Nation in brief: 7-year-old girl dies after Bronx fire
A 7-year-old girl lost her two-day battle for life, becoming the 10th victim of a devastating Bronx fire that also killed all her siblings and her mother.
Asimi Soumare died late Friday, as the bodies of other victims were being prepared for their funeral Monday: Asimi’s twin baby sisters, 4-year-old brother and mother, as well as five of the girl’s cousins – children of Manthia and Moussa Magassa who shared the three-story brick home with the Soumare family.
Mamadou Soumare, a taxi driver who received a frantic call from his doomed wife on the night of the fire, has now lost his spouse and all of their children.
The last time Samoure heard his wife’s voice, she was screaming amid the fire Wednesday after frantically calling him on his cell phone while he was driving his livery cab.
San Juan, Puerto Rico
Ash from island disrupts airport
Volcanic ash from the Caribbean island of Montserrat disrupted airport traffic in Puerto Rico on Saturday, prompting delays and cancellations by several airlines.
Most of the problems were in the small airport in the southern city of Ponce, but four Delta Airlines flights were canceled in San Juan, on the north coast, said Fred Sosa, the general manager of the capital’s Luis Munos Marin International Airport.
Ash from the volcano in Montserrat, a British territory about 275 miles southwest of Puerto Rico, often clouds the skies of the Caribbean.
In recent days, officials have warned that a dome of hardened lava over the Soufriere Hills volcano has swollen to near-record size and could collapse. On Wednesday, the Montserrat Volcano Observatory said the ash cloud had reached 8,000 feet and was blowing west.
Omaha, Neb.
Ex-Air Force pilot revives bulldog
Lucy was drowning and turning blue, so Randy Gurchin recalled his Air Force training on mouth-to-mouth resuscitation.
It didn’t matter that Lucy is a 10-month-old English bulldog, because he and Lucy are “best buddies.”
Lucy had jumped into a partly frozen lake in pursuit of ducks and geese, but the water was too cold for her. When Gurchin edged onto the ice and pulled Lucy out of the water, she was unresponsive and her face and paws were blue.
He closed her mouth, put his mouth over her nose, breathed air into her lungs and pushed on her chest, and after about a minute she began shallow breaths.
He drove her to a veterinary clinic, where she was immersed in warm water, given injections and placed in an oxygen tent.
By Friday, a week after her ordeal, Lucy was back to normal, said Gurchin, a pilot who retired from the Air Force two years ago.