Author: aobrien

PARADISE, Calif. (Reuters) – Family members and survivors on Friday sought news of the 630 people considered missing after the deadliest wildfire in California history reduced much of the town of Paradise to ash and charred rubble, and killed 63.

The California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection, known as Cal Fire, said the blaze, named the Camp Fire, was now 45 percent contained, up from 35 percent on Thursday, even though it had grown slightly to 142,000 acres (57,000 hectares).

With nearly 12,000 homes and buildings burned, refugees from the fire have taken up residence in tents or their vehicles and filled evacuation centers to overflowing. Search teams, meanwhile, are in burned-out areas looking for bodies – or anything else that might carry human DNA for identification purposes.

Cal Fire said the Camp Fire death toll held at 63 overnight, but Miranda Bowersox, spokeswoman for the Butte County Sheriff’s office, warned the number of missing people would fluctuate.

“The overall number will go down but in the short term we expect will see new reports of people missing,” she said.

In some cases, those unaccounted for have likely survived but not yet notified family or authorities that they are alive, or relatives may not yet have reported people missing. Poor cellphone coverage after the fire has also made communications difficult.

Last weekend, the Butte County Sheriff’s office initially put the total of missing people at 228, many of whom have now been accounted for. But as fresh reports from relatives caused the list to rise to 130 from 103 late Wednesday, 297 by Thursday morning and 630 as of Thursday night.

The fire – which roared through Paradise, a town of 27,000 people in the Sierra foothills 175 miles (280 km) north of San Francisco, on Nov. 8 – is among the deadliest to have hit the United States over the last century.

Authorities attribute the death toll partly to the speed with which flames raced through the town, driven by wind and fueled by desiccated scrub and trees.

Weather conditions now are helping the firefighting effort, Nick Pimlott, a Cal Fire engineer, told KRCR TV. He said the winds had died down, allowing crews around Lake Oroville to the southeast of Paradise to construct fresh lines to contain the fire.

Many on the missing list are over the age of 65. Local officials and realtors have long sold Paradise as an ideal place to retire.

Brandon DuVall of Seattle said he last communicated with his retired father, Robert DuVall, in July after his father had bought a new pickup and camper. He received a call earlier this week that his father’s remains might have been found and now will go to California to provide a DNA sample.

Relatives of retired U.S. Navy veteran David Marbury, 66, are waiting to hear from him. No one has managed to speak with him since the wildfire began.

On Thursday, Marbury’s landlord confirmed to relatives that his duplex in Paradise had burned down. Sheriff’s officials told them his car was still in the garage.

“I really hope he’s still alive and we’re going to be able to see him,” Marbury’s niece Sadia Quint, 30, told Reuters by phone. “We just hope that he’s still with us.”

‘WHY AM I HERE?’

Some in Paradise were experiencing survivors’ guilt. “You’re like, ‘Why am I here?’” Sam Walker, a pastor at the First Baptist Church of Paradise, told WBUR radio. “‘Why is my family all here? Why are our churches still standing?’ I don’t know. My house is gone, like so many others.”

Thousands of additional structures remain threatened as firefighters, many from distant states, try to contain and suppress the flames.

For a graphic on Deadly California fires, see – tmsnrt.rs/2Plpuui

More than 300 California National Guard troops are in the area searching for remains, as well as filling logistical, medical and administrative roles. Lieutenant Colonel Christopher Angle said seven soldiers from his battalion lost their homes in the fire, including one woman who asked to help with the recovery effort because it was “better for her piece of mind to be part of it.”

There have been other smaller blazes in Southern California, including the Woolsey Fire, which is linked to three fatalities and has destroyed at least 500 structures near the Malibu coast west of Los Angeles. It was 57 percent contained.

Scientists say two seasons of devastating wildfires in California are attributable to drought that is symptomatic of climate change.

Republican U.S. President Donald Trump is due to visit the fire zones on Saturday to meet displaced residents. Critics say Trump politicized the fires by blaming them, without supporting evidence, on bad forest mismanagement by California, a largely Democratic state. Trump threatened to withhold federal assistance.

Smoke from the Camp Fire has spread broadly. Public schools in Sacramento 90 miles (150 km) to the south, and as far away as San Francisco and Oakland, canceled classes for Friday due to poor air quality.

Some of Paradise’s older residents who had lost their homes were concerned about where they would live.

“I’m just very hopeful I can work something out for the future,” Norris Godsey, 82, told the San Francisco Chronicle at a church evacuation center in Chico. “If that’s not possible, I don’t know what I’ll do.”

