At least 4 dead after tornado and severe storm batters St. Louis, mayor says
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St Louis (US) (AP): At least four people died and authorities were searching from building to building for people who were trapped or hurt after severe storms including a possible tornado swept through St. Louis.
The storms Friday afternoon tore roofs off buildings, ripped bricks off of siding and downed trees and power lines as residents were urged to take cover.
St. Louis Mayor Cara Spencer confirmed the deaths at a media briefing.
“This is truly, truly devastating,” Spencer said, adding that the city was in the process of declaring an emergency.
National Weather Service radar indicated that a tornado touched down between 2:30 p.m. and 2:50 p.m. in Clayton, Missouri, in the St. Louis area. The apparent tornado touched down in the area of Forest Park, home to the St. Louis Zoo and the site of the 1904 World's Fair and Olympic Games the same year.
At Centennial Christian Church, City of St. Louis Fire Department Battalion Chief William Pollihan told The Associated Press that three people had to be rescued after part of the church crumbled. One of those people died.
Stacy Clark said his mother-in-law Patricia Penelton died in the church. He described her as a very active church volunteer who had many roles, including being part of the choir.
“Pray for our church,” Centennial Christian posted on its Facebook page.
Jeffrey Simmons Sr., who lives across the street from the church, heard an alert on his phone and then the lights went out.
“And next thing you know, a lot of noise, heavy wind,” he said. He and his brother went into the basement. Later, he realized it was worse than he thought: “Everything was tore up.”
Downed trees and stop lights also caused traffic gridlock during the Friday afternoon commute, and officials urged people to stay home if possible.
The upper stories of the Harlem Taproom's brick building were demolished when the storm came through, leaving piles of bricks around the outside. About 20 people were inside, but they huddled in the back of the building and none of them were hurt, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch reported.
John Randle, a 19-year-old University of Missouri-St. Louis student, said he and his girlfriend were at the St. Louis Art Museum during the storm and got hustled into the basement with about 150 other people.
He said they could hear tree branches and hail hitting the building's windows and that he went up a flight of stairs to the main entrance for about 10 seconds.
"You could see the doors flying open, tree branches flying by and people running,” he said. “A lot of people were caught outside.”
Christy Childs, a spokesperson for the Saint Louis Zoo, said in a text that the zoo would remain closed Saturday because of downed trees and other damage. Childs said all animals were safe and that there were no reports of significant injuries to staff, guests or animals.
“We can't definitively say whether or not it was a tornado -- it likely was,” National Weather Service meteorologist Marshall Pfahler said.
The storms were part of a severe weather system that spawned tornadoes in Wisconsin, downed trees, left thousands without power in the Great Lakes region and brought a punishing heat wave to Texas.
Appalachia and Midwest face danger
Weather forecasters warned that severe storms with possible tornadoes, hail and even hurricane-force winds could hobble parts of Appalachia and the Midwest on Friday.
The weather service warned of a rare tornado emergency around Marion, Illinois, on Friday evening, saying that a tornado had been confirmed and that it was life-threatening. Reports of damage and injuries weren't immediately known.
A dust storm warning was issued around the Chicago area on Friday night. The weather service said a wall of dust extended along a 100-mile (161-kilometer) line from southwest of Chicago to northern Indiana that severely reduced visibility.
The National Weather Service said residents in Kentucky, southern Indiana, southern Illinois, parts of Tennessee, Missouri, Arkansas and Ohio should brace for intense storms that could include baseball-sized hail.
The weather service's Storm Prediction Center said that “strong, potentially long-track tornadoes and very large hail” could be expected. The threat for damaging winds in excess of 75 mph will increase into this evening as storms grow into larger clusters.
Ahead of Friday night's anticipated storm, Appalachian Power, which serves 1 million customers in West Virginia, Virginia and Tennessee, said Friday it requested 1,700 additional workers from neighboring utilities along with sending its own crews from unaffected areas to assist with service restoration.
Faith Borden, a meteorologist in the National Weather Service Nashville office, said Friday that middle Tennessee could expect "all types of severe weather. Winds up to 70 mph. We're talking seriously large hail up to 3 inches, which for us is big hail.”
Texas hit by heat wave
Texas, meanwhile, faced searing heat. A heat advisory was issued for the San Antonio and Austin, with temperatures at a blistering 95 F (35 C) to 105 (40.5 C). Parts of the southern East Coast, from Virginia to Florida, battled with heat in the 90s.
The National Weather Service Office for Austin/San Antonio said Friday the humidity coming in over the weekend is expected to make temperatures feel hotter.
“There are concerns of heat exhaustion for people that aren't taking proper precautions when they're outdoors,” meteorologist Jason Runyen said. He advised those affected to take breaks and stay hydrated.
Overnight Thursday, storms accompanied by booming thunder, lightning displays and powerful winds swept through parts of Wisconsin, Illinois, northern Indiana and Michigan — leaving scores of trees down and thousands of homes without power.
