Datasets:

xianf

/

NTREX

like 1

"The tsunami didn't come by itself, it dragged cars, logs, houses, it hit everything on land," Nugroho said, adding that the tsunami had traveled across the open sea at speeds of 800 kph (497 mph) before striking the shoreline.

Some people climbed trees to escape the tsunami and survived, he said.

Around 16,700 people were evacuated to 24 centers in Palu.

Aerial photographs released by the disaster agency showed many buildings and shops destroyed, bridges twisted and collapsed and a mosque surrounded by water.

Aftershocks continued to rock the coastal city on Saturday.

The series of earthquakes were felt in an area with 2.4 million people.

Indonesia's Agency for the Assessment and Application of Technology (BPPT) said in statement the energy released by Friday's massive quake was around 200 times the power of the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima in World War Two.

The geography of the city, which sits at the end of a long, narrow bay, could have magnified the size of the tsunami, it said.

Nugroho described the damage as "extensive" and said thousands of houses, hospitals, shopping malls and hotels had collapsed.

Bodies of some victims were found trapped under the rubble of collapsed buildings, he said, adding 540 people were injured and 29 were missing.

Nugroho said the casualties and the damage could be greater along the coastline 300 km (190 miles) north of Palu, an area called Donggala, which is closer to the epicenter of the quake.

Communications "were totally crippled with no information" from Donggala, Nugroho said.

There are more than 300,000 people living there," the Red Cross said in a statement, adding that its staff and volunteers were heading to the affected areas.

"This is already a tragedy, but it could get much worse," it said.

The agency on Saturday was widely criticized for not informing that a tsunami had hit Palu, though officials said waves had come within the time the warning was issued.

In amateur footage shared on social media a man on the upper floor of a building can be heard shouting frantic warnings of the approaching tsunami to people on the street below.

Within minutes a wall of water crashes onto the shore, carrying away buildings and cars.

Reuters was not able to immediately authenticate the footage.

The quake and tsunami caused a major power outage that cut communications around Palu making it difficult for authorities to coordinate rescue efforts.

The military has started sending in cargo planes with aid from Jakarta and other cities, authorities said, but evacuees still badly need food and other basic necessities.

The city's airport has been reopened only for relief efforts and will remain closed until Oct.

President Joko Widodo was scheduled to visit evacuation centers in Palu on Sunday.

Indonesia Tsunami Toll Soars Above 800.

It Is Very Bad.

While World Vision's staff from Donggala have made it safely to Palu city, where employees are sheltering in tarpaulin shelters set up in the courtyard of their office, they passed scenes of devastation on the way, Mr. Doseba said.

"They told me they saw lots of houses that were destroyed," he said.

It is very bad.

Even as aid groups began the grim motions of starting the gears of disaster relief, some complained that foreign aid workers with deep expertise were being prevented from traveling to Palu.

According to Indonesian regulations, funding, supplies and staffing from overseas can only start flowing if the site of a calamity is declared a national disaster zone.

That has not happened yet.

"It's still a province level disaster," said Aulia Arriani, a spokesperson for the Indonesian Red Cross.

"Once the government says, "O.K., this is a national disaster," we can open for international assistance but there's no status yet."

As the second night fell on Palu after Friday's earthquake and tsunami, friends and family of those still missing were holding out hope that their loved ones would be the miracles that leaven the bleak story lines of natural disasters.

On Saturday, a little boy was plucked from a sewer.

On Sunday, rescuers freed a woman who had been pinned under rubble for two days with the body of her mother next to her.

Gendon Subandono, the coach of the Indonesian national paragliding team, had trained two of the missing paragliders for the Asian Games, which wrapped up earlier this month in Indonesia.

Others of those trapped at the Roa Roa Hotel, Mr. Mandagi included, were his students.

"As a senior in the paragliding field, I have my own emotional burden," he said.

Mr. Gendon recounted how, in the hours after the news of the Roa Roa Hotel collapse circulated among the paragliding community, he had desperately sent WhatsApp messages to the Palu competitors, who were taking part in the beach festival.

His messages, though, only resulted in one gray check mark, rather than a pair of blue checks.

"I think that means the messages were not delivered," he said.

Thieves take $26,750 during ATM refill at Newport on the Levee

Thieves on Friday morning stole $26,750 from a Brink's worker refilling an ATM at Newport on the Levee, according to a news release from the Newport Police Department.

The car's driver had been emptying an ATM in the entertainment complex and preparing to deliver more money, Det. Dennis McCarthy wrote in the release.

While he was occupied, another man "ran up from behind the Brink's employee" and stole a bag of money meant for delivery.

Witnesses spotted multiple suspects fleeing the scene, according to the release, but police did not specify the number involved in the incident.

Anyone with information about their identities should contact Newport police at 859-292-3680.

Kanye West: Rapper changes his name to Ye

Rapper Kanye West is changing his name - to Ye.

Announcing the change on Twitter on Saturday, he wrote: "The being formally known as Kanye West."

West, 41, has been nicknamed Ye for some time and used the moniker as the title for his eighth album, which was released in June.

The change comes ahead of his appearance on Saturday Night Live, where he is expected to launch his new album Yandhi.

He replaces singer Ariana Grande on the show who cancelled for "emotional reasons," the show's creator said.