LONDON (Reuters) – British Prime Minister Theresa May won the backing of the most prominent Brexiteer in her government on Friday as she fought to save a draft European Union divorce deal that has stirred up a plot to force her out of her job.

More than two years after the United Kingdom voted to leave the EU, it is still unclear how, on what terms or even if the world’s fifth largest economy will leave the bloc as planned on March 29, 2019.

Just hours after announcing that her senior ministers had collectively backed her divorce deal, May’s premiership was thrust into its most perilous crisis to date when her Brexit Secretary Dominic Raab resigned on Thursday in opposition to the agreement.

Other mutinous lawmakers in her party have openly spoken of ousting her and said bluntly that the Brexit deal would not pass parliament.

But May, who has defiantly vowed to stay on as prime minister, got a rare boost on Friday when Michael Gove, the most prominent Brexit-supporting minister, gave his backing to her, saying he would stay on as environment minister.

Asked if he had confidence in May, Gove, who is famous for sinking former foreign minister Boris Johnson’s leadership bid in 2016, told reporters: “I absolutely do.”

“I think it’s absolutely vital that we focus on getting the right deal in the future, and making sure that in the areas that matter so much to the British people we can get a good outcome,” said Gove, 51, a potential successor to May.

Trade minister Liam Fox, another leading Brexit supporter, also joined Gove in backing May – but her future remains uncertain.

The first question she faced on a LBC radio phone-in show to defend her deal was from a caller who asked her to “respectfully stand down”. She did not immediately address that part of the caller’s question.

Stephen Barclay, a little-known junior health minister, was appointed as the new Brexit secretary, although the status of the role was downgraded from chief negotiator with May leading the completion of talks with the EU.

“He will be doing the domestic role. The PM will be completing the last 10 days of negotiations,” May’s spokesman said.

Sterling GBP=D3, which has see-sawed on Brexit news since the referendum, was up half a cent against the dollar at $1.2834 on Friday.

PLOTTERS

Politicians, officials and diplomats in London openly questioned how long May had left as speculation swirled that a leadership challenge could come soon.

Under Conservative Party rules, a vote must take place when 48 of her lawmakers submit letters to the party’s so-called 1922 committee, chaired by a senior lawmaker, Graham Brady.

Influential Brexit-supporting lawmaker Steve Baker said rebels in May’s party were close to the threshold which would trigger a confidence vote. So far, at least 21 lawmakers have publicly said they have submitted letters.

“I think we’re probably not far off,” said Baker, a key figure in the Brexit-backing wing of May’s party. “I think it probably is imminent, yes,” he told BBC TV.

British political correspondents also reported that Gove, Fox and other pro-Brexit ministers would meet this weekend to amend May’s deal. However, both the Irish and Dutch prime ministers said there was little scope to change the proposals.

Since winning the top job in the turmoil that followed the 2016 referendum, May’s tumultuous premiership has been characterised by an obdurate flair for survival despite frequent crises.

CONFIDENCE VOTE

May’s de facto deputy, David Lidington, said she would win a vote of no confidence, in which she would need a simple majority of the total votes cast by her lawmakers.

“If those letters were to go in, I think that she would win any such vote decisively, and she’d deserve to do so,” Lidington said in a broadcast clip.

If May stayed on in power without a divorce deal that could be approved, the ultimate outcome of Brexit would be uncertain.

Other possible scenarios for the United Kingdom include May’s deal ultimately winning approval; May losing her job; Britain leaving the bloc with no agreement; or even another referendum.

A snap poll by Survation of 1,070 voters for the Daily Mail newspaper found 49 percent of respondents opposed the deal and just 27 percent backed it.

To leave the EU on the terms of her deal, May would need to get the backing of about 320 of parliament’s 650 lawmakers. The deal is due to be discussed at an EU summit on Nov. 25.

By seeking to preserve the closest possible ties with the EU, May has upset her party’s many advocates of a clean break, and Northern Ireland’s Democratic Unionist Party (DUP), which props up her minority government.

“They’ve raised some questions with us, they’ve raised some concerns with us and yes we are looking at those,” May said. “We are still working with the DUP.”

NIGHTMARE FOR BUSINESS?

The EU and Britain need an agreement to keep trade flowing between the world’s biggest trading bloc and the United Kingdom, home to the biggest international financial centre.

Supporters of Brexit say that while the divorce might bring some short-term instability, in the longer term it will allow the United Kingdom to thrive.

May told LBC radio the threat of a no deal Brexit was personal as she is Type 1 diabetic: “I depend on insulin every day. My insulin is produced by a country elsewhere in the European Union.”

