DETROIT
Michigan recount is canceled
A federal judge who ordered Michigan to begin its recount effectively ended it on Wednesday, tying his decision to a state court ruling that found Green Party candidate Jill Stein had no legal standing to request another look at ballots. The ruling seals Republican Donald Trump’s narrow victory over Democrat Hillary Clinton for Michigan’s 16 electoral votes. U.S. District Judge Mark Goldsmith agreed with Republicans who argued that the three-day recount must end a day after the state appeals court dealt a blow to the effort.
PEARL HARBOR, Hawaii
Remark on anthem is cheered
U.S. Pacific Command Commander Adm. Harry Harris says those who served during the attack on Pearl Harbor never failed to stand for the national anthem. His remarks Wednesday at a ceremony marking the 75th anniversary of the Japanese attack generated a lengthy standing ovation from the crowd, with people whistling and hooting. Thousands gathered for the event. “You can bet that the men and women we honor today — and those who died that fateful morning 75 years ago — never took a knee and never failed to stand whenever they heard our national anthem being played,” Harris said.
WASHINGTON
Giraffes at risk of extinction
The giraffe, the tallest land animal, is now at risk of extinction, biologists say. Because the giraffe population has shrunk nearly 40 percent in just 30 years, scientists put it on the official watch list of threatened and endangered species worldwide, calling it “vulnerable.” In 1985, there were 151,000 to 163,000 giraffes, but in 2015 there were just 97,562, according to the International Union for the Conservation of Nature. Scientists blame habitat loss.
OAKLAND, Calif.
No escaping fire, official says
The fire that killed 36 people during a party at a warehouse started on the ground floor and quickly raged, with smoke billowing into the second level and trapping victims whose only escape route was through the flames, federal investigators said Wednesday. “The occupants were consumed by smoke before they could get out of the building,” said Jill Snyder, special agent in charge of the San Francisco office of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives. She also confirmed there were no sprinklers or a fire alarm system in the building.
Compiled from wire reports