Month: September 2018

Flood insurance was far from Stephanie Walker’s mind in 2015 when she moved her family into a home in Fayetteville in central North Carolina, nearly 200 miles (320 km) from the coast.

The next year, a creek at the end of her street swelled during Hurricane Matthew, sending several feet of water into her living room. Without flood insurance, the family spent $70,000 on repairs. The U.S. Federal Emergency Management Agency covered $25,000 but the family had to borrow the rest for her home.

The houses on the street were built in 2005. Matthew was the first storm that caused flooding, but the fear of another flood is causing greater anxiety.

“This street should be demolished. Houses never should have been put here,” said Walker, 41.

After Matthew, the family bought flood insurance and felt protected when the waters touched their doorstep again during Hurricane Florence.

But they are a rarity. Only about 1 percent of homes in North Carolina’s inland counties are insured through the national flood insurance program, according to federal data, compared with 25 percent to 50 percent of homeowners on the coast.

FEMA’s National Flood Insurance Program supplements regular homeowner policies, which do not generally include flood damage. For homeowners who do not buy the flood insurance, federal aid generally only partially covers repairs.

The average national flood insurance policy, which tops out at $250,000, costs about $700 per year, but varies depending on the elevation of the home, according to FEMA. Homeowners can buy supplemental insurance policies for more valuable homes through private insurers.

FEMA will send claims adjusters into North Carolina in coming days to help speed up the claims process. But homeowners in inland areas long thought to be safe will be in for a rude awakening.

“The majority of those people don’t carry flood insurance,” Craig Fugate, a former FEMA administrator. He said insurance agents and real estate agents have tended to tell people they did not need it.

The National Flood Insurance Program is expected to pay out $7 billion on claims related to Florence’s flood, more than 10 times the $648.7 million paid after Hurricane Matthew in 2016.

The agency made $8.7 billion in flood insurance payments after Hurricane Harvey hit Texas last year.

Meteorologists believe that more storms in coming years will mirror Harvey and Florence, slow-moving disasters that flood homes with several feet of rain over days.

The flooding from these storms shows that regions outside of the riskiest areas designated on flood maps are vulnerable too, Fugate said. Sixteen rivers have hit “major flood” levels in North Carolina, the National Weather Service said.

Experts said U.S. government maps that outline so-called “flood zones” were developed to set insurance rates and can mislead homeowners living outside of those regions into not buying flood insurance.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has estimated that current flood maps only reflect about one-third of the people who are at significant flood risk.

But of the 10 top-ranked states where major flood events have occurred in the past 10 years, the top five are land-locked, according to data from Pew, including Oklahoma and Iowa.

“There’s a common misperception that if you don’t live near the coast and can’t see the waves crashing on the shore, you might not be at risk,” said Forbes Tompkins, a Pew Charitable Trusts expert on flood-prepared infrastructure. “But where it rains, it can flood.”

Just 134,306 properties in North Carolina and 204,342 in South Carolina are enrolled in the National Flood Insurance Program, according to FEMA. The bulk of those are clustered in coastal communities.

For those without flood insurance, all they can hope for is federal funding, usually about $30,000, said Ray Lehmann, director of finance, insurance and trade policy at the R Street Institute.

“It won’t be enough to rebuild an entire home,” he said.

 
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A school-based survey shows nearly 1 in 11 U.S. students have used marijuana in electronic cigarettes, heightening health concerns about the new popularity of vaping among teens.

E-cigarettes typically contain nicotine, but many of the battery-powered devices can vaporize other substances, including marijuana. Results published Monday mean 2.1 million middle and high school students have used them to get high.

Vaping is generally considered less dangerous than smoking, because burning tobacco or marijuana generates chemicals that are harmful to lungs. But there is little research on e-cigarettes’ long-term effects, including whether they help smokers quit. 

The rise in teenagers using e-cigarettes has alarmed health officials who worry kids will get addicted to nicotine, a stimulant, and be more likely to try cigarettes. Last week, the Food and Drug Administration gave the five largest e-cigarette makers 60 days to produce plans to stop underage use of their products.

