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    Avalanche Buries Road Workers’ Camp in India, Killing 8

    Rescuers working in extreme conditions evacuated 46 other construction workers trapped beneath feet of snow.Eight road construction workers died after becoming trapped under an avalanche in northern India, the Indian Army said on Sunday. Rescuers operating in several feet of snow evacuated 46 other workers.The workers were buried by the snow early on Friday in the village of Mana, in the state of Uttarakhand, as the avalanche hit their camp site.Disaster response teams coordinated the rescue efforts under extreme weather conditions, and the work was halted several times because of incessant snowfall and rain. GPS, sniffer dogs and thermal imaging cameras were used to find the workers.India’s Meteorological Department warned of the possibility of further avalanches in the area, which is known as a gateway for Himalayan mountain trekking.The rescued workers, many in critical condition, were taken by helicopters to hospitals in neighboring Joshimath. The workers belong to the Border Roads Organization, a division of the Indian armed forces that develops and maintains road networks in India’s border areas.Mana sits at an altitude of 3,200 meters, or more than 10,000 feet, and is about 15 miles from the Tibetan border. During the winter months, the village’s entire population migrates to lower elevations to escape the snowfall.Uttarakhand is prone to avalanches and floods. One of the country’s worst natural disasters took place there in 2013, when flooding killed more than 1,000 people. In 2021, 11 people died when an avalanche hit a Border Roads Organization camp in the district that includes Mana.As the Uttarakhand rescue efforts were completed, an operation to reach eight workers trapped in a tunnel in southern India were still underway, more than a week after the tunnel’s ceiling collapsed. Officials have said that the workers’ chances of survival are very remote. More

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    3 Workers Killed in Collapse at Construction Site in South Korea

    Five others were injured when part of a highway construction site collapsed on Tuesday morning, officials said.Three workers were killed and five others were injured when part of a highway construction site collapsed in South Korea on Tuesday morning, officials said.Emergency crews were searching through the rubble for victims, South Korea’s Fire Department said. The collapse happened at about 9:50 a.m. near the city of Cheonan, in South Chungcheong Province, which is about 50 miles south of Seoul, the capital. A video published by Yonhap, a South Korean news agency, showed part of a structure supported by columns breaking into pieces and plunging to the ground.This is a developing story that will be updated. More

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    At Least 3 Dead After Boat Capsizes Near Staten Island, Officials Say

    Officials said one person was missing and two people were hospitalized after the boat, with six aboard, overturned on Sunday in the Ambrose Channel.At least three people died and one person was still missing after a boat they were in capsized in the frigid waters of the Ambrose Channel near Staten Island on Sunday, officials said.One passenger was in critical condition, the police said, and another passenger was in stable condition. One person was still missing in the water, according to a U.S. Coast Guard spokesman, Petty Officer Second Class Sydney Phoenix.Emergency operators received a call about a boat taking on water a little after noon on Sunday, according to a Coast Guard news release. It wasn’t immediately known how it overturned or what kind of boat it was.The Coast Guard believes the missing person is in the water about five miles southeast of Breezy Point, N.Y. The search for the person was continuing as of 8:30 p.m.Two of the five people who were in the boat were airlifted to Staten Island University Hospital and three others were taken to the Coast Guard station in Sandy Hook, N.J.Four of the five people pulled from the water were unresponsive, according to the Coast Guard. A police spokesman said three of those on board had died.New York City’s fire and police departments are investigating with the U.S. Coast Guard.The water temperature near the Battery in Manhattan was 36 degrees on Sunday afternoon, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.The Ambrose Channel runs between Brooklyn and Staten Island and extends into the Atlantic Ocean. It is the main shipping channel in and out of the Port of New York and New Jersey, according to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. More

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    Inmate Dies at N.Y. Prison as Corrections Officers’ Strike Continues

    The 61-year-old man was found unresponsive in his cell at Auburn Correctional Facility, one of dozens of state prisons where corrections officers have walked off the job over working conditions.An inmate at a New York State prison was pronounced dead on Saturday after being found unresponsive in his cell, state officials said.The inmate, Jonathan Grant, 61, was found on Saturday morning at the Auburn Correctional Facility in Cayuga County, just west of Syracuse, according to the New York State Department of Corrections and Community Supervision.Security and medical workers at the prison and a member of the National Guard tried to revive him but were unsuccessful, said Thomas Mailey, a spokesman for the corrections department.The cause of Mr. Grant’s death is under investigation. He had been unwell, according to two prisoners at Auburn and another person who reviewed information about Mr. Grant’s health. That person said Mr. Grant had had several strokes: At least five were documented, including at least one in the past few weeks. The two prisoners said Mr. Grant had asked for medical help days earlier but had been brushed off. The corrections department did not respond to questions about Mr. Grant’s health before his death.Mr. Grant entered custody in 2011 and was serving a sentence of 34 to 40 years for first-degree rape and burglary, Mr. Mailey said.His death comes amid mounting tension and public scrutiny of the state’s prison system. Corrections officers at dozens of facilities, including Auburn, have continued wildcat strikes for days — without their union’s authorization and in defiance of a judge’s order — to protest what they say are dangerous working conditions, severe staffing shortages and forced overtime. Last week, Gov. Kathy Hochul, a Democrat, deployed National Guard soldiers to act as replacement workers.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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    Woman Lured, Drugged and Stole From Older Men in Deadly Scheme, U.S. Says

