, Lebanon, Jordan, Iraq and the European Union to escape the conflict among rebels, Islamist militants, government troops and foreign backers.

The future of Assad, backed by Russia and Iran, remains the key point of contention, blocking political talks.

The EU says it will not pay for any post-war reconstruction unless there is a “credible political transition” that would give the opposition, moderate rebels and the various ethnic and religious groups a say in Syria.

“We caution against paying for Assad’s destruction without a political end to the war,” said European lawmaker Mariejte Schaake of the Netherlands.

The initial U.S. and Russian backing for the U.N.-led process has waned as Moscow now sponsors separate talks with regional powers Iran and Turkey.

Washington is now also at odds with Europe – while they used to agree that Assad must go, President Donald Trump has made fighting terrorism his top priority instead.

(Additional reporting by Farah Salhi; Writing by Gabriela Baczynska; Editing by Andrew Bolton)

Colombia starts to bury 273 landslide victims, search continues

New coffins for reburials, are seen in a cemetery after flooding and mudslides caused by heavy rains leading several rivers to overflow, pushing sediment and rocks into buildings and roads, in Mocoa, Colombia April 3, 2017. REUTERS/Jaime Saldarriaga

MOCOA, Colombia (Reuters) – Scores of decomposing cadavers were being released for burial on Monday as rescuers continued to search for victims of weekend flooding and landslides that devastated a city in southern Colombia, killing at least 273 people.

Desperate families queued for blocks in the heat to search a morgue for loved ones who died when several rivers burst their banks in the early hours of Saturday, sending water, mud and debris crashing down streets and into houses as people slept.

Bodies wrapped in white sheets lay on the concrete floor of the morgue as officials sought to bury them as soon as possible to avoid the spread of disease. The government has begun vaccination against infection.

“Please speed up delivery of the bodies because they are decomposing,” said Yadira Andrea Munoz, a 45-year-old housewife who expected to receive the remains of two relatives who died in the tragedy.

But officials asked for families to be patient.

“We don’t want bodies to be delivered wrongly,” said Carlos Eduardo Valdes, head of the forensic science institute.

The death toll has ticked up during the day as rescuers searched with dogs and machinery in the mud-choked rubble.

Aerial view of a neighborhood destroyed after flooding and mudslides caused by heavy rains leading several rivers to overflow, pushing sediment and rocks into buildings and roads, in Mocoa, Colombia April 3, 2017. REUTERS/Jaime Saldarriaga

Aerial view of a neighborhood destroyed after flooding and mudslides caused by heavy rains leading several rivers to overflow, pushing sediment and rocks into buildings and roads, in Mocoa, Colombia April 3, 2017. REUTERS/Jaime Saldarriaga

Many families in Mocoa have spent days and nights digging through the debris with their hands despite a lack of food, clean water and electricity.

President Juan Manuel Santos, who made a third visit to the area on Monday, blamed climate change for the disaster, saying Mocoa had received one-third of its usual monthly rain in just one night, causing the rivers to burst their banks.

Others said deforestation in surrounding mountains meant there were few trees to prevent water washing down bare slopes.

More than 500 people were staying in emergency housing and social services had helped 10 lost children find their parents. As many as 43 children were killed.

Families of the dead will receive about $6,400 in aid and the government will cover hospital and funeral costs.

Even in a country where heavy rains, a mountainous landscape and informal construction combine to make landslides a common occurrence, the scale of the Mocoa disaster was daunting compared with recent tragedies, including a 2015 landslide that killed nearly 100 people.

Colombia’s deadliest landslide, the 1985 Armero disaster, killed more than 20,000 people.

Santos urged Colombians to take precautions against flooding and continued rains.

Flooding in Peru last month killed more than 100 people and destroyed infrastructure.

(Reporting by Andres Rojas, Helen Murphy Luis Jaime Acosta and Jaime Saldarriaga; Editing by James Dalgleish and Lisa Shumaker)

Dozens killed in suspected gas attack on Syrian rebel area

A Syrian man from Idlib is carried by Turkish medics wearing chemical protective suits to a hospital in the border town of Reyhanli in Hatay province, Turkey, April 4, 2017. Ferhat Dervisoglu/Dogan News Agency via REUTERS

By Ellen Francis

BEIRUT (Reuters) – A suspected Syrian government chemical attack killed at least 58 people, including 11 children, in the northwestern province of Idlib on Tuesday, a monitor, medics and rescue workers in the rebel-held area said.

