In brief: Refugee program set up for Central American minors
WASHINGTON – The Obama administration is initiating a program to give refugee status to some young people from Honduras, Guatemala and El Salvador in response to the influx of unaccompanied minors arriving at the U.S.-Mexico border.
Under the program, immigrants from those countries who are lawfully in the United States will be able to request that child relatives still in those three countries be resettled in the United States as refugees. The program would establish in-country processing to screen the young people to determine if they qualify to join relatives in the U.S.
In a memorandum to the State Department Tuesday, President Barack Obama allocated 4,000 slots for refugees from Latin America and the Caribbean for next year.
The program aims to set up an orderly alternative for dealing with young people who otherwise might embark on a dangerous journey to join their families in the United States.
Man convicted in nicotine-poison case
SANTA ANA, Calif. – A former nuclear engineer on Tuesday was convicted of murder for poisoning his wife with nicotine in Southern California in 1994.
The Orange County Superior Court found Paul Curry, 57, guilty of first-degree murder in the death of his then-50-year-old wife, Linda. Curry killed his wife to collect more than half a million dollars in life insurance and benefits after she died, prosecutors said. He sedated his wife before injecting her with nicotine, Ebrahim Baytieh, deputy district attorney for Orange County, said during the trial.
35,000 walrus come ashore in NW Alaska
ANCHORAGE, Alaska – Pacific walrus looking for places to rest in the absence of sea ice are coming to shore in record numbers on Alaska’s northwest coast.
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration confirmed an estimated 35,000 walrus were photographed Saturday near Point Lay. That’s about 700 miles northwest of Anchorage.
The enormous gathering was spotted during NOAA’s annual arctic marine mammal aerial survey.