The Canadian Press – Sep 13, 2020 / 12:30 pm | Story: 310455

Photo: The Canadian Press

This Saturday, Sept. 12, 2020 photo provided by The Cochran Firm shows Roderick Walker at the Clayton County Jail in Jonesboro, Ga. 

A sheriff’s deputy in Georgia has been fired after being captured on video repeatedly punching a Black man during a traffic stop, authorities said Sunday.

The deputy was being let go for “excessive use of force,” the Clayton County Sheriff’s Office said in a statement. It did not identify the deputy, but said a criminal investigation has been turned over to the district attorney’s office.

Roderick Walker, 26, was arrested and beaten after Clayton County sheriff’s deputies pulled over the vehicle he was riding in Friday with his girlfriend, their 5-month-old child and his stepson for an alleged broken taillight, his attorney, Shean Williams of The Cochran Firm in Atlanta said Sunday. The deputies asked for Walker’s identification and got upset and demanded he get out of the vehicle when he questioned why they needed it since he wasn’t driving, Williams said.

The subsequent arrest, captured on video by a bystander and shared widely, shows two deputies on top of Walker, one of whom repeatedly punches him. Walker’s girlfriend screams and tells the deputies Walker said he can’t breathe. A child in the vehicle yells, “Daddy.”

As Walker is handcuffed, the deputy who punched him tells the bystander that Walker bit him.

Williams said his client denies biting the deputy. Walker was trying to survive and lost consciousness at least twice during the beating, Williams said. A photo of Walker taken later in jail shows a welt under his left eye.

“My reaction to the video is that it just shows unfortunately another incident where an African American male’s civil rights have been violated by people and officers and law enforcement who have the duty first to protect and serve,” he said.

Walker later wobbles and appears to try to jerk free as deputies get him on his feet. He was arrested on suspicion of obstructing officers and battery, according to jail records. Williams demanded his release on bond and said he has asked the Georgia Bureau of Investigation to review the case. He also accused investigators of improperly talking to his client without an attorney at the jail.

A person who answered a call to the sheriff’s office said he could not comment further, citing an ongoing investigation. He declined to provide his full name.

The sheriff’s office said in its statement a court denied bond for Walker because of outstanding warrants, including a felony probation warrant out of Fulton County for cruelty to children and possession of a firearm by a convicted felon.

It said Walker had received medical attention and was being monitored by a doctor at the jail hospital.

Walker, his girlfriend and the children had dropped off a rental car and found a driver willing to take them home for $10, Williams said. The driver was also Black. Williams said he was released without a citation, though he, too, did not have identification.

The Canadian Press – Sep 13, 2020 / 10:55 am | Story: 310448

Photo: The Canadian Press

FILE – This May 8, 2009, file photo shows a man who declined to be identified, wearing saggy pants, as he dials a phone in Nashville, Tenn. After 13 years, a South Florida city has overturned a ban on “saggy pants” — bottoms that reveal the wearer’s underwear. The Opa-locka City Commission voted Wednesday, Sept. 9, 2020, on a 4-1 vote to repeal both the original 2007 legislation and a 2013 ordinance that said women, not just men, could receive civil citations for wearing pants that exposed their undergarments. (AP Photo/Mark Humphrey, File)

After 13 years, a South Florida city has overturned a ban on “saggy pants” — bottoms that reveal the wearer’s underwear.

The Opa-locka City Commission voted Wednesday on a 4-1 vote to repeal both the original 2007 legislation and a 2013 ordinance that said women, not just men, could receive civil citations for wearing pants that exposed their undergarments.

The Miami Herald reports that the vote was a first reading of the repeal, meaning it will need to be approved again at a subsequent commission meeting before it’s official. But the item was co-sponsored by four of the five commissioners.

Around the city, which is northeast of Miami, signs still warn folks of the ordinance. They showing an image of two young men wearing pants below their waists and featuring the words: “No ifs, ands or butts … It’s the city law!”

