Colorado wildfire nearly doubles in size
DURANGO, Colo. -- Authorities ordered the residents of 675 homes to evacuate Sunday morning after the fire burning north of Durango nearly doubled in size to 26 square miles in hot, dry and windy weather. Conditions are forecast to get even worse.
Fire spokesman Brian Eady said the change is the result of both natural fire growth and blazes that firefighters intentionally set to control the fire's movement.
The Durango Herald reported that incident commander Todd Pechota told residents at a community meeting Saturday that the situation is "going to get worse before it gets better."
Residents of about 2,000 homes have been ordered to evacuate, including 220 on Saturday. No homes have been lost.
The cause of the fire isn't known.
Honduran kills himself in Texas lockup
RIO GRANDE CITY, Texas -- A Honduran man who entered the U.S. illegally killed himself in a Texas jail despite guards checking on him every half-hour and a camera in his padded cell, authorities say.
Marco Antonio Munoz, 39, was found unresponsive in his cell on the morning of May 13, a day after U.S. Customs and Border Protection agents took him to the jail and two days after he was detained for entering the country illegally, the Starr County sheriff's office says in an incident report filed Tuesday with the Texas attorney general's office and obtained Sunday by The Associated Press.
According to the report, jail officers said Munoz became combative during the booking process and was restrained and placed in a padded cell overnight. They said they checked on him every 30 minutes and at least once more during the morning shift before they eventually found him unresponsive on the floor.
Munoz was declared dead about 10 a.m., the report states.
Video footage from inside the cell showed that Munoz tied his sweater around a drain grate in the floor, looped it around his neck and turned his body around several times, cutting off his circulation and breathing. The report doesn't say what time that occurred, and the sheriff's office didn't respond to requests for comment Sunday.
The Washington Post, citing unnamed border agents with detailed knowledge of what occurred, reports that Munoz entered the country with his wife and their 3-year-old son, and that he became enraged and had to be restrained when agents said the family would be separated.
Air Force finds man who vanished in '83
ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. -- A high-ranking Kirtland Air Force Base officer with top security clearance who disappeared 35 years ago has been found in California.
The Air Force Office of Special Investigations said in a news release that William Howard Hughes Jr. was apprehended at his home after a fraud investigation involving a fake identity he had been using.
Hughes was involved in classified planning and analysis of NATO's control, command and communications surveillance systems during the Cold War. He specialized in radar surveillance.
He was 33 years old and single when he vanished, according to news reports from the time of his disappearance.
Hughes was last seen withdrawing more than $28,000 in Albuquerque in the summer of 1983 after returning from a two-week vacation in Europe. He had just completed a stint in the Netherlands, where he worked with NATO officers on the Airborne Warning and Control electronic surveillance aircraft. He was supposed to be back in Albuquerque by August of that year.
An Office of Special Investigations spokesman told the Albuquerque Journal that there's no indication Hughes was involved with the Soviet Union or that any classified information was leaked.
Hughes was charged with desertion and is being held at Travis Air Force Base in California.
Officials ID pilot killed in copter crash
OSHKOSH, Wis. -- Authorities have released the name of a Wisconsin pilot killed when a helicopter hit power lines and plunged into the Fox River.
The Winnebago County sheriff's office on Sunday identified the victim as 27-year-old Jonathan Bahr of Platteville. He was alone in the Robinson R44 helicopter when it went down Saturday in Oshkosh, 94 miles north of Milwaukee.
Lt. Steve Brewer says Bahr was hired to take photographers over Lake Winnebago during a power-boat event.
Shannon Radtke, coordinator for the Four Horsemen Poker Run, an annual charitable event, says her group hired Bahr. Radtke says the pilot was refueling and on his way back from the airport when the crash happened.
The crash severed high-tension power lines that fell into the river, delaying rescue efforts for about two hours.
A Section on 06/11/2018