    The 43-year-old woman was arrested in Mexico after a “romance scam on steroids,” an F.B.I. agent said.A 43-year-old Las Vegas woman has been arrested in Mexico on charges that she lured at least four older men on dating websites, drugged them and tried to steal millions of dollars from them in a deadly scheme, the authorities said Friday.The woman, Aurora Phelps, was charged with one count of kidnapping resulting in death in the scheme, which the F.B.I. said had led to at least three deaths.Spencer L. Evans, the top F.B.I. agent in Las Vegas, said Friday that the investigation was “ongoing” and that Ms. Phelps might face more charges in the United States and Mexico.In one case, Ms. Phelps drugged a man in Las Vegas after meeting him online, took him to Mexico City and used his credit card to rent a hotel room, where he died, according to a 21-count indictment unsealed this month.Ms. Phelps pushed the man, who was “zonked out of his mind” on drugs, in a wheelchair as they crossed the U.S.-Mexico border at a pedestrian crossing, Mr. Evans said in an interview on Friday.She took her daughter on the trip to Mexico City, in November 2022, according to the authorities. She had drugged the man during a lunch in Las Vegas one day after meeting him on an online dating service, according to the indictment, filed in federal court in Nevada.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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    Colorado Snowboarder Becomes Fourth Avalanche Victim in a Week

    The victim was traveling on a terrain feature known as The Nose near Silverton, Colo., when the avalanche occurred on Thursday, officials said.A backcountry snowboarder was killed in an avalanche on Thursday in a remote part of southwestern Colorado, the fourth person to die in a mountain slide this week in the western United States following several winter storms.The Colorado Avalanche Information Center said that the victim was traversing a terrain feature known as The Nose, near Silverton, Colo., when the person got caught in the avalanche.A skier who was with the snowboarder escaped the avalanche, the authorities said.Emergency responders used a helicopter to try to rescue the snowboarder, but the person did not survive, the center said. Rescuers were alerted about the avalanche by the staff from a nearby backcountry hut.The avalanche added to what has been a deadly week in the West.On Monday, two skiers were caught in an avalanche in the Cascade Mountains in Oregon, one that occurred at a height of 6,700 feet on a south-facing slope. Their bodies were recovered on Tuesday.Also on Monday, an avalanche claimed the life of a backcountry skier in California near Lake Tahoe.The Sierra Avalanche Center said that the skier was traveling alone when he triggered the avalanche, which carried him downslope over rocks and through trees. The victim was buried beneath more than four feet of snow against a tree, the center said. More

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    An Invisible Medical Shortage: Oxygen

    Oxygen is vital to many medical procedures. But a safe, affordable supply is severely lacking around the world, according to a new report.At the height of the Covid-19 pandemic, millions of people in poor nations died literally gasping for breath, even in hospitals. What they lacked was medical oxygen, which is in short supply in much of the world.On Monday, a panel of experts published a comprehensive report on the shortage. Each year, the report noted, more than 370 million people worldwide need oxygen as part of their medical care, but fewer than 1 in 3 receive it, jeopardizing the health and lives of those who do not. Access to safe and affordable medical oxygen is especially limited in low- and middle-income nations.“The need is very urgent,” said Dr. Hamish Graham, a pediatrician and a lead author of the report. “We know that there’s more epidemics coming, and there’ll be another pandemic, probably like Covid, within the next 15 to 20 years.”The report, published in The Lancet Global Health, comes just weeks after the Trump administration froze foreign aid programs, including some that could improve access to oxygen.Boosting the availability of medical oxygen would require an investment of about $6.8 billion, the report noted. “Within the current climate, that’s obviously going to become a bit more of a challenge,” said Carina King, an infectious disease epidemiologist at the Karolinska Institute and a lead author of the report.Still, she said, governments and funding organizations should prioritize medical oxygen because of its importance across health care. People of all ages may need oxygen for pneumonia and other respiratory conditions, for severe infections including malaria and sepsis, for surgeries and for chronic lung conditions.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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    ‘Here We Go Again’: Kentucky Residents Face More Destruction and Anxiety From Storms

    The flood damage over the weekend was not as catastrophic as some previous climate disasters in the state. But the rains still brought widespread havoc, and painful reminders of trauma.As the rains began to drench Eastern Kentucky this weekend, Mimi Pickering looked anxiously out her window in the town of Whitesburg as the North Fork Kentucky River kept rising, and rising, and rising.Would it once again swallow the bridge that leads to the historic Main Street? And would the media and arts education center where she is a board member be damaged, as it was a few years before?“It just looked so much like the 2022 flood — it felt just like, ‘Here we go again, this is unbelievable,’” Ms. Pickering, a filmmaker, said. “It’s been traumatic for people when it rains so heavily — it just adds to that PTSD.”By Sunday, a clearer picture had begun to emerge of the destruction caused by the storms: At least nine people dead throughout the state, with the death toll expected to rise. Nearly 40,000 people without power. More than 1,000 rescues. At least 300 road closures of state and federal roads. Two wastewater systems out of service, including one that was underwater.And more grim news was likely, Gov. Andy Beshear of Kentucky said during a news conference on Sunday, warning that a snowstorm was expected in the next few days that could dump as much as six inches. He urged Kentuckians to stay home and allow emergency boats, vehicles and workers to reach people in need.“This is one of the most serious weather events that we’ve dealt with in at least a decade,” he said.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More