May’s spokeswoman said there had been strong business support for her draft deal but British aero-engine maker Rolls-Royce (RR.L) was continuing with its no-deal contingency plans.

The plans include “buffer stocks so that we have all the logistical capacity that we need to carry on running our business,” said Chief Executive Warren East.

Proponents of closer relations with the EU in her own party and the Labour opposition say the deal squanders the advantages of membership for little gain.

(Reuters) – Rose Farrell was an independent-minded 99-year-old determined to live by herself in Paradise, California. A caregiver checked on her daily and she relied on a walker, but still had her car in her driveway.

Since the “Camp Fire” swept rapidly into Paradise, which sits atop a ridge 1,700 feet above a canyon cut by the Feather River, Farrell’s family has been unable to reach her.

“The hardest part is just waiting to know what happened,” said Tom Perez, 58, the husband of Farrell’s granddaughter.

California’s deadliest wildfire roared into the town of 27,000 last week, speeding seven miles in 90 minutes and leaving residents little time to flee.

Some died in their cars in a chaotic evacuation as gridlock snarled up the two exits out of town. Farrell is one of 630 people listed as missing, while the death toll has climbed to 63.

The number of those unaccounted for has fluctuated wildly and officials warn it will almost certainly change.

Over the weekend, the Butte County Sheriff’s office initially put the total of missing people at 228, many of whom were later accounted for. But as fresh reports from relatives came in, the list grew from 103 to 130 late Wednesday, jumped to 297 by Thursday morning and soared to 630 as of Thursday night.

In some cases, people may have survived but not yet notified the authorities, or relatives may not yet have reported people missing. Poor cell phone coverage after the fire has exacerbated the problem.

“We still have reports coming in of people being missing and of people being found,” said Miranda Bowersox, a spokeswoman for the sheriff’s office. “The overall number will go down, but in the short term we expect to see new reports of people missing.”

Paradise was home to many retirees, like Donna Duncan-Austin, 90, who used a walker to get around. Her husband Angello Austin, 87, was more physically active and worked as a baker and a handyman, Donna’s niece Andrea Evans told Reuters by phone.

“They were deeply, deeply in love,” Evans said.

Donna was heavily involved with her church, but no one there has heard from her, Evans said.

“That’s why I brace myself,” she said.

SEARCHING IN VAIN

At least 90 percent of those on a list of the missing provided by the Butte County Sheriff’s office on Wednesday were aged over 60. Relatives say some of them are disabled or have limited mobility.

Bill Mount, 62, is one of them. His niece Jaime Daugherty said her brother urgently knocked on Mount’s door just after 6 a.m. on the day of the fire and got no response.

Mount’s house burned to the ground. One of the dozen or so coroner’s teams dispatched to the calamity from around California along with cadaver dogs, was supposed to search the site on Thursday, she said.

“I called every hospital, every shelter,” Daugherty said, and was told they had no one by that name listed there.

Forensic teams have been trying to get DNA from relatives to identify victims.

Brian Potter has sought his grandmother, Vernice Regan, 96, at shelters, local hotels and a town hall meeting in the city of Chico to the south of Paradise, for days to no avail.

She lived in Paradise for more than six decades, once ran an apple orchard with her late husband, and recently broke her hip on an overseas trip, he said.

“I’m starting to think that maybe the worst may have happened,” Potter said.

For the those who survived the fire, helping locate friends and relatives has given them a sense of purpose.

Julie Walker and her husband Lane were among many who fled to the Neighborhood Community Church in Chico, which is serving as a Red Cross shelter for about 200 people.

When people call the shelter seeking the missing, church staff take down the person’s information and post it on a board outside. Lane and Julie were scanning the list, pen in hand, hoping to cross off names of people they knew were safe.

“We could only cross off two names,” said Julie, who retired from the Pacific Gas & Electric Co. “I know quite a few of the names on that list. It’s our whole community.”

(This story has been refilled to correct date in dateline to Nov 16 from Nov 15)

LONDON (Reuters) – To leave, or not to leave: More than two and a half years since the United Kingdom voted to exit the EU, that is still the question.

The crisis in Prime Minister Theresa May’s government over her draft Brexit divorce deal has stirred interest in the possibility that the United Kingdom could change its mind, or ‘regrexit’.

In the June 23, 2016 referendum, 17.4 million voters, or 52 percent, backed Brexit while 16.1 million, or 48 percent, backed staying in the bloc.

But ever since, opponents of Brexit have been exploring ways to hold another referendum.