“I was never in support of it, even as a resident,” Vice Mayor Chris Davis, who sponsored the repeal, told the Miami Herald. “I felt it disproportionately affected a certain segment of our population, which is young, African-American men.”

When the ordinance was first passed, the ACLU of Florida called it a “ridiculous waste of public resources,” saying it would “impose overly harsh penalties for victimless behaviour” and disproportionately affect Black youths.

The Canadian Press – Sep 12, 2020 / 3:10 pm | Story: 310423

Photo: The Canadian Press

 

Oxford University announced Saturday it was resuming a trial for a coronavirus vaccine it is developing with pharmaceutical company AstraZeneca, a move that comes days after the study was suspended following a reported side-effect in a U.K. patient.

In a statement, the university confirmed the restart across all of its U.K. clinical trial sites after regulators gave the go-ahead following the pause on Sunday.

“The independent review process has concluded and following the recommendations of both the independent safety review committee and the U.K. regulator, the MHRA, the trials will recommence in the U.K.,” it said.

The vaccine being developed by Oxford and AstraZeneca is widely perceived to be one of the strongest contenders among the dozens of coronavirus vaccines in various stages of testing around the world.

British Health Secretary Matt Hancock welcomed the restart, saying in a tweet that it was “good news for everyone” that the trial is “back up and running.”

The university said in large trials such as this “it is expected that some participants will become unwell and every case must be carefully evaluated to ensure careful assessment of safety.”

It said globally some 18,000 people have received its vaccine so far. Volunteers from some of the worst affected countries — Britain, Brazil, South Africa and the U.S. — are taking part in the trial.

Although Oxford would not disclose information about the patient’s illness due to participant confidentiality, an AstraZeneca spokesman said earlier this week that a woman had developed severe neurological symptoms that prompted the pause. Specifically, the woman is said to have developed symptoms consistent with transverse myelitis, a rare inflammation of the spinal cord.

The university insisted that it is “committed to the safety of our participants and the highest standards of conduct in our studies and will continue to monitor safety closely.”

Pauses in drug trials are commonplace and the temporary hold led to a sharp fall in AstraZeneca’s share price following the announcement Tuesday.

The Oxford-AstraZeneca study had been previously stopped in July for several days after a participant developed neurological symptoms that turned out to be an undiagnosed case of multiple sclerosis that researchers said was unrelated to the vaccine.

During the third and final stage of testing, researchers look for any signs of possible side effects that may have gone undetected in earlier patient research. Because of their large size, the studies are considered the most important study phase for picking up less common side effects and establishing safety. The trials also assess effectiveness by tracking who gets sick and who doesn’t between patients getting the vaccine and those receiving a dummy shot.

Dr. Charlotte Summers, a lecturer in intensive care medicine at the University of Cambridge, said the pause was a sign that the Oxford team was putting safety issues first, but that it led to “much unhelpful speculation.”

“To tackle the global COVID-19 pandemic, we need to develop vaccines and therapies that people feel comfortable using, therefore it is vital to maintaining public trust that we stick to the evidence and do not draw conclusions before information is available,” she said.

Scientists and others around the world, including experts at the World Health Organization, have sought to keep a lid on expectations of an imminent breakthrough for coronavirus vaccines, stressing that vaccine trials are rarely straightforward.

Italy’s health minister, Roberto Speranza, welcomed the resumption of the vaccine trial, but warned that prudence was still necessary.

“Science is at work to give the world efficient and secure treatments and vaccines,” he said. “In the meantime, the key continues to be our behaviour.”

Italy, which was ground zero for Europe’s outbreak, is one of the main countries investing in the AstraZeneca vaccine.

Two other vaccines are in huge, final-stage tests in the United States, one made by Moderna Inc. and the other by Pfizer and Germany’s BioNTech.

The Canadian Press – Sep 12, 2020 / 8:34 am | Story: 310404

Photo: The Canadian Press

People gather at the scene of a gold mine collapse near the town of Kamituga, South Kivu province, in eastern Congo Friday.

