A wildfire that broke out in a popular hiking area blackened the steep slopes of the foothills near Pasadena and forced mandatory evacuations for 300 homes, authorities said Sunday. Two hundred homes around Sierra Madre were evacuated Saturday night and residents from 100 other properties were told to leave Sunday, Elisa Weaver of the Arcadia Fire Department said, as the wildfire continued to burn its way through dense brush. Sierra Madre is about 15 miles northeast of Los Angeles and just east of Pasadena. No homes were damaged, though a small outbuilding used for storing firefighting equipment was destroyed, Weaver said. Weaver said more than 400 firefighters were attacking the 350-acre fire, aided by two helicopters with two water-dropping air tankers on the way. The fire was 5 percent contained and was expected to burn for another two or three days.
Military personnel and supporters from across the country joined an Ohio family Sunday at a memorial service for an Army reservist whose remains were found in Iraq last month, nearly four years after his capture. Thousands attended a visitation at a civic center in Clermont County, east of Cincinnati, where Staff Sgt. Matt Maupin grew up, before heading to Great American Ball Park, the home of the Cincinnati Reds, for the afternoon memorial. Among them were members of the Illinois-based 724th Transportation Company, the unit Maupin was a member of when his fuel convoy was attacked near Baghdad on April 9, 2004. Maupin, then a 20-year-old private first class, was listed as missing-captured until a tip from local Iraqis led to the discovery of his remains on the outskirts of Baghdad, about 12 miles from where the convoy was ambushed.
Chinese students clashed with anti-Beijing demonstrators at the Olympic torch relay Sunday in Seoul, throwing rocks and punches at the latest stop on the flame’s troubled round-the-world journey. A North Korean defector tried to set himself on fire to halt the relay, where thousands of police guarded the flame from protesters blasting China’s treatment of North Korean refugees. But the small groups of anti-China demonstrators were far outnumbered by seas of red-clad Chinese supporters who waved red national flags as they took to the streets of the South Korean capital to defend the torch. Police deployed 8,000 officers, some running beside the flame while others rode horses and bicycles with the relay through the city, which hosted the 1988 Summer Olympics.