May has repeatedly said there will not be another referendum on membership and the leader of the main opposition party, Jeremy Corbyn, has indicated he is also not in favour.

So what is the path to a second vote?

1) MAY’S BREXIT PLAN FAILS

The first step, according to campaigners, is that parliament rejects May’s draft divorce deal.

To leave the EU on the terms of her deal, May would need the backing of parliament.

The size of the rebellion inside her Conservative Party and the anger of her allies in the Northern Irish Democratic Unionist Party indicate she would have trouble passing the deal, even with significant support from Labour Party MPs.

“I suspect it will get to parliament and parliament will vote it down and once that happens it will be game on for a People’s Vote,” said Hugo Dixon, deputy chair of the People’s Vote campaign group, which wants another referendum.

“Voting down a deal does not mean we crash out no deal at all; it means we are highly likely to move to a People’s Vote with an option to stay in the EU,” Dixon said. “The no deal scenario is not likely,”

2) UK POLITICAL CRISIS

The collapse of May’s deal would thrust the United Kingdom deeper into crisis.

Three of the four former British prime ministers still alive – John Major, Tony Blair and Gordon Brown – have said a second referendum is the way to resolve the crisis.

“I still believe it is possible that Brexit is stopped,” Blair told Reuters last month.

The opposition Labour Party, which is also divided over Brexit, has indicated it would seek to trigger a national election if May failed to get parliamentary approval.

But to secure an election, two thirds of the 650 MPs in parliament would have to vote for one.

Another way is if a motion of no confidence in the government is passed. There is then a 14-day grace period in which to pass an act of confidence in a new government.

If there is no vote of confidence in that new government, then a new election must be held within about 17 working days, according to the Institute of Government.

Brexit campaigners think Labour would fail to trigger an election.

3) PARLIAMENT TAKES CHARGE

After what would have been weeks of crisis and the failure of various other options – an election, a new prime minister, attempts to renegotiate with the EU – parliament would finally demand a new referendum.

The exact mechanism is unclear but MPs could vote for a motion calling for a new referendum as a way out of the deadlock. That would have to be backed up by legislation calling a referendum.

4) ASKING THE EU FOR TIME

Holding a referendum would take months so the European Union would have to be asked for more time as the United Kingdom is currently on course to leave at 2300 GMT on March 29, 2019.

Key to asking for more time is the question of whether the United Kingdom could withdraw Article 50 of the Treaty of Lisbon nearly two years after May invoked it.

As the clause has never been used before, lawyers have a diverse range of opinions on its reversibility or not.

But the British diplomat who drafted the clause, John Kerr, has repeatedly argued that it can be reversed.

“The die is not irrevocably cast, there is still time and, until the UK has left the EU, the Article 50 letter can be withdrawn,” Kerr, who was British ambassador to the EU from 1990 to 1995, said in “The Roadmap to a People’s Vote”. here

Judges at the European Union’s highest court will hear a case on the Brexit process on Nov. 27, reviewing whether Britain could unilaterally withdraw its decision to leave the EU.

5) WHAT WOULD THE PEOPLE SAY?

Unclear.

Many supporters of Brexit say that holding such a vote would thrust the United Kingdom into its biggest ever constitutional crisis, and possibly even provoke disorder.

While polls and academic research show that the country remains divided, a survey of 20,000 voters published this month showed it would vote to stay in the EU. here

Many surveys ahead of the vote incorrectly predicted that Britain would vote to stay in the club it joined in 1973. But a vote to leave in a second referendum would surely mean the country would have to leave.

6) WHAT WOULD BE ON THE BALLOT PAPER?

It’s not clear, of course. Jo Johnson, younger brother of Boris, resigned from the government earlier this month, calling for another referendum.

People should be asked “whether they want to go ahead with Brexit now that we know the deal that is actually available to us, whether we should leave without any deal at all, or whether people on balance would rather stick with the deal we already have inside the European Union”, he said.

Supporters of Brexit say having two options for Brexit and one for remain would be unfair as it would split the vote for Brexit. 

7) LOVE EU AGAIN?

The prospect of the world’s fifth largest economy returning to the fold would surely be welcomed by most EU leaders.

European Council President Donald Tusk said this week that the EU is prepared to cancel Brexit.

French President Emmanuel Macron, for example, has suggested Britain could still change its mind.

8) NEVERENDUM?

Opponents of the idea of a second referendum say it would not solve anything even if voters chose to stay in the EU.

