Good evening. Here’s the latest at the end of Monday.
An earthquake shakes ColombiaA powerful earthquake struck Colombia this morning, killing more than 100 people. As rescuers search the rubble, the death toll seems likely to rise. Follow our live coverage here. The 7.4-magnitude quake damaged more than 1,500 residential buildings, 52 schools and 18 health centers across several major cities, said President Abelardo De La Espriella, who took office just days ago. In Cali, Colombia’s third-largest city, at least 26 buildings collapsed. And that was about 100 miles away from the quake’s epicenter, in one of the country’s poorest regions, on the Pacific Coast. (See a map of the earthquake’s radius.) Our reporter on the ground in Cali today documented one of many desperate rescue efforts, at a collapsed apartment building in the Alameda neighborhood: Civilians in T-shirts pounded jagged slabs of concrete with wooden poles and tore away bits of debris with bare hands. “We’re digging what we can,” said Eder Figueroa, 48, who said he lived in the building next door. The building had a pharmacy on the ground floor, he said, and residences above. “Everyone went running to help,” he said. “The lady who sells ice cream, the lady who sells juices.” “We think there are three people alive inside, because we can’t find them, including two children,” he added. See some of the first images coming out of Colombia.
Israel and Iran reject Trump’s overturesPresident Trump says he would like to be remembered as a peacemaker. Yet, like so many of his predecessors, he has found himself mired in the Middle East. This weekend, he hit new roadblocks. Gaza: Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, yesterday rejected Trump’s latest plan for Hamas to turn over its weapons to a new Palestinian administration; in exchange, Israel would have had to suspend its military operations and gradually withdraw troops from Gaza. But hawkish Israelis objected to those concessions, and Netanyahu is up for re-election in just a few months. Iran: Over the weekend, a top Iranian official issued a list of demands that he said the U.S. must meet before the Strait of Hormuz can fully reopen, including lifting a naval blockade and paying war reparations. Iran has been negotiating with Oman — not directly with the U.S. — but said today that even if those two countries reached an agreement, the waterway would not reopen until the U.S. acceded to its demands.
Trump calls for fewer childhood vaccinesTrump signed an executive order today that calls for American children to be immunized against 11 diseases, rather than the 17 recommended by the C.D.C. He said he was motivated in part by concerns over whether vaccines were tied to autism, even though dozens of studies have found no link between autism and vaccines. It is unclear whether the president’s order has any legal power, and this is the third time in less than a year that he has ordered that American children be immunized against fewer diseases, as in countries like Denmark. In other Trump administration news:
White House shrugs off A.I. angstAmericans worry about artificial intelligence stealing their jobs and making electricity more expensive. And they hate the giant data centers that power this technology; more than half say they’d support banning them. Trump has maintained a much more sanguine view about the coming digital revolution. He has called data centers “Money Machines,” saying they amount to “tremendous WINS for the States and Communities that are lucky enough to get them.” Read more about the widening political chasm around A.I. Related: Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont called on the nation’s leading A.I. companies to pause development of the technology in a new letter to their chief executives. More top news
Black, white and read all overPrint newspapers seem to be dying everywhere. But not in Glens Falls, N.Y., where business has been humming for the city’s free weekly, The Chronicle. Its journalism is unabashedly local: schools, town-hall meetings and all things parking. Recent editions have included a rattlesnake-attack bulletin and a front-page feature on butchering a deer. Mark Frost, the founder, has almost single-handedly steered the publication for 46 years; he distributes copies in his Subaru Forester. But he’s 75 years old. Can The Chronicle keep on keeping on?
Bringing dummies to lifeAustin Phillips is one of the last full-time ventriloquist puppet makers in America. From his cluttered workshop in Maine, he sculpts, paints, sews and solders to craft one-of-a-kind characters. Making a dummy begins with the face. Phillips, 33, pours resin into a handmade mold and then reinforces the shell with epoxy. Once the casting cures, it’s ready for eyes, a mouth and the internal mechanisms. Then Phillips paints the expressive features. “It’s a bit like applying makeup,” he said. Read more about his vanishing art. Dinner table topics
Cook this creamy yet airy corn risotto. Use A.I. to score lower prices on flights and hotels. Test your knowledge on extreme heat by taking our quiz. Pluck that fussy eyebrow hair with these first-class tweezers. Capture the perfect aerial photos and videos with cheap, lightweight drones. Play: Today’s Spelling Bee, | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