Nearly 9 percent of students surveyed in 2016 said they used an e-cigarette device with marijuana, according to Monday’s report in the journal JAMA Pediatrics. That included one-third of those who ever used e-cigarettes.

The number is worrying “because cannabis use among youth can adversely affect learning and memory and may impair later academic achievement and education,” said lead researcher Katrina Trivers of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Students who said they lived with a tobacco user were more likely than others to report vaping marijuana.

It’s unclear whether marijuana vaping is increasing among teens or holding steady. The devices have grown into a multi-billion industry, but they are relatively new.

In states where marijuana is legal, shoppers can buy cartridges of liquid containing THC, the chemical in marijuana that gets people high, that work with a number of devices. Juul, by far the most popular e-cigarette device, does not offer marijuana pods, but users can re-fill cartridges with cannabis oil. 

It was the first time a question about marijuana vaping was asked on this particular survey, which uses a nationally representative sample of students in public and private schools. More than 20,000 students took the survey in 2016.

A different survey from the University of Michigan in December found similar results when it asked for the first time about marijuana vaping. In that study, 8 percent of 10th graders said they vaped marijuana in the past year.

“The health risks of vaping reside not only in the vaping devices, but in the social environment that comes with it,” said University of Michigan researcher Richard Miech. Kids who vape are more likely to become known as drug users and make friends with drug users, he said, adding that “hanging out with drug users is a substantial risk factor for future drug use.”
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What is left of tropical storm Florence is soaking the mid-Atlantic with buckets of rain as it drifts toward New England, leaving death and destruction behind in the Carolinas.

Flash flood watches and warnings are posted from southern Virginia into Vermont and New Hampshire through Tuesday.

Several tornadoes damaged buildings in the Richmond, Virginia, area Monday afternoon, with tornado watches posted for parts of Maryland, Pennsylvania and Delaware. 

Florence is now a what forecasters call a post-tropical cyclone, with top sustained winds of 35 kilometers per hour (22 mph). But the storm’s slow speed as it approached the Carolina coast late last week allowed it to pick up a huge amount of moisture.

Authorities continue to worry about more floods, breached dams and landslides, particularly as Florence makes its way across mountainous regions.

At least 20 deaths are blamed on the storm. 

“Unfortunately, we’ve still got several days to go. People fail to heed warnings and get out, or they get into the floodwaters trying to escape their home. And that’s where you start to see deaths escalate,” Brock Long, head of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, told U.S. television networks. 

Some parts of North Carolina have already gotten about 100 centimeters (39 inches) of rain. All of that rain is swelling streams and rivers and creating what the National Hurricane Center called “prolonged significant river flooding.”

Floods have cut off entire towns and cities in North Carolina, making helicopters the only way to get into these places and help the stranded. More than 700,000 homes have no power.

One of the hardest hit cities in North Carolina was New Bern, a riverfront city not far from the Atlantic coast. Mayor Dana Outlaw said the city was hit by a three-meter (10 feet) storm surge at the height of the hurricane Friday. He said 4,200 homes were damaged.

The White House said President Donald Trump would visit the storm-ravaged region in the coming days, but only after it is determined his arrival would not disrupt continuing rescue and recovery efforts.

WATCH: N. Carolina Gov. Cooper speaks on Hurricane Florence
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The military’s new Space Force, if approved by Congress, will initially consist of 13,000 personnel and cost nearly $13 billion over five years, according to a U.S. Air Force memo obtained on Monday by VOA.

The Air Force, which currently oversees the bulk of military space assets, estimated in the memo that Space Force’s creation will cost more than $3 billion in its first year and an additional $10 billion over the four following years. 

Air Force Secretary Heather Wilson wrote in the memo, dated Sept. 14, that strategic competition with Russian and China is the military’s “top priority, [and] nowhere is this more evident than in space.”