More than 50 people are dead after landslides caused the collapse of three artisanal gold mines near the city of Kamituga in eastern Congo’s South Kivu province on Friday, officials said.

Heavy rains for days led to the disaster.

“The diggers and the transporters of the stones were swallowed up by the waters,” said the Kamituga mayor, Alexandre Bundya. “A team of rescuers with motor pumps came to recover the bodies of the victims.”

Diwa Honoré, who survived the tragedy, said more than 50 people had been in the three mines, which are about 50 metres (54 yards) deep.

“Kamituga is in mourning,” wrote Dieudonné Bazika, sharing a video on social media showing the aftermath. Hundreds of people gathered to observe and help in rescue efforts.

Most of the dead were young people, according to a statement from the office of the governor of South Kivu, Theo Ngwabidje Kasi, who offered condolences to families.

“Investigations continue to identify our deceased compatriots, to provide assistance and to take measures to prevent the recurrence of such tragedies,” the statement said.

Artisanal mining quarries are often unsafe in eastern Congo and the Kasai region. Women and children also work in the mines to make ends meet. Deadly collapses occurred earlier this year in Maniema and in Katanga, killing at least 18 people.

The Canadian Press – Sep 11, 2020 / 11:41 am | Story: 310341

Photo: The Canadian Press

President Donald Trump waves as he walks across the South Lawn of the White House, Thursday, Sept. 10, 2020, on return to Washington, after attending a campaign rally in Michigan. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin)

For nearly a decade, Michael Cohen was at odds with Rosie O’Donnell in part because his boss — President Donald Trump — was engaged in a long feud with the comedian and talk-show host.

On Monday, Cohen is launching a podcast, titled “Mea Culpa,” with O’Donnell as his first guest.

“First episode. First interview. First feud. First family,” Cohen told The Associated Press by phone late Thursday.

Cohen and O’Donnell have become close ever since Cohen, Trump’s former lawyer, turned against the president.

Cohen was serving time at a New York prison for tax crimes, lying to congress and campaign finance violations when O’Donnell sent him a six-page letter.

“It was filled with kindness and empathy, and just humanity,” he said. “The first words in my response to her were, `I want to begin by apologizing from the depths of my soul for any hurt feelings that I had been involved with during those Trump times.’”

Trump and O’Donnell have engaged in a lengthy public feud. Challenged during a presidential primary debate in 2015 about how he described some women as “fat pigs,” “dogs” and “slobs,” Trump responded by saying: “Only Rosie O’Donnell.”

O’Donnell visited Cohen while he was in prison. He is still serving his sentence, but was furloughed to house arrest as part of a program to reduce the spread of the coronavirus behind bars.

Cohen said his podcast came together this week following the release of his memoir, “Disloyal: The True Story of the Former Personal Attorney to President Donald J. Trump.”

The podcast is being co-produced by Audio Up Media and Meidas Touch, an anti-Trump political action committee.

Cohen dismissed a question of attempting to cash in on his 15 minutes of fame by saying: “I appear to have had significantly greater than 15 minutes.”

Cohen also welcomed the release of journalist Bob Woodward’s book on the Trump presidency, titled “Rage,” by noting the taped interviews accompanying the book’s launch back up his own story.

“The only difference between Bob Woodward’s book and mine is his is based off 18 specific meetings,” Cohen said. “During my tenure with Trump, I had over 180,000 of those meetings.”

The Canadian Press – Sep 11, 2020 / 7:33 am | Story: 310322

Photo: The Canadian Press

India’s External Affairs Minister Subrahmanyam Jaishankar and Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi.

The Indian and Chinese foreign ministers agreed that their troops should disengage from a tense border standoff, maintain proper distance and ease tensions in the Ladakh region where the two countries in June had their deadliest clash in decades.

