A section of a highway collapsed after heavy rains in a mountainous area in southern China, sending cars tumbling down a slope and leaving at least 36 people dead, authorities said Thursday.
The Meizhou city government said that 23 vehicles have been found after a 17.9-meter (58.7-foot) long section of the highway gave way about 2 a.m. on Wednesday. Thirty other people had injuries, none of them life-threatening, a government statement said.
The search effort was complicated by steady rain, gravel and soil coming down at the site, posing some risk to the workers, a fire department official told Chinese media.
Rescue teams divided the area into 10 grids and searched with dogs and life-detecting devices, the report said. Excavators and cranes were also brought in to help.
Police removed barricades and began dismantling pro-Palestinian demonstrators’ fortified encampment early Thursday at the University of California, Los Angeles, after hundreds of protesters defied orders to leave, some of them forming human chains as police fired flash-bangs to break up the crowds. Some people were detained, their hands bound with zip ties.
The action came after officers spent hours threatening arrests over loudspeakers if people did not disperse. A crowd of more than 1,000 had gathered on campus, both inside a barricaded tent encampment and outside it, in support. Protesters and police shoved and scuffled as officers encountered resistance. Video showed police pulling off helmets and goggles worn by some protesters as they were being detained.
With police helicopters hovering, the sound of flash-bangs, which produce a bright light and a loud noise to disorient and stun people, pierced the air. Protesters chanted, “Where were you last night?” at the officers, in reference to Tuesday night, when counterprotesters attacked the encampment and the UCLA administration and campus police took hours to respond.
U.S. pregnancy-related deaths have fallen back to pre-pandemic levels, new government data suggests.
About 680 women died last year during pregnancy or shortly after childbirth, according to provisional CDC data. That’s down from 817 deaths in 2022 and 1,205 in 2021, when it was the highest level in more than 50 years.
COVID-19 seems to be the main explanation for the improvement, said Donna Hoyert, a Centers for Disease Control and Prevention maternal mortality researcher.
The coronavirus can be particularly dangerous to pregnant women. And, in the worst days of the pandemic, burned out physicians may have added to the risk by ignoring pregnant women’s worries, experts say.
Kendall Shostak can be reached at shos1216@stthomas.edu.