Her plan, she added, acts quickly to counter competitors’ attempts to “erode” U.S. military advantages in space by establishing a Space Force Headquarters in 2020 and transitioning all programs to the new department through proposed Congressional legislation and funding in 2021.

The Air Force Secretary pushed back on some of the initial Space Force proposals by Deputy Secretary of Defense Patrick Shanahan, such as the need to create a Space Development Agency to oversee satellite acquisition and the creation of a new top-level position in the Office of the Secretary of Defense.

“Establishing an Assistant Secretary of Defense for Space or new defense bureaucracy, or moving programs to a temporary holding organization, is not in line with the President’s intent,” she said.

She instead planned to use an already-established asset, the Air Force Space Rapid Capabilities Office, to oversee satellite purchases.

The Pentagon will include legislation to create the president’s desired Space Force in the Defense Department’s fiscal year 2020 budget proposal, which is expected to be sent to Congress in early 2019.

President Donald Trump repeatedly has called for the creation of a space force as a new military branch that he says is needed to ensure U.S. dominance in space. 

Vice President Mike Pence formally announced some of the steps underway to create the new force last month after the Pentagon submitted a report to Congress detailing its space management changes.  

About 18,000 people across the Department of Defense work in the field of space, with tasks that include protecting about 140 military satellites that generate trillions of dollars of economic output, according to senior military officials.
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 An Israeli opposition lawmaker on Sunday called on Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to dismiss his ambassador to the United States for failing to report sexual assault allegations against a top Netanyahu aide, ballooning an already embarrassing scandal for the Israeli leader.

Karin Elharrar of the centrist Yesh Atid party said Ron Dermer should be recalled from Washington for not reporting the warnings he received about David Keyes, Netanyahu’s spokesman to foreign media. She also lashed out at Netanyahu himself for staying mum on an issue that has engulfed his close associates.

“His silence is thundering. I would expect from the prime minister a clear condemnation, if not at least a mention that the allegations were being looked into,” Elharrar told The Associated Press. “Who if not the prime minister should be an example on this matter? It’s time that this issue of sexual harassment be at the top of his agenda.”

Last week, Julia Salazar, a candidate for New York’s state senate, accused Keyes of sexually assaulting her five years ago. Wall Street Journal reporter Shayndi Raice tweeted she too had a “terrible encounter” with Keyes before he became Netanyahu’s spokesman. She described him as a “predator” and someone who had “absolutely no conception of the word ‘no.’”

At least a dozen other women have since come forward with varying allegations, some of which are said to have been committed since Keyes took up his current position in early 2016. Keyes, 34, denies the allegations, saying all “are deeply misleading and many of them are categorically false.” Keyes says he has taken a leave of absence amid the uproar to try and clear his name.

But the scandal has since spread to the rest of Netanyahu’s inner circle, which has previously been rocked with accusations of sexual improprieties. Natan Eshel, a former top aide, was forced to resign in 2012 after allegations emerged that he harassed and intimidated a woman in the prime minister’s office, including taking pictures up her skirt. Earlier this year, Netanyahu’s son Yair came under fire after a recording emerged of him joyriding at taxpayer expense to Tel Aviv strip clubs and making misogynistic comments about strippers, waitresses and other women.

Over the weekend, Dermer, who was perhaps Netanyahu’s closest associate before taking office in Washington, confirmed he was warned in late 2016 by New York Times columnist Bret Stephens, then of the Wall Street Journal, about Keyes’ aggressive behavior toward women. The New York Times reported that Stephens, who said he had barred Keyes from visiting the Wall Street Journal opinion section because of harassment complaints women there made against him, warned Dermer that “Keyes posed a risk to women in Israeli government offices.”

Dermer said he did not report this further since he did not consider the harassment allegations criminal.

But Elharrar noted in a formal letter to Netanyahu that Dermer was unqualified to judge this. Under Israeli law, sexual harassment is a crime and public servants are required to report any knowledge of it. Dermer, as an Israeli ambassador, is subject to its laws even on American soil, Elharrar said, and therefore she demanded his dismissal since “it is unreasonable that someone holding such a prominent position would violate the law so blatantly.”