India’s S. Jaishankar and China’s Wang Yi met in the Russian capital on Thursday night and concurred that “the current situation in the border areas is not in the interest of either side,” according to a joint statement issued Friday.

Since last week, the Asian giants have accused each other of sending soldiers into rival territory and firing warning shots for the first time in 45 years, threatening a full-scale military conflict.

The foreign ministers did not set any timeline for the disengagement of tens of thousands of troops who have been locked in a standoff since May, but agreed that “both sides shall abide by all the existing agreements and protocol on China-India boundary affairs, maintain peace and tranquility in the border areas and avoid any action that could escalate matters.”

The disputed 3,500-kilometre (2,175-mile) border separates Chinese and Indian-held territories from Ladakh in the west to India’s eastern state of Arunachal Pradesh, which China claims in its entirety.

The current standoff is over portions of a pristine landscape that boasts the world’s highest landing strip and a glacier that feeds one of the largest irrigation systems in the world.

Both sides accuse the other of provocative behaviour including crossing into each other’s territory, and both have vowed to protect their territorial integrity.

Earlier this week, Jaishankar described the situation along their shared boundary, known as the Line of Actual Control, as “very serious” and said the state of the border cannot be separated from the state of the bilateral relationship.

On Thursday, the two countries agreed that as the situation eases, they should expedite work to conclude “new confidence-building measures to maintain and enhance peace and tranquility in the border areas.”

In a separate statement, Wang said “China-India relations have once again come to a crossroads.”

That statement said Wang “outlined China’s stern position on the situation in the border areas, emphasizing that the imperative is to immediately stop provocations such as firing and other dangerous actions that violate the commitments made by the two sides.”

“It is also important to move back all personnel and equipment that have trespassed. The frontier troops must quickly disengage so that the situation may de-escalate,” it quoted Wang as saying.

India did not release a statement of its own, but an official with the External Affairs Ministry said Jaishankar told Wang that India expected full adherence to all agreements on management of border areas and would not support any attempt to change the status quo unilaterally.

The official said Jaishankar said the immediate task is to ensure a comprehensive disengagement of troops at all flash points to prevent any incidents, with details of how that is to be done worked out by military commanders. The official was not authorized to speak publicly and spoke on condition of anonymity.

The two ministers met in Moscow on the sidelines of a gathering of the foreign ministers of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization. The group comprises China, India, Pakistan, Russia, Kazakhstan, Krgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan.

On Friday, Wang held talks with Russia’s foreign minister in Moscow and later told reporters that India had expressed a wish to ease tensions through diplomatic and political channels.

Wang said the top priority now is to not break past agreements, including one not to open fire at the border.

The Canadian Press – Sep 11, 2020 / 7:06 am | Story: 310312

Photo: The Canadian Press

San Francisco City Hall is shrouded in smoke from wildfires on Wednesday.

A Northern California wildfire that destroyed a foothill hamlet has become the state’s deadliest blaze of the year with 10 people confirmed dead — and the toll could climb as searchers look for 16 missing people.

The North Complex fire that exploded in wind-driven flames earlier in the week was advancing more slowly Friday after the winds eased and smoke from the blaze shaded the area and lowered the temperature, allowing firefighters to make progress, authorities said.

However, the smoke made for poor visibility and fire helicopters couldn’t fly Thursday.

In most parts of the state, red flag warnings of extreme fire danger because of hot, dry weather or gusty winds were lifted.

On Thursday, Butte County sheriff’s Capt. Derek Bell said seven bodies were discovered, bringing the total to 10 in two days. At least four people with critical burns were hospitalized.

Deputies and detectives were searching for human remains as they made their way into devastated areas with a team of anthropologists from Chico State University, Bell said.

The rising death toll comes as deadly wildfires in heavily populated northwest Oregon grow, with hundreds of thousands of people told to flee encroaching flames while residents to the south tearfully assessed their losses.

