IN BRIEF (Page 12)

UNITED STATES

5 killed in fire at a day care center

A day care center where children could stay overnight as their parents worked was ravaged on Sunday by a fire that killed five and sent the owner to the hospital, authorities said. The victims in the lakeside city of Erie, Pennsylvania, ranged in ages from 8 months to 7 years, Chief Guy Santone of the Erie Fire Department said. At least four of the victims were staying overnight at the residential house that had been turned into a day care center, Erie Chief Fire Inspector John Widomski told the Erie Times-News. The fire, reported at about 1:15 am, was funneling out of every first-floor window when firefighters arrived, Widomski said. The cause of the fire remained under investigation on Sunday afternoon, Widomski told the newspaper.

CANADA

Cable cars crash into forested hillside

Dozens of cable cars at a Canadian tourist hotspot crashed into a forested hillside after a vandal attack severed overhead wires, police and operators said. Thirty cabins fell to the ground when the two-kilometer haul rope at the Squamish Sea-to-Sky Gondola was cut before dawn on Saturday. "We believe that the cable has been cut and this is a deliberate act of vandalism," Royal Canadian Mounted Police inspector Kara Triance told reporters on Saturday. A major tourist attraction, the route can carry up to 240 people at a time and offers views of fjords on Canada's Pacific Coast. The facility will be closed for the "foreseeable future", operators said on Saturday. Police said no one was injured in the accident.

GUATEMALA

Giammattei wins presidential runoff

Conservative candidate Alejandro Giammattei won Guatemala's presidential runoff on Sunday with a decisive lead over his rival, according to preliminary results from the Supreme Electoral Court. With 84 percent of the votes counted, Giammattei, of the Vamos (Let's Go) party, garnered 59 percent of the ballots, or 1,650,976 votes. The winner of the runoff vote will take office on Jan 14. Giammattei will succeed Guatemalan President Jimmy Morales, who is barred by law from running for a second term, to serve a four-year term. During his campaign, Giammattei pledged to get tough on crime, including by reinstating the death penalty.

YEMEN

Houthi rebels claim fresh drone attacks

Yemen's Houthi rebels said they had launched multiple drone attacks on King Khaled Air Base in the southwest of Saudi Arabia on Sunday night, Houthi-run al-Masirah TV reported. The bomb-laden drones targeted radars at the air base in Khamis Mushait city. Saudi Arabia has yet to confirm the alleged attack. Houthis have recently stepped up drone attacks on Saudi Arabia, but most of the drones were intercepted by the kingdom's air forces. Saudi Arabia has been leading an Arab military coalition against Iran-allied Houthis in Yemen for more than four years in support of the exiled internationally-recognized government of Yemeni President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi.

Xinhua - Agencies

(China Daily 08/13/2019 page12)