“I’m sure that if it were any other diplomatic or even gossipy issue he would have reported it further,” she told the AP. “We need to make clear that the issue of sexual harassment is no less important.”

Netanyahu’s office did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Media reports in recent days have included the testimonies of various women detailing what they called aggression on the part of Keyes, where in some cases he coerced them into sexual acts. The New York Times reported that in addition to Stephens’ move, some organizations Keyes worked for himself took measures to keep him away from interns because of his history of unwanted advances.

Salazar, a Democratic socialist who went on win her New York state senate primary last week after an ugly campaign that scrutinized her past, said she only decided to go public with her allegations against Keyes after a conservative news outlet planned to out her.

Netanyahu has yet to comment on the affair and made no mention of it in comments given at his weekly Cabinet meeting Sunday.

Michal Rozin, a legislator with the opposition Meretz party, said his silence could be interpreted as tolerance of the alleged acts and she demanded he take a clear stance against sexual assault and harassment.

Rozin, who formerly headed Israel’s umbrella organization for victims of sexual violence before elected to parliament, has appealed to Israel’s Civil Service Commissioner asking for the allegations against Keyes to be investigated because of the “serious concern of serial behavior.” She demanded Dermer’s conduct be examined as well.

It’s not the first case the #MeToo phenomenon has erupted in Israeli public life. Last year, shortly after the allegations against Harvey Weinstein rocked Hollywood and sparked a flurry of allegations in other American industries, a senior Israeli TV journalist revealed on air that Israeli media mogul and International Olympic Committee member Alex Gilady had made an “indecent” proposal to her during a job interview 25 years ago. A well-known columnist then added that Gilady exposed himself to her during a 1999 business meeting at his home and two other women later came forward saying Gilady had raped them.

He denied the rape accusations, but Gilady, a former sports executive at NBC, soon stepped down as president of the local Keshet broadcasting company he founded.

When veteran Israeli media personality Gabi Gazit addressed the allegations dismissively on his daily radio show, it prompted Dana Weiss — another prominent local TV journalist — to accuse him of just such behavior. Weiss said Gazit had randomly kissed her on the mouth during chance encounters in TV studios. Gazit denied the accusations but three other women come forward with similar stories and he was forced to take leave from his show.

Even before the #MeToo era, Israel confronted the sexual assault of women by powerful men. A former president, Moshe Katsav, was sentenced and jailed for rape.
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Catastrophic flooding from Florence spread across the Carolinas on Sunday, with roads to Wilmington cut off by the epic deluge and muddy river water swamping entire neighborhoods miles inland. “The risk to life is rising with the angry waters,” Gov. Roy Cooper declared as the storm’s death toll climbed to 15.

The storm continued to crawl westward, dumping more than 30 inches of rain in spots since Friday, and fears of historic flooding grew. Tens of thousands were ordered evacuated from communities along the state’s steadily rising rivers — with the Cape Fear, Little River, Lumber, Waccamaw and Pee Dee rivers all projected to burst their banks.

In Wilmington, with roads leading in and out of the city underwater and streams still swelling upward, residents waited for hours outside stores and restaurants for basic necessities like water. Police guarded the door of one store, and only 10 people were allowed inside at a time.

Woody White, chairman of the board of commissioners of New Hanover County, said officials were planning for food and water to be flown into the coastal city of nearly 120,000 people.

“Our roads are flooded,” he said. “There is no access to Wilmington.”

About 70 miles away from the coast, residents near the Lumber River stepped from their homes directly into boats floating in their front yards; river forecasts showed the scene could be repeated in towns as far as 250 miles inland as waters rise for days.

Downgraded to a tropical depression overnight, Florence was still massive. Radar showed parts of the sprawling storm over six states, with North and South Carolina in the bull’s-eye.

