North America

LOS ANGELES (AP) — The captain and crew who leapt from a burning dive boat off Southern California saved themselves as 34 people perished below deck.

Whether their escape from the Conception before dawn Monday was the only viable option, an act of cowardice or even a crime has yet to be determined. While the old saw about the captain going down with his ship is more an antiquated notion, there are laws to punish a ship’s master who shirks his duty to safely evacuate passengers.

FREEPORT, Bahamas (AP) — The ground crunched under Greg Alem’s feet on Wednesday as he walked over the ruins of his home, laid waste by Hurricane Dorian. He touched a splintered beam of wood and pointed to the fallen trees, overcome by memories.

“We planted those trees ourselves. Everything has a memory, you know,” he said. “It’s so, so sad. ... In the Bible there is a person called Job, and I feel like Job right now. He’s lost everything, but his faith kept him strong.”

WASHINGTON (AP) — Top Democratic presidential contenders talked tough Wednesday on cutting climate-damaging emissions from oil, gas and coal, turning their focus to global warming in a marathon evening of town halls that gave the candidates a chance to distinguish themselves on a topic of growing importance to their party’s liberal base.

SANTA BARBARA, Calif. (AP) — Only one person remained missing Wednesday after searchers recovered 33 bodies from the charred underwater wreckage of a dive boat that caught fire off the Southern California coast and sank on Labor Day.

Among the victims were an engineer for Apple who went on the trip with his wife and daughter to celebrate the teen’s 17th birthday, a special effects designer for Disney, a nature photographer, a nurse and a physics teacher from Northern California who was with his 26-year-old daughter.

WASHINGTON (AP) — Minutes after media outlets identified the gunman who killed seven people in West Texas, a Twitter account that appears to have been computer-generated began spreading baseless information linking the shooter to Democratic presidential candidate Beto O’Rourke.

“The Odessa Shooter’s name is Seth Ator, a Democrat Socialist who had a Beto sticker on his truck,” said the post, which also appeared on Facebook.

For all the strategic calculations, sophisticated voter targeting and relentless talk about electability in Iowa and New Hampshire, the Democratic presidential nomination will be determined by a decidedly different group: black voters.

African Americans will watch as mostly white voters in the first two contests express preferences and winnow the field — then they will almost certainly anoint the winner.

CHARLESTON, S.C. (AP) — Hurricane Dorian , back to a Category 3 storm, began raking the Southeast U.S. seaboard late Wednesday, threatening to inundate low-lying coasts from Georgia to southwest Virginia with a dangerous storm surge after its deadly mauling of the Bahamas.

UNITED NATIONS, Sept. 3 (Xinhua) -- United Nations Security Council will highlight UN cooperation with regional organizations and the settlement of African problems in September, Vassily Nebenzia, Russia's UN ambassador and president of the Security Council for the month, said Tuesday.

"The Council is planning two minister-level meetings in September respectively on cooperation between the United Nations and regional and sub-regional organizations, and on peace and security in Africa," the Russian ambassador told a press conference held at the UN headquarters in New York.

GENEVA, Sept 4 (NNN-AGENCIES) — Leaving the European Union without a trade deal would cost Britain at least US$16 billion in lost exports, and would probably cost far more after indirect effects are taken into account, a report by the UN trade agency UNCTAD said.

“UNCTAD’s research indicates that a no-deal Brexit will result in UK export losses of at least US$16 billion, representing an approximate 7 per cent loss of overall UK exports to the EU,” it said.

MEXICO CITY (AP) — One of the main suspects in the 2014 disappearance of 43 teachers’ college students in southern Mexico has been acquitted, a human rights attorney said Tuesday, as justice remains elusive for one of the darkest moments of the country’s recent history.

Santiago Aguirre, director of the human rights center known as Prodh and a lawyer for victims’ relatives, said the judge absolved Gilberto López Astudillo due to “insufficient evidence” and the suspect was released from custody Saturday with no pending charges remaining against him.