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Storm dumps snow, rain on U.S. Northeast; search on for Georgia toddler

relief workers look at area that was struck by tornado

(Reuters) – A powerful storm that killed at least 21 people in the southern United States over the weekend brought snow, heavy rain and gusty winds to the Northeast on Tuesday as searchers combed Georgia tornado wreckage for a missing toddler.

The storm, known as a nor’easter, dumped from 6 to 8 inches (15 to 20 cm) of snow on New York’s Catskills as well as mountains in Pennsylvania and New England, along with a heavy mix of freezing rain and sleet, said Brian Hurley, a National Weather Service meteorologist.

“A lot of places are seeing snowfall in the 2- to 4-inch (5- to 10-cm) range because not all of it is snow,” he said. Much of the Northeast was under winter storm warnings or advisories.

Wind gusts of more than 60 miles per hour (97 km per hour) also were recorded all along the East Coast, Hurley said. The high winds caused scattered power outages, with Eversource Energy reporting about 4,400 customers in New England without power.

The snow and ice is expected to taper off through Wednesday morning as the storm system heads into Canada’s Maritime provinces, the National Weather Service said.

School districts across the region canceled or delayed the start of classes due to icy roads. Local news outlets showed footage of snow-covered roads and vehicles thickly glazed with ice.

In southern Georgia, police with dogs searched through the ruins of the Piney Woods Mobile Home Park and adjacent woods near Albany for a 2-year-old boy missing since a tornado flattened the area on Sunday.

Search teams had looked all day Monday and through the night for the toddler. Local media said the child had slipped away from his mother before their home was destroyed.

The storm was part of the system that killed at least 21 people, 16 of them in Georgia, before roaring up the East Coast.

Another winter storm plowing east out of the Rocky Mountains could drop from 6 to 15 inches (15 to 38 cm) of snow on parts of South Dakota and Nebraska before weakening as it reaches the upper Midwest on Wednesday, Hurley said.

(Reporting by Ian Simpson in Washington, Brendan O’Brien in Milwaukee and Rich McKay in Atlanta; Editing by Scott Malone and Lisa Shumaker)

Helicopter crash piles pressure on Italy avalanche region

medical emergency helicopter crash in Italy

By Sasa Kavic and and Roberto Mignucci

FARINDOLA, Italy (Reuters) – A helicopter ambulance crashed in the Italian mountains on Tuesday killing all six on board, further stretching emergency services workers who found victims but no more survivors after an avalanche buried a nearby hotel.

The discovery of the bodies of two women in the afternoon as rescuers searched through the snow and rubble brought the death toll from last Wednesday’s destruction of the Hotel Rigopiano to 17 as the first funerals of the victims were held.

The unrelated crash of the helicopter on the other side of the Gran Sasso range about 100 km (60 miles) away in the Abruzzo region put the emergency services under further strain.

Rescue workers had to climb up part of a mountain to reach the wrecked helicopter, which had been heading to a hospital in the regional capital of L’Aquila with an injured skier aboard when it plunged into a mountainside.

The cause of the crash, which happened in the fog, was not immediately known.

The new disaster hit the region as the first funerals were held for the victims of the avalanche disaster.

Family and friends of hotel worker Alessandro Giancaterino filed into a church in nearby Farindola behind the 42-year-old’s coffin, which was draped with an Inter Milan soccer club flag.

“He was a perfect person. Kind, gentle. He loved his job at the hotel,” one friend said outside the church.

His brother, former Farindola mayor Massimiliano Giancaterino, did not speak to reporters. He told Italian state TV on Monday he had signed off on permission to add an extension to the hotel while in office.

“If I had known this would happen I would have cut off my right arm rather than sign the approval,” the former mayor said. “But hindsight doesn’t solve anything. You only ever think of doing what is best for the area, giving people opportunity.”

Some of the 11 survivors spent two days under ice and rubble. Twelve people are still missing since the wall of snow razed the four-storey building last Wednesday, hours after earthquakes shook Abruzzo and the neighboring regions.

Three puppies were found alive in the hotel’s crushed boiler room on Monday. The last time surviving people were brought out was on Saturday morning.

