In brief: Ethnic clashes leave 45 dead
BISHKEK, Kyrgyzstan – Mobs of armed men torched Uzbek neighborhoods in Kyrgyzstan on Friday in ethnic clashes that officials said left at least 45 people dead and 637 wounded in a Central Asian nation that hosts U.S. and Russian military bases.
The rioting in Osh, the country’s second-largest city, is the heaviest violence since former President Kurmanbek Bakiyev was toppled in a bloody uprising in April and fled the country.
Kyrgyzstan hosts the Manas U.S. military air base in Bishkek, a crucial support center supplying forces fighting the Taliban in Afghanistan. Crews from Fairchild Air Force Base routinely rotate through Manas.
In recent weeks, operations at Manas have been hindered by a dispute over the interim government’s decision to tax fuel sold to the base. The U.S. military says it has stopped refueling tanker planes at Manas while fuel prices are being renegotiated, but flights to ferry military personnel and supplies to and from Afghanistan have continued.
Plane crashes
into high school
EAGAR, Ariz. – A small plane nose-dived into a high school in a small eastern Arizona town Friday afternoon and exploded, killing both people aboard, authorities said.
There were no reports of injuries on the ground. Classes are out for the summer at the school, authorities said.
The Cessna circled the area two or three times before it suddenly crashed into the main building at Round Valley High School in Eagar at about 2 p.m., Apache County sheriff’s Sgt. Richard Guinn said.
Mining probe
subpoenas issued
CHARLESTON, W.Va. – West Virginia’s mine safety chief said he’s begun issuing subpoenas to reluctant witnesses to the nation’s worst coal mining disaster in 40 years.
As of Friday, Ron Wooten said he’s signed subpoenas for five people. All skipped interviews with investigators probing the April 5 explosion at Virginia-based Massey Energy’s Upper Big Branch mine.
Twenty-nine men died in the blast. Investigators suspect methane gas and coal dust, but have not established a definite cause.