FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. — Spirit Airlines says it’s canceling all of its Sunday flights after its pilots went on strike.
Pilots walked out Saturday morning in a pay dispute with the small, Florida-based discount airline. The strike has already stranded thousands of travelers.
Spirit says it is refunding tickets and trying to get passengers onto flights on other carriers. Spirit carries about 16,000 passengers a day, many of them between the Eastern U.S. and the Caribbean and Latin America.
Utah: Up to 500 barrels of oil leak from pipeline
Chevron crews have capped a pipeline leak that caused oil to spill into a Salt Lake City creek. Authorities estimated Saturday that up to 500 barrels of oil had already been released into Red Butte Creek. Crews still are unsure what caused the leak, which is located near the University of Utah campus. Chevron spokesman Dan Johnson says crews are now working on cleaning up the crude oil that spilled into the creek. Fire officials say they’re concerned that oil could flow down the creek into the Jordan River and Great Salt Lake.
Indiana: GOP picks state senator to replace Souder
Republican officials in northeast Indiana have selected state Sen. Marlin Stutzman to replace former U.S. Rep. Mark Souder on the November ballot. Fifteen Republicans sought the chance to replace Souder, who resigned last month after admitting an extramarital affair with a staffer. Stutzman was picked at a caucus Saturday. He will be on the ballot in the 3rd Congressional District as the GOP candidate for both the general election and a special election to fill the remainder of Souder’s current term.
Arizona: 4 bodies found on plane that crashed into school
Authorities searching through the wreckage of a small plane that nosedived into an Arizona high school and exploded say they have found two more bodies, bringing the total number of deaths from the crash to four. Apache County sheriff’s Sgt. Richard Guinn says officials were working Saturday to identify the bodies. Officials had previously thought only two people were aboard the single-engine Piper that crashed Friday afternoon into a building at the school Friday afternoon in the small eastern Arizona town of Eagar. Guinn says no one was in the two-story building when the plane hit.
Kyrgyzstan: Ethnic riots prompt call for Russian help
Ethnic riots wracked southern Kyrgyzstan on Saturday, forcing thousands of Uzbeks to flee as their homes were torched by roving mobs of Kyrgyz men. The interim government begged Russia for troops to stop the violence, but the Kremlin offered only humanitarian assistance. At least 77 people were reported killed and more than 1,000 wounded in the violence spreading across the impoverished Central Asian nation that hosts U.S. and Russian air bases.
India: Magnitude 7.5 quake reported in Indian Ocean
An earthquake measuring magnitude-7.5 was reported early today in the Indian Ocean west of India’s Nicobar Islands, according to the U.S. Geological Survey. The Pacific Tsunami Warning Center in Hawaii initially issued a tsunami watch for the region. It later reduced the watch area to India only, and then canceled the warning.
Slovakia: Opposition ahead in parliamentary election
Nearly complete results show the center-right opposition has won a parliamentary election in Slovakia. The Statistics Office says the governing left-leaning party of Prime Minister Robert Fico was the clear overall winner with 34.8 percent of the vote, or 62 seats in the 150-seat Parliament with votes from 5,900 of the 5,929 polling stations counted early today.
Japan: Quake rattles region
A strong earthquake rattled northern Japan on today, and authorities said no tsunami was expected in the area. There were no immediate reports of serious damage or injuries. The Japan Meteorological Agency said the afternoon quake had a preliminary magnitude of 6.2. The earthquake occurred off the coast of the eastern Hama-dori region of Fukushima prefecture, which is located about 150 miles north of Tokyo. Tremors were felt in Tokyo and in neighboring prefectures, including Miyagi, Yamagata, Tochigi and Ibaraki. The Tokyo Electric Power Co. said its two nuclear power plants in the prefecture were operating normally.
From Herald news services
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