Also on today’s menu:
Cartel Expresses Remorse Over Americans’ Deaths
Drone Saves Stranded Motorists
Iditarod Heats Up — To 80 Degrees
New Hampshire Governor Chris Sununu seems to be serious this time about a run for president of the United States. If he makes it, he would following a family tradition: His father, John Henry Sununu, had served as the 75th governor of New Hampshire, from 1983 to 1989, then became White House Chief of Staff under President George H. W. Bush. His brother, John Edward Sununu, served in Washington as a member of the United States House of Representatives and United States Senate. For months now, Chris Sununu has been weighing a run for the country’s highest position, becoming a popular subject of the political press, which has pegged him as a possible post-Trump GOP candidate.
Sununu appeared at the Belknap County Republican Committee’s meeting at Tower Hill Tavern in Laconia on March 8, using the opportunity to promote his budget proposals and pitch his vision for a more inclusive Republican party. While admitting that he’s seriously considering a run for president, he insists he’s focused, for now, on promoting a more open party and meeting his goals in Concord.
He hedged on questions about his support for proposed legislation concerning parental rights and gender transition procedures for minors, saying, “[The bills are] going to change three or four times before they potentially get to my desk.”
Cartel Expresses Remorse Over Americans’ Deaths
The Scorpions, a splinter group of Mexico’s Gulf Cartel, turned over the men it says were responsible for the kidnapping of four United States citizens and the killing of two of them, and it apologized for the men breaking the cartel's rules over “protecting the lives of the innocent”.
The rogue members of the gang fired on the minivan carrying the Americans across the border, according to a letter left with the five men who were turned in. It said they had “acted under their own decision-making and lack of discipline”.
While original reports said the Americans were traveling to Mexico for medical treatment, three of the four had convictions for minor drug offenses and one had been charged with manufacturing banned narcotics. Mexican authorities are investigating the possibility that they had been mistaken for rival cartel members encroaching on their turf, according to Reuters.
Drone Saves Stranded Motorists
A man whose vehicle became stuck in the snow on a remote road in the Willamette National Forest was unable to summon help by phone because there was no cellular coverage. Instead, he composed a text message giving his exact location and attached the phone to a drone which he launched several hundred feet into the air, where it was able to find a signal.
The Lane County Sheriff Search and Rescue did not identify the man, but reported that “his family was out of the country and nobody knew where he had gone.”
His resourcefulness not only led rescue teams to assist him; while the teams were out, they also rescued another motorist who had been stranded in the snow for several days.
Iditarod Heats Up — To 80 Degrees
Jason Mackey, a participant in this year’s Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race, said a thermometer on the back of his sled hit 80 degrees at one point this week. Some mushers have given up on the 1,000-mile race across Alaska as they dealt with heat and messy trail conditions.
Brian Brettschneider, a climate scientist with the National Weather Service’s Alaska Region, expressed doubt about the 80-degree claim, pointing out that, when a thermometer is in direct sunlight, it absorbs the solar energy. Official measurement thermometers are kept in the shade.
Nevertheless, many Alaskan communities recorded record-high temperatures this week, from Kodiak, off the southern coast, to Deadhorse, the supply town for oil companies operating on the state’s North Slope, a distance of about 1,250 miles.
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