People evacuated statewide because of fires had climbed to an estimated 500,000 — more than 10 per cent of the 4.2 million people in the state, the Oregon Office of Emergency Management reported late Thursday.

The Canadian Press – Sep 11, 2020 / 6:31 am | Story: 310303

Photo: St. Louis Zoo

Experts at the St. Louis Zoo are trying to figure out how a 62-year-old ball python laid seven eggs despite not being near a male python for at least two decades.

Mark Wanner, manager of herpetology at the zoo, said it unusual but not rare for ball pythons to reproduce asexually. The snakes also sometimes store sperm for delayed fertilization.

The birth also is unusual because ball pythons usually stop laying eggs long before they reach their 60s, Wanner said.

“She’d definitely be the oldest snake we know of in history,” to lay eggs, Wanner said, noting that it is the oldest snake ever documented in a zoo.

The python, which has not been given a name, laid the eggs July 23. Three of the eggs remain in an incubator, two were used for genetic sampling and snakes in the other two eggs did not survive, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch reported. The eggs that survive should hatch in about a month.

The genetic sampling will show whether the eggs were reproduced sexually or asexually, called facultative parthenogenesis.

The only other ball python in the zoo’s herpetarium is a male that’s about 31. The snakes aren’t on public view.

The private owner gave the female to the zoo in 1961. She laid a clutch of eggs in 2009 that didn’t survive. Another clutch was born in 1990 but those eggs might have been conceived with the male because at the time, the snakes were put in buckets together while keepers cleaned their cages.

The Canadian Press – Sep 11, 2020 / 6:27 am | Story: 310301

Photo: The Canadian Press

Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi

Senate Democrats scuttled a scaled-back GOP coronavirus rescue package on Thursday as the parties argued to a standstill over the size and scope of the aid, likely ending hopes for coronavirus relief before the November election.

The mostly party-line vote capped weeks of wrangling that gave way to election-season political combat and name-calling over a fifth relief bill that all sides say they want but are unable to deliver. The bipartisan spirit that powered earlier aid measures is all but gone.

Democrats said the measure shortchanged too many pressing needs. Republicans argued it was targeted to areas of widespread agreement, but the 52-47 vote fell well short of what was needed to overcome a filibuster. All the present Democrats opposed it, while conservative Rand Paul, R-Ky., cast the only GOP “nay” vote. The Democratic vice-presidential nominee, Kamala Harris, was campaigning in Miami and missed the vote.

“It’s a sort of a dead end street, and very unfortunate,” said Sen. Pat Roberts, R-Kan. “But it is what it is.”

The $650 billion measure is significantly smaller than legislation promoted by Republican leaders this summer. But that version was too big for most conservatives, so the GOP bill was instead stripped back to focus on school aid, jobless benefits and help for small businesses. That maximized Republican support even as it alienated Democrats, who say such a piecemeal approach would leave out far too many vulnerable people.

The result was a predictable impasse and partisan tit-for tat as the congressional session limps to its pre-election close. The panicked atmosphere that drove passage of the $2 trillion landmark CARES Act in March has dissipated as the nation powers through the pandemic with partial reopenings of businesses and schools, though the economy lags and the virus continues to badly disrupt life in the U.S.

It’s becoming plain that all Congress will do before the Nov. 3 election is pass legislation to avert a government shutdown. The outcome of the election promises to have an outsize impact on what might be possible in a postelection lame-duck session, with Democrats sure to press for a better deal if Democrat Joe Biden unseats President Donald Trump.

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., predicted that Thursday’s GOP defeat would prompt Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., back to the negotiating table, as an earlier filibuster in March helped make the $2 trillion rescue bill more generous.

“But (Thursday’s) bill is not going to happen because it is so emaciated, so filled with poison pills, so partisanly designed,” Schumer said.

McConnell crafted the measure to permit his GOP colleagues to go on record in favour of popular provisions such as another round of “paycheque protection” help for smaller businesses, help for schools to reopen and supplemental jobless benefits. He again blasted Democrats on Thursday, saying they are still pushing a liberal wish list and are willing to scuttle provisions with widespread backing to deny Trump a victory.

