South Carolina flood: Door-to-door searches, swamped roads

South Carolina flood: Door-to-door searches, swamped roads
Clinton pushing new gun controls after Oregon shooting
US, states announce settlement with BP over gulf oil spill
Nine dead as South Carolina grapples with historic rains
Amtrak train derails in Vermont, seven people hospitalized
Body found in search for ship sunk in hurricane: Coast Guard

Posted: 05 Oct 2015 10:05 AM PDT

COLUMBIA, S.C. (AP) — Another day of heavy rain drenched an already inundated South Carolina on Monday as rescue teams went door-to-door to check on people in swamped neighborhoods and authorities surveyed a statewide road system torn apart by historic flooding.

Clinton pushing new gun controls after Oregon shooting

Posted: 05 Oct 2015 10:44 AM PDT

MANCHESTER, N.H. (AP) — Days after a deadly shooting in Oregon, Hillary Rodham Clinton unveiled new gun control measures Monday aimed at strengthening background checks on gun buyers and eliminating legal immunity for sellers.

US, states announce settlement with BP over gulf oil spill

Posted: 05 Oct 2015 10:30 AM PDT

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Justice Department and five states on Monday announced a $20 billion final settlement of claims arising from the 2010 Deepwater Horizon oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico.

Nine dead as South Carolina grapples with historic rains

Posted: 05 Oct 2015 10:09 AM PDT

By Greg Lacour WEST COLUMBIA, S.C. (Reuters) - Floodwaters inundating South Carolina after unprecedented rainfall have resulted in nine deaths, more than 500 road and bridge closures and hundreds of rescues of people trapped in their homes by the rising water, officials said on Monday. Governor Nikki Haley warned residents to remain on alert as rain continued to fall in some of the hardest-hit areas, including the state capital of Columbia, which saw its wettest days on record over the weekend. "This is not the time to take pictures." More than 2 feet of rain have fallen in the past three days in some areas of South Carolina, and moderate to heavy rain persisted on Monday in the already saturated northeastern corner of that state and southeastern North Carolina, the National Weather Service said.

Amtrak train derails in Vermont, seven people hospitalized

Posted: 05 Oct 2015 10:31 AM PDT

(Reuters) - An Amtrak passenger train hit debris from a rockslide and derailed in central Vermont on Monday, sending at least seven people to the hospital, officials said on Monday. The train, en route from St. Albans, Vermont, to Washington, went off the tracks near Roxbury, about 20 miles south of the state capital Montpelier, Amtrak said in a statement. The U.S. national passenger rail service said the derailment of Train 55 was reported to local authorities at 10:30 a.m. (1030 a.m. EDT) Police and emergency crews went to the scene, Vermont State Police spokesman Scott Waterman said.

Body found in search for ship sunk in hurricane: Coast Guard

Posted: 05 Oct 2015 09:18 AM PDT

The U.S. Coast Guard on Monday said its crews had found a body and an empty, heavily damaged lifeboat in their search for the cargo ship El Faro, assumed to have sunk off the Bahamas in towering waves and howling winds whipped up by Hurricane Joaquin. "We're assuming the vessel has sunk," Coast Guard Captain Mark Fedor told reporters in Miami. Coast Guard vessels and aircrews continued to search, however, for the missing crew - 28 U.S. citizens and five Polish nationals - but Fedor acknowledged they had faced tough odds in the storm's dangerous conditions.