Your daily 6: Melania makes it political, Monica Lewinsky speaks out and ‘Bachelor’ star pleads guilty | News

Message boards filled with missing as fire death toll climbs

A message board at a shelter for the many people who fled California’s deadliest wildfire is filled with photos of the missing, as well as pleas for any information about relatives and friends.

“I hope you are okay,” reads one hand written note on the board filled with white and yellow sheets of notebook paper. Another had a picture of a missing man: “If seen, please have him call.”

Authorities on Tuesday reported six more fatalities from the Northern California blaze, bringing the total number of dead so far to 48. They haven’t disclosed the total number still missing, but earlier in the week that figure was more than 200.

Butte County Sheriff Kory Honea said a list of the missing would be released soon and that 100 National Guard troops would help teams already looking for remains.

“We want to be able to cover as much ground as quickly as we possibly can,” he said. “This is a very difficult task.”

As authorities increased efforts, people waited for any word on those still not found.

Greg Gibson was one of the people searching the message board Tuesday, hoping to find information about his neighbors. They’ve been reported missing, but he doesn’t know if they tried to escape or hesitated a few minutes longer than he did before fleeing Paradise, the town of 27,000 which was consumed last Thursday. About 7,700 homes were destroyed.

“It happened so fast. It would have been such an easy decision to stay, but it was the wrong choice,” Gibson said from the Neighborhood Church in Chico, California.

More than 1,000 people were at shelters set up for evacuees.

Inside the church, evacuee Harold Taylor chatted with newfound friends.

Taylor, a 72-year-old Vietnam veteran who walks with a cane, said he received a call Thursday morning to evacuate immediately. He saw the flames leaping up behind his house, left with the clothes on his back and barely made it out alive.

Along the way, he tried to convince his neighbor to get in his car and evacuate with him, but the neighbor declined. He doesn’t know what happened to his friend.

“We didn’t have 10 minutes to get out of there,” he said. “It was already in flames downtown, all the local restaurants and stuff,” he said.

The search for the dead was drawing on portable devices that can identify someone’s genetic material in a couple of hours, rather than days or weeks.

“In many circumstances, without rapid DNA technology, it’s just such a lengthy process,” says Frank DePaolo, a deputy commissioner of the New York City medical examiners’ office, which has been at the forefront of the science of identifying human remains since 9/11 and is exploring how it might use a rapid DNA device.

Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke said he canceled a trip to Asia and will visit the fire zones Wednesday and Thursday.

The cause of the fires remained under investigation, but they broke out around the time and place two utilities reported equipment trouble. Gov.-elect Gavin Newsom, who takes office in January, sidestepped questions about what action should be taken against utilities if their power lines are found to be responsible.

First lady gets political with call for White House aide’s firing

In an extraordinary move, Melania Trump called publicly Tuesday for the deputy national security adviser to be dismissed.

After reports circulated Tuesday that President Donald Trump had decided to remove Mira Ricardel from her post at the National Security Council, Stephanie Grisham, the first lady’s spokeswoman, released a statement that said: “It is the position of the Office of the First Lady that she no longer deserves the honor of serving in this White House.”

Shortly before the statement was issued, Ricardel was among a group of administration officials and other individuals who stood behind President Trump at a White House ceremony celebrating Diwali, the Hindu festival of lights.

The Wall Street Journal reported Tuesday that the first lady’s staff and Ricardel had clashed during Mrs. Trump’s visit to Africa in October over such things as seating on the airplane and requests to use the council’s resources.

A White House official told The Associated Press that Ricardel wanted to travel to Africa with the first lady but was denied seating on the airplane because there was no room for her and several others who initially expected to make the trip. The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss White House personnel matters, said Ricardel then threatened not to send any NSC staff.

Ricardel also is known to have clashed with Defense Secretary Jim Mattis over Pentagon political appointee choices since early in his tenure. And Pentagon officials have said privately they believe Ricardel had a hand in spreading rumors this year about Mattis falling from favor with the White House and perhaps departing.

Mrs. Trump is very protective of her husband and is considered to be an influential adviser, as many first ladies have been with their spouses.

She is also one of the most private first ladies in recent memory, which made the public announcement about her displeasure with a top West Wing official all the more surprising.

Prosecuting Ohio mbadacre of 8 case could last years

Prosecuting an Ohio family of four arrested in the gruesome slayings of eight people from another family could take years to conclude, a county prosecutor said as the first break in the more than two-year-old case was announced.

Tuesday’s announcement marked the culmination of a mbadive investigative effort that began after seven adults and a teenage boy were found shot in the head at four separate homes in April 2016. The killings terrified local residents and spawned rumors that it was a drug hit, but prosecutors suggested the attack had stemmed from a custody dispute.

The investigation is one of the most complicated and extensive in state history, with enormous numbers of witnesses and a huge amount of evidence, said Pike County Prosecutor Rob Junk.

“There is a lot of hard work ahead of us. I cannot emphasize that enough. An indictment is only the beginning of the case,” Junk said Tuesday, adding that the case may have to be moved from Pike County because of the pre-trial publicity.

Ohio Attorney General Mike DeWine said a grand jury indicted the four members of the Wagner family on aggravated murder charges. Police arrested George “Billy” Wagner III, 47; his wife, 48-year-old Angela Wagner; and his sons George Wagner, 27, and Edward “Jake” Wagner, 26. They could be sentenced to death if convicted, DeWine said.

DeWine gave scant detail about why the victims were killed, but said the custody of a young child played a role. Edward Wagner was the long-time former boyfriend of 19-year-old Hanna Rhoden, one of the eight victims, and shared custody of their daughter at the time of the mbadacre.

Edward Wagner was also charged with unlawful badual conduct with a minor for having badual contact with Rhoden when she was 15 years old and he was 20 years old, DeWine’s office said.