A Syrian military source strongly denied the army had used any such weapons.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said the attack, believed to have been carried out by Syrian army jets, caused many people to choke, and some had foam coming out of their mouths. All the children were under the age of eight.

“This morning, at 6:30 a.m., warplanes targeted Khan Sheikhoun with gases, believed to be sarin and chlorine,” said Mounzer Khalil, head of Idlib’s health authority. The attack had killed more than 50 people and wounded 300, he said.

“Most of the hospitals in Idlib province are now overflowing with wounded people,” Khalil told a news conference in Idlib.

The air strikes that hit the town of Khan Sheikhoun, in the south of rebel-held Idlib, killed at least 58 people, said the Observatory, a British-based war monitoring group.

Warplanes later struck near a medical point where victims of the attack were receiving treatment, the Observatory and civil defense workers said.

The civil defense, also known as the White Helmets – a rescue service that operates in opposition areas of Syria – said jets struck one of its centers in the area and the nearby medical point.

It would mark the deadliest chemical attack in Syria since sarin gas killed hundreds of civilians in Ghouta near the capital in August 2013. Western states said the Syrian government was responsible for the 2013 attack. Damascus blamed rebels.

MILITARY DENIES

The Syrian military source on Tuesday denied allegations that government forces had used chemical weapons.

The army “has not and does not use them, not in the past and not in the future, because it does not have them in the first place”, the source said.

A series of investigations by the United Nations and the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) found that various parties in the Syrian war have used chlorine, sulfur mustard gas and sarin.

A joint U.N.-OPCW report published last October said government forces used chlorine in a toxic gas attack in Qmenas in Idlib province in March 2015. An earlier report by the same team blamed Syrian government troops for chlorine attacks in Talmenes in March 2014 and Sarmin in March 2015. It also said Islamic State had used sulfur mustard gas.

The OPCW had no immediate comment on Tuesday.

France called for an emergency U.N. Security Council meeting about Tuesday’s suspected attack. Turkey, which backs the anti-Assad opposition, said the attack could derail Russian-backed diplomatic efforts to shore up a ceasefire.

“A new and particularly serious chemical attack took place this morning in Idlib province. The first information suggests a large number of victims, including children. I condemn this disgusting act,” French Foreign Minister Jean-Marc Ayrault said.

Reuters photographs showed people breathing through oxygen masks and wearing protection suits, while others carried the bodies of dead children, and corpses wrapped in blankets were lined up on the ground.

Activists in northern Syria circulated pictures on social media showing a purported victim with foam around his mouth, and rescue workers hosing down almost naked children squirming on the floor.

Most of the town’s streets had become empty, a witness said.

CEASEFIRE

Turkey’s state-run Anadolu news agency said 15 people, mostly women and children, had been brought into Turkey.

An official at the Turkish Health Ministry had said earlier that Turkey’s disaster management agency was first “scanning those arriving for chemical weapons, then decontaminating them from chemicals” before they could be taken to hospitals.

The conflict pits President Bashar al-Assad’s government, helped by Russia and Iranian-backed militias, against a wide array of rebel groups, including some that have been supported by Turkey, the United States and Gulf monarchies.

The Russian Defence Ministry said on Tuesday that Russian planes had not carried out air strikes on Khan Sheikhoun.

Syrian and Russian air strikes have battered parts of Idlib, according to the Observatory, despite a ceasefire that Turkey and Russia brokered in December.

Jets also struck the town of Salqin in the north of Idlib province on Tuesday, killing eight people, the monitor said.

Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan and Russian President Vladimir Putin discussed the suspected attack, Turkish presidential sources said. They said the two leaders had also emphasized the importance of maintaining the ceasefire. Turkey’s foreign minister called the attack a crime against humanity.

The European Union’s top diplomat Federica Mogherini said: “Obviously there is a primary responsibility from the regime because it has the primary responsibility of protecting its people.”