But officials vowed to carry on with the rescue effort.

“We will not stop until we are certain that no one else is left under there,” said civil protection official Luigi D’Angelo. “We are searching in the heart of the building.”

Prosecutors in nearby Pescara have opened an investigation into the hotel disaster. Pescara prosecutor Cristina Tedeschini said her office would probe the hotel’s structure, accessibility and communications surrounding the incident.

(Additional reporting by Antonio Denti in Penne and Steve Scherer in Rome; Writing by Isla Binnie; Editing by Philip Pullella and Alison Williams)

Italy avalanche death toll rises to 14

Italian firefighters working to save those buried in avalanche

FARINDOLA, Italy (Reuters) – Rescuers working through the night pulled five more bodies from the wreck of a hotel in central Italy that was razed by an avalanche last week, bringing the death toll to 14, the national fire brigade said on Tuesday.

The latest bodies – three men and two women – were recovered hours before families of victims were due to hold the first funerals of those killed in the avalanche.

Eleven people so far have been rescued from in and around the hotel in the Gran Sasso national park, some of them surviving for two days under ice and rubble.

But 15 people are still missing after a wall of snow crashed into the four-storey building last Wednesday, hours after earthquakes shook the region.

Prosecutors in nearby Pescara have opened an investigation into the avalanche.

(Reporting by Sasa Kavic and Roberto Mignucci in Farindola and Isla Binnie in Rome; Editing by Philip Pullella and Hugh Lawson)

Powerful storm hammers eastern United States with heavy snow, wind gusts

residents survey damage of tornado that struck Georgia

(Reuters) – A powerful storm that killed at least 21 people in the southern United States over the weekend was expected on Tuesday to bring heavy snow and wind gusts to the Northeast, causing school closings, treacherous driving conditions and power outages.

The storm, known as a nor’easter, was forecast to bring snowfalls of up to 9 inches (23 cm) along with icy rains and wind gusts of 40 mph (65 kph) to northern Pennsylvania through central New York and into Maine on Tuesday morning, the National Weather Service said.

“Only travel in an emergency,” it said in an advisory.

School districts across the region canceled or delayed the start of classes on Tuesday due to the icy road conditions. Local news outlets showed early-morning footage of vehicles covered with a thick glaze of ice and snow-covered roads.

“I didn’t want a snow day but I didn’t want to drive in this mess either,” Lauren Piechota, a teacher in Vermont, said on Twitter.

Flood advisories and watches were also in effect for coastal areas throughout New England until midday as rain totals for the last couple of days were expected to reach 3 inches (8 cm), the weather service said.

About 15,000 customers were without power early on Tuesday morning, according to online reports by utility companies in the region.

“Scattered power outages are expected as the slushy accumulations and ice will weigh down trees and power lines,” the weather service said.

The storm unleashed deadly twisters in Mississippi and Georgia over the weekend before turning cooler as it advanced on the Northeast on Monday and into Tuesday. It was expected to head into Canada by Wednesday, the service said.

The weather system killed 16 people on Sunday in Georgia, according to a tally by the Storm Prediction Center in Oklahoma.

Georgia Governor Nathan Deal extended a state emergency declaration to 16 counties and said President Donald Trump had called him on Sunday and promised he would be “ready and willing to respond” to an expected request for federal disaster relief.

(Reporting by Brendan O’Brien in Milwaukee; Editing by Raissa Kasolowsky)

Storms continue slamming U.S. South after killing at least 18

Air Force airman surveys the damage done by January tornado in Georgia

By Letitia Stein

TAMPA, Fla. (Reuters) – A dangerous weekend weather system killed at least 18 people in the U.S. South, with Georgia officials reporting more than a dozen deaths on Sunday after severe thunderstorms and tornadoes buffeted several states.

Seven people died in Cook County, Georgia, state emergency managers said, with a mobile home park particularly hard hit, according to reports. Photos showed collapsed buildings, destroyed rooftops, toppled trees and debris-littered fields.

Georgia Governor Nathan Deal declared an emergency for seven counties in the south-central part of the state, warning that dangerous conditions persisted as wind and flood warnings remained in effect for much of the state early on Monday.

