"disaster"

On Monday, the water was clear and rolling in a north wind. Snow covered the scar running down the side of Mount Riley. That eerie calm almost concealed the violence of the Dec. 2 storm that lashed rain and brought down trees and the side of a mountain.

A disaster declaration could make the fishery eligible for federal relief funds, although who specifically would receive money would be figured out later. 

Newtok is requesting a federal disaster declaration to deal with ongoing erosion and thawing permafrost. The village estimates it has just three years before it must be completely abandoned.

Taiwanese officials canceled traditional New Year celebrations and instead went to temples to pray for earthquake victims.

The Sockeye Fire near Willow is now the state’s number one fire-fighting priority.

Western countries complained that Nepal’s bureaucracy was keeping goods at warehouses. The Marines come with Osprey tilt-rotor aircraft, which should make reaching remote areas easier.

Nearly 11,000 more were injured. The toll includes four Americans who died at a Mount Everest base camp. In addition to food, the U.N. says medical supplies are desperately needed.

Prosecutors in South Korea are reportedly demanding the death penalty for the captain of a ferry that capsized and sank in April, killing more than 300 people.

As darkness fell Friday in the Yellow Sea off South Korea’s southern coast, there was still no good news to report about efforts to determine if any of the nearly 270 people missing since a passenger ferry capsized Wednesday might still be alive inside the sunken ship.

Searchers pulled more bodies from a soupy mixture of muck and debris, bringing the death toll to eight, after a massive mudslide over the weekend smashed through a community in rural western Washington state.