Tens of thousands were ordered to evacuate from what officials said could be the worst flooding in North Carolina history, but it wasn’t clear how many had fled or even could. The head of Federal Emergency Management Agency, Brock Long, said officials were focused on finding people and rescuing them.

“We’ll get through this. It’ll be ugly, but we’ll get through it,” Long told NBC’s “Meet The Press.”

President Donald Trump said federal emergency workers, first responders and law enforcement officials are “working really hard” on Florence. He tweeted that as the storm “begins to finally recede, they will kick into an even higher gear. Very Professional!”

The storm’s death toll climbed to 15 when a pickup truck ran off Interstate 20 in South Carolina and struck an overpass support, killing the driver. Earlier, authorities said a man drowned after his pickup truck flipped into a drainage ditch along a flooded South Carolina road and two people died from inhaling carbon monoxide from a generator in their home.

About 740,000 homes and businesses remained without power in the Carolinas, and utilities said some could be out for weeks.

Victor Merlos was overjoyed to find a store open for business in Wilmington since he had about 20 relatives staying at his apartment, which still had power. He spent more than $500 on cereal, eggs, soft drinks and other necessities, plus beer.

“I have everything I need for my whole family,” said Merlos. Nearby, a Waffle House restaurant limited breakfast customers to one biscuit and one drink, all take-out, with the price of $2 per item.

Florence was still spinning slowly atop the Carolinas as it pulled warm water from the ocean and hurled it onshore. Kenneth Campbell had donned waterproof waders intending to check out his home in Lumberton, but he didn’t bother when he saw the Coast Guard and murky waters in his neighborhood.

“I’m not going to waste my time. I already know,” he said.

As rivers swelled toward record levels, state regulators and environmental groups were monitoring the threat from gigantic hog and poultry farms located in low-lying, flood-prone areas.

The industrial-scale farms typically feature vast pits of animal feces and urine that can pose a significant pollution threat if they are breached or inundated by floodwaters. In past hurricanes, flooding at dozens of farms also left hundreds of thousands of dead hogs, chickens and other decomposing livestock bobbing in floodwaters.

Stream gauges across the region showed water levels rising steadily, with forecasts calling for rivers to crest Sunday and Monday at or near record levels: The Little River, the Cape Fear, the Lumber, the Neuse, the Waccamaw and the Pee Dee were all projected to burst their banks, possibly flooding nearby communities. The Defense Department said about 13,500 military personnel had been assigned to help relief efforts.

Authorities ordered the immediate evacuation of up to 7,500 people living within a mile (1.6 kilometers) of a stretch of the Cape Fear River and the Little River, about 100 miles (160 kilometers) from the North Carolina coast. The evacuation zone included part of the city of Fayetteville, population 200,000.

John Rose owns a furniture business with stores less than a mile (1.6 kilometers) from the river. Rain-soaked furniture workers helped him quickly empty more than 1,000 mattresses from a warehouse in a low-lying strip mall.

“It’s the first time we’ve ever had to move anything like this,” Rose said. “If the river rises to the level they say it’s going to, then this warehouse is going to be under water.”

Fayetteville city officials, meanwhile, got help from the Nebraska Task Force One search and rescue team to evacuate 140 residents of an assisted-living facility to a safer location at a church.

Already, more than 2 feet (60 centimeters) of rain had fallen in places, and forecasters were saying there could be an additional 1½ feet (45 centimeters) before Sunday was out. In Swansboro, North Carolina, nearly 34 inches of rain had fallen by Sunday afternoon and 14 other places in North Carolina had at least 20 inches, according to the National Weather Service. Another 16 locations in North and Carolina had at least 10 inches.

“Flood waters are still raging across parts of our state, and the risk to life is rising with the angry waters,” Cooper said. “If you aren’t watching for them, you are risking your life.”

Officials were warning residents not only to stay off the roads but also to avoid using GPS systems.

“As conditions change, GPS navigation systems are not keeping up with the road closures and are directing people onto roads that are confirmed closed and/or flooded,” the state Transportation Department said on Twitter.