“I urge all Georgians to exercise caution and vigilance in order to remain safe and prevent further loss of life or injuries,” Deal said in a news release.

First Baptist Church Adel, located in the Cook County seat near the Florida-Georgia state line, was sheltering more than 50 people, said pastor Bill Marlette, who had just helped inform a family that two of their relatives were among the dead.

“There’s a lot of hurting people right now,” he said in a telephone interview. “There’s just a sense of shock.”

The storms in Georgia, which killed 14 people, followed a predawn tornado in Mississippi on Saturday that killed four. Severe weather also injured more than 50 others and damaged about 480 homes in Mississippi.

A few storms continued to threatened coastal areas in Georgia on Sunday night, said Mark McKinnon, a spokesman for the Georgia Emergency Management and Homeland Security Agency.

The National Weather Service issued a flash flood warning for Rome and Calhoun until 3.30 a.m. EST, advising residents to move to higher ground.

The system prompted forecasters to issue a rare “high risk” warning of severe storms threatening parts of southern Georgia, north and central Florida and Alabama on Sunday, the first such warning since 2014. South Carolina could also see severe weather.

In Alabama, some 29,000 power outages were reported as of Sunday afternoon, Alabama Power said. Several thousand had also been without power in Mississippi.

The severe weather was expected to last through Sunday night.

As the system churned up the East coast, emergency management officials warned New York City residents to brace for winds of up to 70 mph through Monday night, with several inches of drenching rains. Flood advisories and watches were issued for four of the city’s five boroughs.

On the west coast, heavy rains from a separate system drenched parts of Southern California, with forecasters warning the storm could be the most severe in several years.

(Additional reporting by Frank McGurty and Chris Michaud in New York, David Beasley in Atlanta and Sharon Bernstein in Sacramento, Calif.; Editing by Andrea Ricci, Peter Cooney, Chris Michaud and Michael Perry)

Four dead, more than 20 hurt when driver ploughs into Australian pedestrians

Police block off street where truck attack took place

MELBOURNE (Reuters) – A man deliberately drove into pedestrians, killing four and injuring more than 20, in the center of Australia’s second largest city of Melbourne on Friday, but police said the incident was not terrorism-related.

Police eventually rammed the car and shot the 26-year-old driver in the arm, before dragging him from the vehicle and arresting him. Police said the man had a history of family violence and was wanted over a stabbing earlier in the day.

Pursued by police cars, the man had been seen driving erratically before speeding into a pedestrian mall, ploughing into people, police said. A shop video showed several people diving into a convenience store as the car raced along the footpath.

“We witnessed about half a dozen people that ricocheted off the car one way or another. I saw one person fly up almost roof level of the car as they got thrown up against one of the retail stores,” Sharn Baylis, 46, told Reuters by telephone.

“You could hear the gasping and the screaming from people, then you just started hearing the screams and the crying as it sunk in,” she said.

Baylis said she rushed across tram tracks and with other bystanders and gave cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) first aid to a badly hurt man who had been run over.

“I think it was pretty much in vain at that point. The seriousness of his injuries, he was probably the worst I saw.”

One of the dead was a child. Four children, including a three-month-old baby, were taken to Melbourne’s Royal Children’s Hospital, said a hospital spokesman.

“We’re not regarding this as a terrorism-related incident,” Victoria state police commissioner Graham Ashton told reporters on Friday.

Police had earlier chased the driver, who was wanted over a domestic assault and driving offences, Ashton said.

‘GUNS DRAWN’

Video from a witness showed a maroon colored car driving around in circles in an intersection outside Flinders St railway station in the city’s central business district, with the driver shouting at people and hanging his arm out the window.

Two people approached the car, apparently trying to stop it before it drove off with police chasing. (For a graphic, click http://tmsnrt.rs/2jTj2Y9)

Witness Maria Kitjapanon told Melbourne’s Age newspaper that police eventually rammed the car.

“There were probably 10 police surrounding that guy’s car, with guns drawn, and they fired into the car. Then they dragged someone out via the passengers side, then all 10 of them sat on top of him,” she said.

Melbourne is hosting the Australian Open tennis grand slam and is packed with thousands of tourists, only a few blocks from where the incident occurred. Police said the tennis tournament continued as normal.