The Wagner family lived near the scenes of the killings about 60 miles south of Columbus.

The mothers of Angela Wagner and George Wagner also were arrested in Ohio and charged with misleading investigators.

Both Edward Wagner and Angela Wagner previously told the Cincinnati Enquirer that they were not involved in the killings.

Angela Wagner said in an email to the newspaper that what happened was devastating and Hanna Rhoden was like a daughter to her. Wagner also told The Enquirer that her husband, George, and Christopher Rhoden Sr. were more like brothers than friends.

John Clark, a lawyer who has been representing the Wagners, has said previously that four of the Wagner family members provided laptops, phones and DNA samples to investigators, and agreed to be interviewed about the slayings.

“We look forward to the day when the true culprits will be discovered and brought to justice for this terrible tragedy,” Clark said in a statement Tuesday.

The victims were 40-year-old Christopher Rhoden Sr.; his ex-wife, 37-year-old Dana Rhoden; their three children, 20-year-old Clarence “Frankie” Rhoden, 16-year-old Christopher Jr., and 19-year-old Hanna; Clarence Rhoden’s fiancée, 20-year-old Hannah Gilley; Christopher Rhoden Sr.’s brother, 44-year-old Kenneth Rhoden; and a cousin, 38-year-old Gary Rhoden. Hanna Rhoden’s days-old baby girl, another baby and a young child were unharmed.

‘Bachelor’ star pleads guilty in deadly crash

A farmer who appeared on ABC’s “The Bachelor” pleaded guilty Tuesday in a fatal crash last year near his home in northern Iowa.

In an agreement with prosecutors, Chris Soules pleaded guilty to a reduced charge of leaving the scene of a serious injury accident. The misdemeanor charge carries a penalty of up to two years in prison. Soules’ attorney said he could also get a deferred judgment and no jail time when he’s sentenced in January.

Soules, who appeared on “The Bachelor” and “Dancing With The Stars” in 2015, had been charged with leaving the scene of a fatal crash, a felony that carries up to five years behind bars.

Soule, 36, was arrested after he rear-ended a tractor the night of April 24, 2017, killing 66-year-old Kenny Mosher. Soules called 911, performed CPR on Mosher and waited for first responders, but left before police arrived.

“I acknowledge I did not provide the registration number of the vehicle I was driving to 911 or law enforcement” as required by state law, Soules said in his written plea.

Brandon Brown, an attorney for Soules, said in the agreement that the crash was unavoidable and suggested that Mosher bore some responsibility. Brown said Soules was traveling on a dark, rural highway when he hit the back of the tractor, which did not display required flashing amber lights, according to Soules and another witness.

Man who would be king turns 70

Britain’s Prince Charles is turning 70 with a family birthday party, and a firm commitment to his environmentalist views.

Charles is due to have tea on Wednesday with a group of people who are also turning 70 this year, before a Buckingham Palace party thrown by his mother, Queen Elizabeth II.

The prince’s Clarence House office released two family portraits to mark the birthday. The photos by Chris Jackson show Charles with his wife, Camilla, sons Prince William and Prince Harry, their wives Kate and Meghan and his grandchildren: 6-year-old Prince George, 3-year-old Princess Charlotte and 6-month-old Prince Louis.

The environmentalist prince writes in the latest edition of Country Life magazine, urging people not to take the natural world for granted but to “think ahead to what our grandchildren will want and need.”

Monica Lewinsky speaks about Clintons, bullies and thoughts of suicide

If Monica Lewinsky were to ever come face to face with Hillary Clinton, she knows exactly what she would do: apologize.

“I know that I would summon up whatever force I needed to again acknowledge to her — sincerely — how very sorry I am,” Lewinsky wrote in an essay published by Vanity Fair on Tuesday.

Apologizing to Clinton again — the first time was in a 1999 interview with Barbara Walters — was one of several topics Lewinsky addressed in an essay that went beyond explaining her decision to participate in a new A&E documentary series, “The Clinton Affair,” which delves into the events leading up to the impeachment of former president Bill Clinton. Lewinsky, 45, also discussed the power dynamics that protected Clinton and led to her public excoriation as well as whether she believes he owes her a personal apology.

The series, Lewinsky wrote, is titled “The Clinton Affair” for a reason.

“Bye-bye, Lewinsky scandal . . . I think 20 years is enough time to carry that mantle,” she wrote. The first episode will air Sunday.

Lewinsky, then a 22-year-old White House intern, became the center of global attention for her affair with Clinton that nearly brought an end to his presidency. He lied about it before a grand jury led by special prosecutor Kenneth Starr, an act that led to impeachment proceedings. Widely vilified and slapped by Clinton and his supporters with the unforgiving moniker of “That Woman,” just one of many unflattering epithets, Lewinsky took herself out of the public eye, reemerging only just a few years ago.

Because of the taunting Lewinsky endured, she has since taken on the cause of anti-bullying. In the past, she has been reluctant to publicly address questions about the scandal, but now she is opening up about the infamous relationship in what may be her most expansive interview to date.

Lewinsky wrote that she was interviewed for the documentary for more than 20 hours, a process that required her to recall memories she wishes she could erase.

The affair was detailed in the Starr report that led to Clinton’s impeachment for lying under oath to a federal grand jury and obstructing justice. After a trial, he was acquitted by the Senate on Feb. 12, 1999.

In the aftermath of the affair, facing questions from the FBI and unable to escape public scrutiny, Lewinsky contemplated suicide.

“There was a point for me somewhere in this sort of first several hours [of being interviewed by the FBI] where I would be hysterically crying and then I would just shut down,” Lewinsky said. “I remember looking out the window and thinking that the only way to fix this was to kill myself, was to jump out the window.”