Florence weakened to a tropical depression early Sunday and was crawling west at 8 mph (13 kph). At 5 a.m., the storm was centered about 20 miles (35 kilometers) southwest of Columbia, South Carolina. Its winds were down to 35 mph (55 kph).

In Goldsboro, North Carolina, home of Seymour Johnson Air Force Base, roads that frequently flood were already closed Saturday by rushing water. Dozens of electric repair trucks massed to respond to damage expected to hit central North Carolina as rainwater collected into rivers headed to the coast.

Duke Energy said heavy rains caused a slope to collapse at a coal ash landfill at a closed power station outside Wilmington late Saturday. Duke spokeswoman Paige Sheehan said about 2,000 cubic yards (1,530 cubic meters) of ash were displaced at the Sutton Plant and that contaminated storm water likely flowed into the plant’s cooling pond.

Near the flooded-out town of New Bern, where about 455 people had to be rescued from the swirling flood waters, water completely surrounded churches, businesses and homes. In the neighboring town of Trenton, downtown streets were turned to creeks full of brown water.

Still, spirits were high at the Trent Park Elementary School in New Bern, where 44-year-old Cathy Yolanda Wright took shelter after being rescued from her flooded home Saturday. Wright, who sings in the choir at Mount Calvary Missionary Baptist, led residents at the shelter in an energetic singalong.

People clapped and shouted, “Amen!” and “Thank you, Lord.”
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The woman who has accused Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh of sexual misconduct has come forward with her allegation.

Christine Blasey Ford, professor at Palo Alto University in California, told the Washington Post that she feared for her life during the attack.

“I thought he might inadvertently kill me,” Ford the newspaper in an interview published Sunday.

Ford said the incident took place at a party in Maryland in the 1980s when both she and Kavanaugh were in high school.

She said a Kavanaugh and a friend cornered her in a bedroom where Kavanaugh threw her down on a bed and tried to remove her clothes. She said both boys were “stumbling drunk.”

Kavanaugh has denied any wrongdoing.

“I categorically and unequivocally deny this allegation,” he said in a statement last week. “I did not do this back in high school ore at anytime. ”

Ford says she didn’t talk about the incident until a couples therapy session with her husband in 2012.

Democratic lawmakers have voiced doubt the allegation will derail the nomination.

But Senator Dianne Feinstein, the senior Democrat on the Judiciary Committee said Kavanaugh’s nomination process should be put on hold until the FBI completes its investigation of the allegation.

“I support Mrs. Ford’s decision to share her story, and now that she has, it is in the hands of the FBI to conduct an investigation. This should happen before the Senate moves forward on this nominee,” Feinstein said in a statement released Sunday.

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer also called for a delay in the confirmation process while Ford’s allegations are investigated.

“To railroad a vote now would be an insult to the women of America and the integrity of the Supreme Court,” he said in a statement.

The Washington Post reports that Republicans on the Senate Judiciary Committee indicated Sunday that they would move forward with a vote on Kavanaugh’s confirmation this week.

Kavanaugh, 53, is a federal appeals judge in Washington. President Donald Trump nominated him in July to replace retiring Justice Anthony Kennedy on the U.S. Supreme Court.

The Senate Judiciary Committee is expected to vote on Thursday.
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A man was bitten by a shark Saturday in the water off a Cape Cod beach and died later at a hospital, becoming the state’s first shark attack fatality in more than 80 years.

The 26-year-old man from Revere succumbed to his injuries following the attack off Newcomb Hollow Beach in Wellfleet at around noon, Wellfleet Police Lt. Michael Hurley said.

Joe Booth, a local fisherman and surfer, said he was on shore when he saw the man and his friend boogie-boarding when the attack happened.

He said he saw the man aggressively kick something behind him and a flicker of a tail from the water. He realized what was happening when the friend came ashore dragging his injured friend.