Several tornadoes touched down Thursday in central Wisconsin. None of the twisters have received ratings yet, said Timm Uhlmann, a National Weather Service meteorologist in Green Bay.
“We're still gathering reports,” Uhlmann said. “We're assessing some of the damage and still getting video and pictures. The damage that we have is fairly widespread. There was a lot of large hail. In Eau Claire was one report of softball-sized hail.”
No injuries have been reported.
Surveys also were underway Friday of damage in Michigan to determine if any tornadoes touched down there, said Steven Freitag, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in White Lake Township, northwest of Detroit.
The storms were fueled by temperatures in the lower 80s that stretched from Illinois into Michigan and were activated by a cold front that pushed through, Freitag said.
By Friday evening, customers in Michigan were slowly seeing power return but more than 200,000 remained without it. An estimated 60,000 were without power in Indiana. Another 27,000 in total had no electricity in Illinois and Kentucky.
The threat of severe weather in Chicago delayed a Beyoncé concert by about two hours Thursday at Soldier Field.
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Actress sexual assault: Court says Prosecution 'miserably' failed to prove conspiracy against Dileep
Kochi (PTI): The prosecution had "miserably" failed to prove the conspiracy charge against Dileep in the sensational 2017 actress sexual assault case, a local court has observed while citing inconsistencies and lack of sufficient evidence against the Malayalam star.
The full judgement of Ernakulam District and Principal Sessions Court Judge Honey M Varghese was released late on Friday, and has revealed the judge also pointing out at unsustainable arguments put forth by the prosecution.
"The prosecution miserably failed to prove the conspiracy between accused No.1 (Pulsar Suni) and accused No.8 (Dileep) in executing the offence against the victim," the court held.
It examined in detail, the prosecution's allegation that Dileep had hired the prime accused to sexually assault the survivor and record visuals, including close-up footage of a gold ring she was wearing, to establish her identity.
On page 1130 of the judgment, under paragraph 703, the court framed the issue as whether the prosecution's contention that NS Sunil (Pulsar Suni) recorded visuals of the gold ring worn by the victim at the time of the occurrence, so as to clearly disclose her identity, was sustainable.
The prosecution contended Dileep and Suni had planned the recording so that the actress' identity would be unmistakable, with the video of the gold ring intended to convince Dileep that the visuals were genuine.
However, the court noted that this contention was not stated in the first charge sheet and was introduced only in the second one.
As part of this claim, a gold ring was seized after the victim produced it before the police.
The court observed that multiple statements of the victim were recorded from February 18, 2017, following the incident, and that she first raised allegations against Dileep only on June 3, 2017.
Even on that day, nothing was mentioned about filming of the ring as claimed by the prosecution, the court said.
The prosecution failed to explain why the victim did not disclose this fact at the earliest available opportunities.
It further noted that although the victim had viewed the sexual assault visuals twice, she did not mention any specific recording of the gold ring on those occasions, which remained unexplained.
The court also examined the approvers' statements.
One approver told the magistrate that Dileep had instructed Pulsar Suni to record the victim's wedding ring.
The court observed that no such wedding ring was available with her at that time.
During the trial, the approver changed his version, the court said.
The Special Public Prosecutor put a leading question to the approver on whether Dileep had instructed the recording of the ring, after which he deposed that the instruction was to record it to prove the victim's identity.
The court observed that the approver changed his account to corroborate the victim's evidence.
When the same question was put to another approver, he repeated the claim during the trial but admitted he had never stated this fact before the investigating officer.
The court noted that the second approver even went to the extent of claiming Dileep had instructed the execution of the crime as the victim's engagement was over.
This showed that the evidence of the second approver regarding the shooting of the ring was untrue, as her engagement had taken place after the crime.
The court further observed that the visuals themselves clearly revealed the victim's identity and that there was no need to capture images of the ring to establish identity.
In paragraph 887, the court examined the alleged motive behind the crime and noted that in the first charge sheet, the prosecution had claimed that accused persons 1 to 6 had kidnapped the victim with the common intention of capturing nude visuals to extort money by threatening to circulate them and there was no mention about Dileep's role in it.
The court also rejected the prosecution's claim that the accused had been planning the assault on Dileep's instructions since 2013, noting that the allegation was not supported by reliable evidence.
It similarly ruled out the claim that Suni attempted to sexually assault the victim in Goa in January 2017, stating that witness statements showed no such misconduct when he served as the driver of the vehicle used by the actress there.
The court also discussed various controversies that followed Dileep's arrest and the evidence relied upon by the prosecution, ultimately finding that the case had not been proved.
Pronouning its verdict on the sensational case on December 8, the court acquitted Dileep and three others.
Later, the court sentenced six accused, including the prime accused Suni, to 20 years' rigorous imprisonment.
The assault on the multilingual actress, after the accused allegedly forced their way into her car and held it under their control for two hours on February 17, 2017, had shocked Kerala.
Pulsar Suni sexually assaulted the actress and video recorded the act with the help of the other convicted persons in the moving car.