As well as being an abbreviation of his current professional name, West has previously said the word has religious significance for him.

"I believe 'ye' is the most commonly used word in the Bible, and in the Bible it means 'you,'" West said earlier this year, discussing his album title with radio host Big Boy.

"So I'm you, I'm us, it's us.

It went from Kanye, which means the only one, to just Ye - just being a reflection of our good, our bad, our confused, everything.

The album is more of a reflection of who we are."

He is one of a number of famous rappers to change their name.

Sean Combs has been variously known as Puff Daddy, P. Diddy or Diddy, but this year announced his preference for the names Love and Brother Love.

A former West collaborator, JAY-Z, has also made do with or without a hyphen and capitals.

Mexico's AMLO vows not to use military against civilians

Mexican President-elect Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador has vowed to never use military force against civilians as the country approaches the 50th anniversary of a bloody reprisal against students.

Lopez Obrador promised Saturday at Tlatelolco Plaza to "never ever use the military to repress the Mexican people."

Troops fired on a peaceful demonstration at the plaza on Oct. 2, 1968, killing as many as 300 people at a time when leftist student movements were taking root throughout Latin America.

Lopez Obrador has pledged to support young Mexicans by giving monthly subsidies to those who study and opening more free public universities.

He has said that unemployment and a lack of educational opportunities draws youth to criminal gangs.

U.S. should double A.I. funding

As China becomes more active in artificial intelligence, the U.S. should double the amount it spends on research in the field, says investor and AI practitioner Kai-Fu Lee, who has worked for Google, Microsoft and Apple.

The comments come after various parts of the U.S. government have made AI announcements, even as the U.S. overall lacks a formal AI strategy.

Meanwhile, China introduced its plan last year: it's aiming to be No.1 in AI innovation by 2030.

"Double the AI research budget would be a good start, given that all other countries are so much farther behind U.S., and we're looking for the next breakthrough in AI," said Lee.

Doubling funding could double the chances that the next big AI achievement will be made in the U.S., Lee told CNBC in an interview this week.

Lee, whose book "AI Superpowers: China, Silicon Valley and the New World Order" was published this month by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, is CEO of Sinovation Ventures, which has invested in one of the most prominent AI companies in China, Face++.

In the 1980s at Carnegie Mellon University he worked on an AI system that beat the highest-ranked American Othello player, and later he was an executive at Microsoft Research and president of Google's China branch.

Lee acknowledged previous U.S. government technology competitions like the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency's Robotics Challenge and asked when the next one would be, in order to help identify the next visionaries.

Researchers in the U.S. often have to work hard in order to win government grants, Lee said.

"It's not China that is taking away the academic leaders; it's the corporates," Lee said.

Facebook, Google and other technology companies have hired luminaries from universities to work on AI in recent years.

Lee said immigration policy changes could also help the U.S. bolster its AI efforts.

"I think green cards should automatically be offered to PhD's in AI," he said.

China's State Council issued its Next Generation Artificial Intelligence Development Plan in July 2017.

China's National Natural Science Foundation provides funding to people at academic institutions similar to the way that the National Science Foundation and other government organizations dole out money to U.S. researchers, but the quality of academic work is lower in China, Lee said.

Earlier this year the U.S. Defense Department established a Joint Artificial Intelligence Center, which is meant to involve partners from industry and academia, and the White House announced the formation of Select Committee on Artificial Intelligence.

And this month DARPA announced a $2 billion investment in an initiative called AI Next.

As for the NSF, it currently invests more than $100 million per year in AI research.

Meanwhile, U.S. legislation that sought to create a National Security Commission on Artificial Intelligence has not seen action in months.

Macedonians vote in referendum on whether to change country's name

The people of Macedonia voted in a referendum on Sunday on whether to change its name to "Republic of North Macedonia," a move that would resolve a decades-old dispute with Greece which had blocked its membership bids for the European Union and NATO.

Greece, which has a province called Macedonia, maintains that its northern neighbor's name represents a claim on its territory and has vetoed its entrance into NATO and the EU.

The two governments struck a deal in June based on the proposed new name, but nationalist opponents argue the change would undermine the ethnic identity of Macedonia's Slavic majority population.

President Gjorge Ivanov has said he will not be voting in the referendum and a boycott campaign has cast doubts on whether turnout will meet the minimum 50 percent required for the referendum to be valid.

The question on the referendum ballot read: "Are you for NATO and EU membership with acceptance of the agreement with Greece."

Supporters of the name change, including Prime Minister Zoran Zaev, argue that it is a price worth paying to pursue admission into bodies such as the EU and NATO for Macedonia, one of the countries to emerge from the collapse of Yugoslavia.

"I came today to vote for the future of the country, for young people in Macedonia so they can be live freely under the umbrella of the European Union because it means safer lives for all of us," said Olivera Georgijevska, 79, in Skopje.

Although not legally binding, enough members of parliament have said they will abide by the vote's outcome to make it decisive.

The name change would requires a two-thirds majority in parliament.

The state election commission said there had been no reports of irregularities by 1 p.m.

However, turnout stood at only 16 percent, compared to 34 percent in last parliamentary election in 2016 when 66 percent of the registered voters cast their ballot.

"I came out to vote because of my children, our place is in Europe," said Gjose Tanevski, 62, a voter in the capital, Skopje.