“I was that guy on the beach screaming, ‘Shark, shark!’ ” Booth said. “It was like right out of that movie Jaws. This has turned into Amity Island real quick out here.”

Booth said others on the beach tried to make a tourniquet for the injured man’s wounds, while others frantically called 911.

Stunned onlooker

Hayley Williamson, a Cape Cod resident and former lifeguard who was on the beach at the time, was in disbelief after the man was rushed into an ambulance.

“We’ve been surfing all morning right here and they were just further down,” she said of the two boogie-boarders. “Right spot, wrong time, I guess.”

Lifesaving measures were attempted on the beach before the man was taken to Cape Cod Hospital in Hyannis, where he was pronounced dead, State Police spokesman David Procopio said. The beach has been closed to swimming.

The family of the victim was notified of the death but his name was not released, Procopio said.

It was the first fatal shark attack in Massachusetts since 1936, and the second shark attack this season.

A 61-year-old New York man was severely injured Aug. 15 after fighting off a shark off Truro, about four miles north of Saturday’s attack. He’s recovering in a Boston hospital.

“Today is just keeping everyone out of water,” Hurley said. “There’ll be a determination later about what the town wants to do with the beaches going forward.”

Busy day

Beachgoers said the Wellfleet beach is popular with surfers, and with sunny skies and warm temperatures Saturday it was busy, even though the summer season was over and lifeguards were no longer on watch.

There have been frequent shark sightings this summer along the outer cape, often leading to beach closings. The National Park Service, which manages many of the picturesque beaches where white sharks tend to congregate, said it closed beaches for at least an hour about 25 times this year — more than double the annual average.

A Cape Cod politician said officials who did not take more aggressive action against sharks bore some responsibility for the fatal attack. Barnstable County Commissioner Ron Beaty said he had warned something like this could happen and urged measures to reduce the number of white sharks.

The state’s last shark attack fatality was on July 25, 1936, when Joseph Troy Jr., 16, was bitten in waters off Mattapoisett. Troy, of Boston’s Dorchester neighborhood, was visiting an uncle and was swimming about 50 feet offshore when the shark attacked.
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A U.S. Border Patrol agent suspected of killing four women was arrested early Saturday after a fifth woman escaped from him and notified authorities, law enforcement officials said, describing the agent as a “serial killer.”

Juan David Ortiz, an intel supervisor for the Border Patrol, fled from state troopers and was found hiding in a truck in a hotel parking lot in Laredo about 2 a.m. Saturday, Webb County Sheriff Martin Cuellar said at a news conference in the border city about 145 miles (235 kilometers) southwest of San Antonio.

Cuellar said investigators had “very strong evidence” that he was responsible for the deaths of the four women, who were thought to have worked as prostitutes.

“We do consider this to be a serial killer,” said Webb County District Attorney Isidro Alaniz.

In a statement, Andrew Meehan, assistant commissioner for public affairs for U.S. Customs and Border Protection, said his agency’s Office of Professional Responsibility, the U.S. Border Patrol and the Department of Homeland Security’s Office of the Inspector General were fully cooperating with all investigators.

“Our sincerest condolences go out to the victims’ family and friends. While it is CBP policy to not comment on the details of an ongoing investigation, criminal action by our employees is not, and will not be tolerated,” Meehan said.

He referred questions about the investigation to authorities in Webb County and to the Texas Department of Public Safety, whose Texas Rangers were also investigating.

A Texas Department of Public Safety sergeant didn’t return several messages seeking comment on Saturday.

Authorities didn’t immediately disclose the victims’ names or nationalities.

“The manner in which they were killed is similar in all the cases from the evidence,” said Alaniz. But both Alaniz and Cuellar declined to discuss the evidence or say how the women were killed.

Alaniz said investigators were still trying to determine a motive for the killings.

Cuellar said investigators thought the suspect acted alone.

Alaniz said his office planned to charge Ortiz with four counts of murder and one count of aggravated kidnapping.

Authorities planned to provide another update on the investigation Monday.
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