Australia, a staunch U.S. ally, has been on heightened alert for attacks by home-grown radicals since 2014 and authorities have said they have thwarted a number of plots. There have been several “lone wolf” assaults, including a 2014 cafe siege in Sydney that left two hostages and the gunman dead.

Friday’s incident initially raised fears about the possibility of another attack.

Last year, in attacks claimed by Islamic State, trucks were driven into crowded pedestrian precincts in separate incidents in Nice and Berlin, killing scores.

(Reporting by Tom Westbrook and Jamie Freed in Sydney, Sonali Paul in Melbourne; Writing by Michael Perry; Editing by Lincoln Feast)

Most Islamic State commanders in Mosul already killed, Iraqi general says

By Isabel Coles

MOSUL, Iraq (Reuters) – Most Islamic State (IS) commanders in Mosul have been killed in battles with Iraqi government forces that raged over the past three months in the eastern side of the city, an Iraqi general said on Thursday.

The fight to take the western side of Mosul, which remains under the jihadists’ control, should not be more difficult than the one on the eastern side, Lieutenant-General Abdul Ghani al-Assadi told Reuters before embarking on a tour of areas newly retaken.

Assadi’s Counter-Terrorism Service announced on Wednesday that almost all of the city’s eastern half had been brought under government control.

“God willing, there will be a meeting in the next few days attended by all the commanders concerned with liberation operations,” he said, replying to a question on when he expects a thrust into the western side of Mosul to begin.

“It will not be harder than what we have seen. The majority of (IS) commanders have been killed in the eastern side.” He did not give further details.

Since late 2015, government forces backed by U.S.-led coalition air power have wrested back large amounts of northern and western territory overrun by IS in a shock 2014 offensive.

On Thursday, regular Iraqi army troops captured the Nineveh Oberoy hotel, the so-called “palaces” area on the eastern bank of the Tigris, and Tel Kef, a small town just to the north according to military statements in Baghdad.

The army is still battling militants in al-Arabi, the last district which remains under their control east of the river, said one of the statements.

Over 50 watercraft and barges used by Islamic State to supply their units east of the river were destroyed in air strikes, the U.S. envoy to the coalition, Brett McGurty, tweeted.

Mogul’s five bridges across the Tigris had already been partially damaged by U.S.-led air strikes to slow the militants’ movement, before Islamic State blew up two of them.

“God willing, there will be an announcement in the next few days that all the eastern bank is under control,” Assai said.

A Reuters correspondent saw army troops deploying in an area by the river as mortar and gun fire rang out further north.

On one of the streets newly recaptured from Islamic State, men were reassembling breeze blocks into a wall that was blown up by a suicide car bomb several days ago.

Prime Minister Hailer al-Badri said late on Tuesday that Islamic State had been severely weakened in the Mosul campaign, and the military had begun moving against it in the western half. He did not elaborate.

If the U.S.-backed campaign is successful it will likely spell the end of the Iraqi part of the self-styled caliphate declared by the ultra-hardline Islamic State in 2014, which extends well into neighboring Syria.

Several thousand civilians have been killed or wounded in the Mosul fighting since October.

(Additional reporting by Saif Hameed; editing by Mark Heinrich and Robin Pomeroy)

Deaths from Nigerian refugee camp air strike rises to 90, could reach 170: MSF

people walk at the site of a bombing attack

GENEVA (Reuters) – The death toll from an accidental Nigerian air strike on a refugee camp in the town of Rann has risen to around 90 people, and could be as high as 170, Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF) said in a statement on Friday.

Tuesday’s strike on the northeastern town in Borno state, which had Boko Haram militants as its target, has led to an investigation by the Nigerian Air Force (NAF). The inquiry’s report is due to be submitted no later than Feb. 2.

The aid group, also known as Doctors Without Borders, said the higher figure of 170 comes from reports from residents and community leaders.

“This figure needs to be confirmed,” said Bruno Jochum, MSF General Director, in the statement.

“The victims of this horrifying event deserve a transparent account of what happened and the circumstances in which this attack took place.”

