1st popularly elected black man dies at 95
BOSTON – Former U.S. Sen. Edward W. Brooke, a liberal Republican who became the first black in U.S. history to win popular election to the Senate, died Saturday. He was 95.
Brooke died of natural causes at his Coral Gables, Florida, home, said Ralph Neas, a former Brooke aide. Brooke was surrounded by his family.
Brooke was elected to the Senate in 1966, becoming the first black to sit in that branch from any state since Reconstruction and one of nine blacks who have ever served there, including President Barack Obama.
Brooke told The Associated Press he was “thankful to God” that he lived to see Obama’s election. And the president was on hand in October 2009 when Brooke was presented with the Congressional Gold Medal, the highest award Congress has to honor civilians. Obama hailed Brooke as “a man who’s spent his life breaking barriers and bridging divides across this country.”
A Republican in a largely Democratic state, Brooke was one of Massachusetts’ most popular political figures during most of his 12 years in the Senate.
Officials think AirAsia plane has been found
PANGKALAN BUN, Indonesia – Indonesian officials said Saturday they were confident wreckage of AirAsia Flight 8501 had been located after sonar equipment detected four massive objects on the ocean floor.
The biggest piece, measuring 59 feet long and 18 feet wide, appeared to be part of the jet’s body, said Henry Bambang Soelistyo, chief of the National Search and Rescue Agency.
Though strong currents and big surf have prevented divers from entering waters to get a visual of the suspected fuselage, officials are hopeful they will find many of the crew and passengers inside, still strapped in their seats.
There were 162 people aboard the plane, but after a week of searching only 30 bodies have been found floating in the choppy waters.
The Airbus A320 crashed Dec. 28, halfway into a two-hour flight from Surabaya, Indonesia’s second-largest city, to Singapore. Minutes before losing contact, the pilot told air traffic control that he was approaching threatening clouds, but he was denied permission to climb to a higher altitude because of heavy air traffic.
Alleged al-Qaida foe dies in U.S. hospital
CAIRO – Fifteen years after allegedly helping al-Qaida plot the 1998 bombings of U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania, Abu Anas al-Libi parked his car on a quiet street in Libya’s capital.
Within moments, soldiers from the U.S. Army’s elite Delta Force forced him at gunpoint into a van and sped away. They’d fly him to a naval ship in the Mediterranean Sea before finally bringing him to New York to stand trial on charges of helping kill 224 people, including a dozen Americans, and wound more than 4,500.
But al-Libi, who pleaded innocent to the charges against him, wouldn’t live to see his trial start Jan. 12. He died Friday night at a New York hospital of complications stemming from a recent liver surgery, his wife and authorities said Saturday. He was 50.
Al-Libi, once wanted by the FBI with a $5 million bounty on his head, was chronically ill with hepatitis C when the soldiers seized him. His wife, who asked to be identified as Um Abdullah, told The Associated Press that his experience only worsened his ailments.
Heat, smoke still burn Greek ferry in Italy
BRINDISI, Italy – For a second day, fierce heat from a slow-burning blaze kept firefighters and other investigators Saturday from searching the hold and vehicle decks of a Greek ferry for more bodies.
At least 11 people perished in the pre-dawn blaze Dec. 28 aboard the Norman Atlantic, on a voyage between Greece and Italy. Authorities fear more bodies might be inside the vehicle deck where the fire began.
The ferry was towed into the Italian port of Brindisi on Friday morning. Port Capt. Mario Valente said Saturday temperatures were “very high” inside the deck. Smoke still poured from the wreck.
In early evening, Bari Prosecutor Ettore Cardinali told journalists that no bodies were found during a search of some of the passenger cabins and some deck areas.
Associated Press