“Today every senator will either say they want to send families the relief we can agree to or they can send families nothing,” McConnell said.

The Canadian Press – Sep 10, 2020 / 5:01 pm | Story: 310291

Photo: The Canadian Press

Bridgeport Police Chief Armando Perez leaves the federal courthouse in Bridgeport, Conn., Thursday, Sept. 10. 2020. Perez and the city’s acting personnel director, David Dunn, were both arraigned on Thursday on federal charges. Mayor Joe Ganim said that Chief Perez resigned and that he named Assistant Chief Rebeca Garcia as acting chief after federal prosecutors in New York and FBI officials in Connecticut announced the arrests of Perez and Dunn. (Ned Gerard/Hearst Connecticut Media via AP)

The police chief of Connecticut’s largest city resigned Thursday hours after being arrested on federal charges that he teamed with Bridgeport’s personnel director to rig the hiring process to ensure he got the job two years ago.

Mayor Joe Ganim said that Chief Armando “A.J.” Perez resigned and that he named Assistant Chief Rebeca Garcia as acting chief after federal prosecutors in New York and FBI officials in Connecticut announced the arrests of Perez and David Dunn, the city’s acting personnel director.

Perez, 64, of Trumbull, Connecticut, and Dunn, 72, of Stratford, Connecticut, were each charged with wire fraud, conspiracy to commit wire fraud and with making false statements to investigators.

Both appeared via video before a federal judge in Bridgeport and were allowed to remain free on $150,000 bail. They did not enter pleas.

Messages seeking comment were left with Perez and his lawyer, Robert Frost Jr. Dunn’s lawyer, Frederick Paoletti, declined to comment. Their next court date is Sept. 24.

A criminal complaint alleged Perez and Dunn defrauded the city of 144,000 people by rigging the 2018 police chief examination to put Perez in position to secure the post as head of a police department with an annual budget of over $100 million and more than 400 officers.

The previous police chief had resigned in March 2016.

Acting U.S. Attorney Audrey Strauss in New York City said the men corrupted what was supposed to be an impartial and objective search for a permanent police chief “and then repeatedly lied to federal agents in order to conceal their conduct.”

According to a criminal complaint in Connecticut, Dunn gave confidential examination materials in advance to Perez, including the grading criteria and oral examination questions, and tailored the scoring criteria in Perez’s favour. Perez, investigators said, also had two police officers secretly take the written exam for him.

Dunn also instructed officials to eliminate a scoring penalty imposed if the candidates did not have a bachelor’s degree, the complaint said. Perez was the only applicant without one, authorities said.

The manoeuvrs were designed to ensure that Perez, who had been with the police department nearly four decades, was ranked among the top three candidates and could thus qualify to be awarded a five-year contract as chief, the complaint said.

The terms of his contract included a $300,000 payout for accrued leave and an annual salary of about $145,000, the complaint said.

Perez and Dunn both were voluntarily interviewed during the FBI’s investigation, but they lied to agents to conceal what they did to corrupt the examination process, the complaint said.

Dunn, according to investigators, falsely denied that he told a member of the panel ranking the chief candidates that the mayor wanted Perez to be among the top three candidates.

The panelist, who was not identified in the complaint, told investigators that Dunn’s comment about the mayor was “totally inappropriate” and did not influence the rankings.

Ganim’s chief of staff told Dunn that the mayor had said the police chief testing must be conducted professionally, fairly and timely, as required by the city charter.

The complaint did not allege any involvement in the scheme by Ganim, who returned to office in 2015 after serving prison time for corruption.

Ganim did not directly respond to the allegations in the complaint.

“Certainly there’s a grappling for some of the answers as to what has happened, disappointment, uncertainty,” Ganim said in a Facebook video. “But I can tell you this, that the members of this administration remain committed to you as residents of this city … to public safety as a top priority.”