Borno is the epicenter of Boko Haram’s seven-year-long attempt to create an Islamic caliphate in the northeast. The insurgency has killed more than 15,000 people since 2009 and forced some two million to flee their homes, many of whom have moved to camps for internally displaced people.

“A Nigerian airforce plane circled twice and dropped two bombs in the middle of the town of Rann, which hosts thousands of internally displaced people,” MSF said.

“At the time of the attack, an aid distribution was taking place.”

On Thursday, Human Rights Watch said the strike had destroyed 35 structures, and hit 100 meters from what appears to be a Nigerian military compound, raising questions about why precautions were not taken to avoid harming civilians.

(Reporting by Stephanie Nebehay in Geneva; Writing by Paul Carsten; editing by Ralph Boulton)

Arab Israeli and policeman killed in suspected car ramming attack in southern Israel

JERUSALEM (Reuters) – Police in Israel said an Arab Israeli on Wednesday rammed his car into a group of policemen in the southern Negev region, killing one before being shot dead, though a rights activist who was present disputed it was an attack.

Police said the violence sparked a riot in the village of Umm al-Hiran, where an operation was underway to demolish Bedouin dwellings deemed by a court as having been built illegally on state-owned land.

Police spokeswoman Merav Lapidot said the suspect was a local teacher who “surged towards the forces intending to kill” and that riots erupted after he was shot.

But human rights activist Michal Haramati, who had come to Umm al-Hiran to observe the demolitions, said she witnessed the event and that the driver was not heading towards police when he was shot.

“Suddenly the car started to go down the hill, without control, absolutely,” she told Reuters in English. “The driver was obviously dead by the time that he lost control this way. That’s when he hit the cops.”

Most of Israel’s Bedouin, who predominate in the desert area that accounts for two-thirds of Israel’s territory, are nomadic tribes which have wandered across the Middle East from Biblical times. Arab citizens make up about 20 percent of Israel’s population of eight million, and 200,000 of them are Bedouin.

Bedouin leaders in Negev say Israel has long discriminated against their communities, denying them public funds and services. Half of Israeli Bedouin population live in towns and villages recognized as formal communities by the government. Others live rough, in tents and shacks on patches of desert.

Israeli forces have been particularly wary of car ramming attacks since a wave of Palestinian street assaults began in October 2015.

On Jan. 8, four Israeli soldiers were killed in Jerusalem by a Palestinian who drove his truck into them.

In all, 37 Israelis and two visiting Americans have been killed in the past 15 months, while at least 232 Palestinians have been killed in violence in Israel, the occupied West Bank and the Gaza Strip in the same period. Israel says that at least 158 of them were assailants while others died during clashes and protests.

(Reporting by Maayan Lubell; Editing by Jeffrey Heller and Raissa Kasolowsky)

At least 76 killed in air strike on Nigerian refugee camp: ICRC

Aftermath of bombing of refugee camp in Nigeria

GENEVA (Reuters) – At least 76 people were killed in Tuesday’s accidental Nigerian Air Force strike on a refugee camp and more than 100 were wounded, the International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement (ICRC) said on Wednesday.

The air force has said an unknown number of civilians were killed and wounded in the mistaken strike in Rann, Borno state. The state has been the epicentre of Boko Haram’s seven-year-long attempt to create an Islamic caliphate in the northeast.

The air force has said civilians were accidentally killed and wounded in the attack, which was aimed at the jihadist group, but neither it nor the government has provided an official figure for the number of casualties. Aid group Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF) has said 52 were killed and 120 were wounded.

ICRC said six Nigeria Red Cross members were killed and 13 wounded. “In addition to aid staff, it is estimated that 70 people have been killed and more than a hundred wounded,” it said in a statement.

Lai Mohammed, the information minister, said “the accidental bombing is not a true reflection of the level of professionalism” he had witnessed in the air force.

The strike followed a military offensive against Boko Haram in the last few weeks.

The group’s insurgency has killed more than 15,000 people since 2009 and forced some two million to flee their homes, many of whom have moved to camps for internally displaced people.

(Reporting by Tom Miles; additional reporting by Felix Onuah; Writing by Alexis Akwagyiram; Editing by Mark Trevelyan)

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