TOXIC ARSENAL

Idlib province contains the largest populated area controlled by anti-Assad rebels – both nationalist Free Syrian Army groups and Islamist factions including the former al Qaeda-linked Nusra Front.

Idlib’s population has ballooned, with thousands of fighters and civilians shuttled out of Aleppo city and areas around Damascus that the government has retaken in recent months.

U.S. air strikes since January have also hit several areas in the rural province where jihadists have a powerful presence.

Following the 2013 attack, Syria joined the international Chemical Weapons Convention under a U.S.-Russian deal, averting the threat of U.S.-led military intervention.

Under the deal, Syria agreed to give up its toxic arsenal and surrendered 1,300 tonnes of toxic weapons and industrial chemicals to the international community for destruction.

U.N.-OPCW investigators found, however, that it continued to use chlorine, which is widely available and difficult to trace, in so-called barrel bombs, dropped from helicopters.

Although chlorine is not a banned substance, the use of any chemical is banned under 1997 Chemical Weapons Convention, to which Syria is a member.

Damascus has repeatedly denied using such weapons during the six-year war, which has killed hundreds of thousands and created the world’s worst refugee crisis.

(Additional reporting by Laila Bassam in Beirut, Anthony Deutsch in Amsterdam, Ercan Gurses and Tulay Karadeniz in Ankara, Daren Butler in Istanbul, Robin Emmott in Brussels, John Irish in Paris; Editing by Tom Perry and Alison Williams)

Rescuers, locals dig for Colombia flood victims, 254 die

A man walks among the ruins after flooding and mudslides, caused by heavy rains leading several rivers to overflow, pushing sediment and rocks into buildings and roads, in Mocoa, Colombia

By Jaime Saldarriaga

MOCOA, Colombia (Reuters) – Families and rescuers searched desperately on Sunday through mud-plastered rubble for victims of flooding and landslides in Colombia that have killed 254 people, injured hundreds and devastated entire neighborhoods.

Several rivers burst their banks near the southwestern city of Mocoa in the early hours of Saturday, sending water, mud and debris crashing down streets and into houses as people slept.

Volunteers and firefighters tended to 82 bodies downstream in the town of Villagarzon and said many corpses were still caught in debris.

“We had to recover them ourselves. We think we’ll find more,” Villagarzon Mayor Jhon Ever Calderon told Reuters. He said the town had no coffins or sanitary storage.

Many families in Mocoa stayed up through the night to search through the debris, despite the lack of electricity in the city.

“I need to know where they are, if they are injured or where to find them,” sobbed Maria Lilia Tisoy, 37, looking through the rubble for her two daughters, one pregnant, and a 4-year-old granddaughter.

“If they are dead, please God deliver them to me,” she said.

President Juan Manuel Santos made a second visit to the area on Sunday. He said water and energy services would be restored as soon as possible.

Santos blamed climate change for the disaster, saying Mocoa had received one-third of its usual monthly rain in just one night, causing the rivers to burst their banks.

A man walks among the ruins after flooding and mudslides, caused by heavy rains leading several rivers to overflow, pushing sediment and rocks into buildings and roads, in Mocoa, Colombia

A man walks among the ruins after flooding and mudslides, caused by heavy rains leading several rivers to overflow, pushing sediment and rocks into buildings and roads, in Mocoa, Colombia April 2, 2017. REUTERS/Jaime Saldarriaga

There was disagreement over the death toll for most of Sunday but, late in the evening, the government’s total was increased to match the 254-person figure released by the army. Just over 200 were injured.

Disaster officials said more than 500 people were staying in emergency housing and social services had helped 10 lost children find their parents.

The disaster came after deadly flooding in Peru killed more than 100 people and destroyed infrastructure.

Families of the dead will receive about $6,400 in aid and the government will cover hospital and funeral costs.

Even in a country where heavy rains, a mountainous landscape and informal construction combine to make landslides a common occurrence, the scale of the Mocoa disaster was daunting compared to recent tragedies, including a 2015 landslide that killed nearly 100 people.

Colombia’s deadliest landslide, the 1985 Armero disaster, killed more than 20,000 people.

Santos urged Colombians to take precautions against flooding and continued rains.

The president also thanked China and the Inter-American Development Bank for donating $1 million and $200,000 respectively toward relief efforts.

