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Pope travels through Italy Pope Benedict XVI lifts up the host during a Mass in Savona, northern Italy, Saturday. The two-day pastoral visit to the Ligurian port cities is the pope’s first Italian trip of the year. His visit continues today in Genoa, where he will visit another Marian shrine, Our Lady of the Watch, meet with sick children and their families and youths.
AP photo
SHARM EL-SHEIK, Egypt
Bush: Oil problem unsolved
President Bush said Saudi Arabia’s small increase in oil production will not solve soaring U.S. fuel prices, but he defended the wealthy kingdom Saturday against American lawmakers “screaming the loudest” for Riyadh to open its spigots.
Saudi officials said the kingdom was pumping all the oil that its customers want and that production had been increased by 300,000 barrels a day earlier this month.
“It’s something, but it doesn’t solve our problem,” Bush said. “Our problem in America gets solved when we aggressively go for domestic exploration. Our problem in America gets solved if we expand our refining capacity, promote nuclear energy, and continue our strategy for the advancement of alternative energies, as well as conservation.”
ANGELS CAMP, Calif.
Ride collapse hurts 24
A carnival ride spinning with people collapsed at a county fair Friday night, injuring all 24 people aboard.
The carnival ride, called the Yo-Yo, collapsed shortly after 6 p.m. at the Calaveras County Fair and Jumping Frog Jubilee, about 80 miles southeast of Sacramento.
The ride has metal arms, each with a seat at the end attached by a chain, that swing outward as the ride picks up speed. The arms rise and fall as they spin around a center pole, putting the seats horizontal to the ground.
The pole apparently collapsed, causing the arms to crash back toward the center, said Dennis Townsend, a chief in the Calaveras County unit of the California Department of Forestry and Fire Prevention.
The riders — mostly children — were hurt when their seats struck the ground or other parts of the machine, he said.
LAFAYETTE, La.
Derailed train leaks acid
Six cars of a freight train derailed early Saturday, including one that began leaking hydrochloric acid, causing thousands of people to evacuate homes, businesses and two nursing homes within one mile of the wreck.
The spilled acid sent a toxic cloud over the area, and at least five people, including two railroad workers, were taken to a hospital and treated after complaining of skin and eye irritation, said Lafayette Parish sheriff’s Lt. Craig Stansbury.
Acadian Ambulance official Clay Henry said 20 bed-bound residents of the Our Lady of the Oaks nursing home were taken to a hospital.
BALTIMORE
NAACP elects new leader
The NAACP chose 35-year-old activist and former news executive Ben Jealous as its president Saturday, making him the youngest leader in the 99-year history of the nation’s largest civil rights organization.
The 64-member board of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People met for eight hours before selecting Jealous in the early morning. He will take over as president in September.
Jealous began his professional life in 1991 with the NAACP, where he worked as a community organizer with the Legal Defense Fund working on issues of health care access in Harlem.
During the mid 1990s, Jealous was managing editor of the Jackson Advocate, Mississippi’s oldest black newspaper.