QUOTE OF THE DAY
“Anyone who didn’t budget for this is going to be behind the eight ball.”
Dan Mendelson,
CEO of market-research firm Avalere Health, on the increase in state Medicaid costs stemming from the Affordable Care Act.
Article, 10A
No sign of 3 lost in Colorado mudslide
COLLBRAN, Colo. — Rescue teams failed to find any sign Monday of three men missing after a ridge saturated with rain collapsed, sending mud sliding for 3 miles in a remote part of western Colorado.
Clancy Nichols, 51, a county road and bridge employee; his son Danny, 24; and Wes Hawkins, 46, have been missing since Sunday after the ridge collapsed. They went to check on damage from an initial slide near the edge of Grand Mesa, one of the world’s largest flat-topped mountains, after a rancher reported that his irrigation ditch had stopped flowing, Mesa County Sheriff Stan Hilkey said.
The search near the small town of Collbran has been hampered because only the lower third of the slide is stable. Even at the edges, the mud is 20 feet to 30 feet deep. It’s believed to be several hundred feet deep and about a half-mile wide.
“Everyone on this mountain is praying for a miracle right now,” Hilkey said.
Deputies estimate that the entire ridge had been moving for most of Sunday before someone called to report the slide at 6:15 p.m., describing it as sounding like a freight train. Hilkey said he thinks runoff from Grand Mesa from recent rain triggered the slide.
Arizona fire crews add containment lines
FLAGSTAFF, Ariz. — Crews fighting a wildfire in a northern Arizona canyon focused Monday on building containment lines along the last unprotected stretch of the blaze.
Firefighters planned to build 3 miles of protection lines on the southern end of the Slide Fire after having completed much of their work on the blaze’s northern and western flanks.
The human-caused fire has been burning since last Tuesday around Oak Creek Canyon, a scenic recreation area along the highway between Sedona and Flagstaff that would normally be crowded with tourists on Memorial Day weekend. Slide Rock State Park, one of the most-visited tourist spots in Arizona, has been closed.
No homes have been destroyed.
The fire covered more than 25 square miles and was 25 percent contained by Monday morning. It had grown more than 3 square miles since the latest report on its size.
Fire managers said their goals are to protect the 300 structures threatened in Oak Creek Canyon, keep the fire from pushing into the communities of two subdivisions to the east and minimize the potential for flooding.
1-eyed GI, widow sue war criminal
SALT LAKE CITY — An American soldier blinded in one eye in Afghanistan and the widow of another soldier killed there have filed a wrongful death and injury lawsuit against a Canadian who was held at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba and pleaded guilty to committing war crimes when he was 15.
Layne Morris of Utah and Tabitha Speer of North Carolina filed their lawsuit Friday in federal court in Utah against Omar Khadr, who signed a plea deal in 2010 that he committed five war crimes, including the killing of U.S. soldier Christopher Speer in 2002.
As part of the deal, Khadr admitted to throwing the grenade that killed Speer and injured other soldiers, including Morris, who lost sight in one eye from the shrapnel, the lawsuit states. The Toronto-born Khadr is serving the remainder of his eight-year sentence in Canada.
Morris and Tabitha Speer are concerned that Khadr might get his hands on money from a wrongful-imprisonment lawsuit he filed against the Canadian government, said Don Winder, a Salt Lake City-based attorney who is representing them.
Rain to aid Alaska fire fight, officials say
ANCHORAGE, Alaska — Officials said rain forecast this week in Alaska stands to help crews gain control over a wind-whipped wildfire that forced dozens of people to flee to shelters and move some of their animals to safety at rodeo grounds. The Funny River Fire in the state’s Kenai Peninsula covered nearly 248 square miles as of Monday morning and was 30 percent contained, according to the Alaska Interagency Management Team. No injuries or structure damage have been reported, officials said. Authorities on Sunday ordered the evacuation of 1,000 homes and other structures in the sparsely populated area 60 miles south of Anchorage — Alaska’s largest city, where haze from the fire has lingered for days. The human-caused fire was sparked May 19 in the 1.9 million-acre Kenai National Wildlife Refuge. The weather forecast for the area calls for rain today and Wednesday, with sunny skies returning later in the week, said Willie Begay, a spokesman with the management team.