(Additional reporting by Julia Symmes Cobb, Nelson Bocangra and Luis Jaime Acosta in Bogota; Editing by Andrea Ricci, Sandra Maler and Paul Tait)

U.S. pedestrian deaths surge; experts see tie to cellphones

FILE PHOTO: A woman crouches down to take a cell phone photograph as pedestrians walk past in New York, U.S., October 19, 2016. REUTERS/Lucas Jackson

By Tom James

(Reuters) – U.S. pedestrian deaths rose sharply for the second year in a row in 2016, according to a study released on Thursday, a trend experts said mirrors increased driver cellphone use and distracted driving.

Last year saw an 11 percent rise in pedestrian deaths over 2015, making it the largest increase in the 40 years that national records have been kept, according to officials with the Governors Highway Safety Association, which represents state highway safety offices and commissioned the research.

This followed a 9.5 percent increase in 2015.

The study’s author, Richard Retting, called the results “frankly quite startling,” adding that “there’s clearly something happening. This is not a one-off.”

Retting said that he viewed the surge as largely attributable to cellphone use, saying that while it was statistically difficult to rule out other causes entirely, the coinciding rise in deaths and cellphone use suggests a connection.

None of the other factors typically affecting pedestrian deaths – such as population growth, yearly miles driven and walked in the United States – tracked the rise as closely as cellphone use.

Retting said wireless data use on cellphones has shot up dramatically, with 2014-15, the most recent period for which numbers are available, seeing a doubling of the amount of mobile data used in the United States and a 45 percent increase in the number of multimedia messages sent.

A 2016 U.S. Department of Transportation study showed that, while overall numbers for cellphone use in 2014 and 2015 remained relatively flat, the rate of drivers holding up phones and using their hands to manipulate them had more than doubled since 2009, and among the youngest drivers had more than quadrupled.

The replacement of flip phones by smartphones has also increased the risk, said Charlie Klauer, a lead researcher at the Virginia Tech Transportation Institute.

“Smartphones are much much harder to use … and they are far more capable,” Klauer said. “Instagram, Snapchat, Facebook: All of it makes them very dangerous.”

Distracted drivers can also be difficult to catch. While 14 states ban all handheld cellphone use while driving, 32 only prohibit texting, forcing officers to prove drivers seen holding or touching phones were not doing something else, said Kara Macek, a spokeswoman for the governor’s association.

Results among states were mixed in the survey. While 34 saw an increase, 15 states and the District of Columbia saw decreases, and Maine saw no change.

(Reporting by Tom James in Seattle; editing by Patrick Enright and Cynthia Osterman)

At least 13 killed after Texas church bus crash

A still image of aerial video is shown of an accident scene involving a Texas church bus carrying senior citizens which crashed head-on with another vehicle about 80 miles (130 km) west of San Antonio, Texas, U.S., March 29, 2017. Courtesy WOAI/KABB/Handout via REUTERS

AUSTIN, Texas (Reuters) – At least 13 people were killed, and two injured, when a Texas church bus carrying senior citizens collided head-on with another vehicle on Wednesday, the church and a Texas state trooper said.

The bus had 14 people aboard when it collided with a pickup truck carrying one person, about 80 miles (130 km) west of San Antonio. The cause of the crash was being investigated, said Sergeant Conrad Hein, a spokesman of the Texas Department of Public Safety.

The vehicles collided when the truck crossed the center line, Johnny Hernandez, a spokesman for the Texas Department of Public Safety, told the San Antonio Express-News.

The truck driver was airlifted to a San Antonio hospital, the paper said on its website. The survivor who was on the bus was in serious but stable condition, the First Baptist Church of New Braunfels said on social media.

A group of senior adults affiliated with the church were on the bus returning from a three-day retreat in Leakey, Texas, the church said on its Facebook page.

“Thank you for the outpouring of love and support,” it added. “Please continue to pray.”

Texas Governor Greg Abbott and his wife offered condolences to the victims.

“We are saddened by the loss of life and our hearts go out to all those affected,” Abbott said in a statement.

(Reporting by Jon Herskovitz and Brendan O’Brien; Editing by Lisa Shumaker and Clarence Fernandez)