Supporters of Brexit would then demand a third, decisive referendum to resolve the question that has haunted the United Kingdom since it lost its empire: Should it go it alone or partner with the European project?

PARADISE, Calif. (Reuters) – Family members and survivors of the deadliest wildfire in California history sought news on Friday on the missing 630 people – 10 times the number of confirmed dead – from the fast-moving blaze that reduced much of the town of Paradise to ash and charred rubble.

With nearly 12,000 homes and buildings burned, refugees from the fire have taken up residence in tents or their vehicles and filled evacuation centers to overflowing. Search teams, meanwhile, are combing through burned-out areas looking for bodies – or anything else that might carry human DNA for identification purposes.

The number of people unaccounted for after the fire has fluctuated all week and officials have warned those numbers are almost certain to change day by day. In some cases, those unaccounted for have likely survived but not yet notified family or authorities that they are alive, or relatives may not yet have reported people missing. Poor cellphone coverage after the fire has also made communications difficult.

Last weekend, the Butte County Sheriff’s office initially put the total of missing people at 228, many of whom have now been accounted for. But as fresh reports from relatives caused the list to rise to 130 from 103 late Wednesday, 297 by Thursday morning and 630 as of Thursday night.

On Friday morning the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection, known as Cal Fire, said the death toll in the fire held at 63 overnight. The blaze, named the Camp Fire, was now 45 percent contained, up from 35 percent on Thursday, even though it had grown slightly to 142,000 acres (57,000 hectares).

The fire – which roared through Paradise, a town of 27,000 people in the Sierra foothills 175 miles (280 km) north of San Francisco, on Nov. 8 – is among the deadliest to have hit the United States over the last century.

Authorities attribute the death toll partly to the speed with which flames raced through the town, driven by wind and fueled by desiccated scrub and trees.

Weather conditions now are helping the firefighting effort, Nick Pimlott, a Cal Fire engineer, told KRCR TV. He said the winds had died down, allowing crews around Lake Oroville to the southeast of Paradise to construct fresh lines to contain the fire.

Many on the missing list are over the age of 65. Local officials and realtors have long sold Paradise as an ideal place to retire.

Brandon DuVall of Seattle said he last communicated with his retired father, Robert DuVall, in July after his father had bought a new pickup and camper. He received a call earlier this week that his father’s remains might have been found and now will go to California to provide a DNA sample.

Relatives of retired U.S. Navy veteran David Marbury, 66, are waiting to hear from him. No one has managed to speak with him since the wildfire began, and relatives’ phone calls have gone directly to his voicemail.

On Thursday, Marbury’s landlord confirmed to relatives that his duplex in Paradise had burned down. Sheriff’s officials told them his car was still in the garage.

“I really hope he’s still alive and we’re going to be able to see him,” Marbury’s niece Sadia Quint, 30, told Reuters by phone. “We just hope that he’s still with us.”

‘WHY AM I HERE?’

Some in Paradise were experiencing survivors’ guilt. “You’re like, ‘Why am I here?’” Sam Walker, a pastor at the First Baptist Church of Paradise, told WBUR radio. “‘Why is my family all here? Why are our churches still standing?’ I don’t know. My house is gone, like so many others.”

Thousands of additional structures remain threatened as firefighters, many from distant states, try to contain and suppress the flames.

(GRAPHIC: Deadly California fires – tmsnrt.rs/2Plpuui)

There have been other smaller blazes in Southern California, including the Woolsey Fire, which is linked to three fatalities and has destroyed at least 500 structures near the Malibu coast west of Los Angeles. It was 57 percent contained.

Scientists say two seasons of devastating wildfires in California are ascribable to drought that is symptomatic of climate change.

Two electric utilities say they sustained equipment problems close to the origins of the blazes around the time they were reported.

Republican U.S. President Donald Trump is due to visit the fire zones on Saturday to meet displaced residents. Critics say Trump politicized the fires by blaming them, without supporting evidence, on bad forest mismanagement by California, a largely Democratic state. Trump had threatened to withhold federal assistance.

Smoke from the Camp Fire has spread far and wide. Public schools in Sacramento 90 miles (145 km) to the south, and as far away as San Francisco and Oakland, canceled classes for Friday due to poor air quality.

Many of those who survived the flames but lost homes stayed with friends or relatives or at American Red Cross shelters.

Some of Paradise’s older residents who had lost their homes were concerned about where they would live.

“I’m just very hopeful I can work something out for the future,” Norris Godsey, 82, told the San Francisco Chronicle at a church evacuation center in Chico. “If that’s not possible, I don’t know what I’ll do.”