Ganim, a close friend of Perez’s, served nearly seven years in prison himself after he was convicted of corruption for steering city contracts in exchange for private gifts during his first tenure of Bridgeport mayor, which ran from 1991 until his resignation in 2003.

He was released from prison in 2010 and elected mayor again in 2015, after apologizing and asking residents for a second chance.

The Canadian Press – Sep 10, 2020 / 12:06 pm | Story: 310240

Photo: The Canadian Press

 

The long-awaited peace talks with the negotiating team selected by the Afghan government are to begin on Saturday in the Gulf Arab state of Qatar, the Taliban said in a statement on Thursday.

The start of negotiations was was also announced by Qatar’s foreign ministry and Sediq Sediqqi, spokesman for Afghan President Ashraf Ghani, confirmed in a tweet that their delegation will be in Qatar’s capital of Doha for the talks.

The talks — known as intra-Afghan negotiations — were laid out in a peace deal that Washington brokered with the Taliban and signed in February, also in Doha, where the Taliban maintain a political office.

That deal aims to end Afghanistan’s protracted war and bring American troops home while the intra-Afghan talks are to set a road map for a post-war society in Afghanistan.

The negotiations are expected to be a difficult process as the two sides struggle to end the fighting and debate ways of protecting the rights of women and minorities. The fate of the tens of thousands of armed Taliban, as well as militias loyal to government-allied warlords, will also be on the agenda, along with constitutional changes for Afghanistan.

Washington’s peace envoy Zalmay Khalilzad, who negotiated the U.S.-Taliban deal signed on Feb. 29, has been in Doha for the past week, trying to push the talks forward.

The withdrawal of U.S. troops are not dependent on the success of the negotiations but rather on commitments taken by the Talian under the deal with the U.S. to fight other militant groups, most specifically the Islamic State group, and to ensure that Afghanistan is not used as a staging ground for attacks on the United States or its allies.

Washington and NATO have already begun withdrawing troops and by November America expects to have less than 5,000 troops still in Afghanistan.

Photo: GoFundMe

Jacob, Uriel, and Jamie Hyland.

A one-year-old child died in one of the large wildfires burning just across the border in Northeastern Washington Sunday night.

The Cold Springs fire was sparked Sunday just south of Omak, Wash., and it’s since grown to close to 70,000 hectares. The fire is burning abut 65 kilometres south of the Canadian border.

On Wednesday, Okanogan County sheriff Tony Hawley told the KREM news station that a young family from Renton, Wash. were caught in the fire with their one-year-old child Sunday night.

The sheriff’s office learned of the missing family on Tuesday. Their burned out truck was found shortly after, but it wasn’t until Wednesday morning, three days after they were first caught in the fire, that search and rescue crews found them on the banks of the Columbia River.

As of Thursday morning, 31-year-old Jacob Hyland and 26-year-old Jamie Hyland are being treated in hospital in Seattle, in critical condition, but tragically, their one-year-old son Uriel passed away.

A GoFundMe page set up by family says the couple will both require surgery, with Jamie’s body 40-50 per cent covered in burns, and Jacob 25 per cent covered in burns. Jamie is also currently pregnant.

“Many homes and buildings were lost throughout the state, but the relief I felt in this tragedy is that we hadn’t lost any lives. That tragically and horrifically changed today,” said Hilary Franz, Commissioner of Public Lands in Washington.

“My heart breaks for the family of the child who perished in the Cold Springs fire. I am devastated. The DNR family is devastated. The pain that family is going through is unfathomable.”

More than 1,300 people have already donated more than $90,000 to help the family through this tragedy.

Hawley says the death is currently being investigated as a homicide, as there’s a possibility the fire was human-caused.

“If it’s a human-caused fire, that goes into criminal charges for the death investigation as well,” Hawley told KREM. “This child would not be dead without this fire beginning,” Hawley said.