SAN DIEGO - U.S. sailors rescued a family with an ill 1-year-old baby from a disabled sailboat hundreds of miles off the Mexican coast and were headed Sunday to San Diego to get the girl medical treatment.
The girl, along with her parents and 3-year-old sister, were helped onto an inflatable raft and then taken aboard the USS Vandegrift at 8 a.m. Sunday. The baby girl was in stable condition and was heading to San Diego for medical treatment, the Coast Guard said in a news release.
Charlotte and Eric Kaufman were two weeks into their trip to sail the world when their daughter, Lyra, developed a fever and a rash covering most of her body and wasn't responding to medications. Then, their 36-foot sailboat lost steering and communication abilities about 900 miles off Mexico. They sent a satellite call for help to the U.S. Coast Guard on Thursday.
A California Air National Guard crew parachuted into the water and reached the boat Thursday night. The crew stabilized the girl and stayed by her side until the ship arrived.
The California Air National Guard dispatched four rescuers, who parachuted into the water and reached the disabled vessel. The team was able to stabilize the girl and pointed the sailboat, which does not have steering or communication abilities, toward Mexico, the 129th Rescue Wing said in a statement.
The rescuers stayed aboard the Rebel Heart to keep watch on the ill child until daylight when sailors helped them board the Navy frigate.
Before the family left, Lyra had salmonella poisoning, but doctors cleared her to travel after she was healthy again, said Charlotte Kaufman's sister, Sariah Kay English.
English initially was in daily email contact with the family but realized something was wrong when the communication stopped several days ago.
English said she was told the vessel took on water every time the motor was turned on. It's now slowly moving using only the sails.
When her sister first mentioned plans to sail with two young children, English recalled, "I thought it was nuts."
But English said the couple was always careful. Eric Kaufman is a Coast Guard-licensed captain who introduced sailing to Charlotte Kaufman during one of their early dates.
"They were not going into this blind. I knew they were doing this wisely," English said.
English said the couple made a network of friends who travelled around the globe with children and always stocked the sailboat with more food than they need.
"They were very overcautious. They're not new at sailing," English said. Unfortunately, "sickness sometimes happens."
Sunday, April 6, 2014
Saturday, April 5, 2014
Meet ex-U.S. President George W. Bush...the artist
DALLAS—Former President George W. Bush is displaying his portraits of world leaders in the first exhibit of his work as an artist.
The portraits include everyone from Prime Minister Stephen Harper to a grim-looking Russian President Vladimir Putin to a smiling likeness of the late Czech playwright and President Vaclav Havel.
A spokesman for Harper said the prime minister was always on friendly terms with Bush.
“President Bush has said these portraits were painted in the spirit of friendship, and that he chose to paint leaders he admired. That’s a kind gesture from a President that Prime Minister Harper respected and with whom he has enjoyed a good personal and professional relationship,” Jason MacDonald said in an email.Opening Saturday at the George W. Bush Presidential Library and Museum in Dallas, the exhibit is called “The Art of Leadership: A President’s Personal Diplomacy.” It runs through June 3.
“I spent a lot of time on personal diplomacy and I befriended leaders and learned about their families and their likes and dislikes, to the point where I felt comfortable painting them,” he said in an introductory video to the exhibit.
“Painting portraits of my friends and some people who weren’t necessarily my friends gave me a sense to convey a feeling I have about them because I got to know them well in the presidency,” he added in the video.
Bush, who started painting in 2012, three years after leaving office, said reading an essay by the late British Prime Minister Winston Churchill on painting inspired him to take lessons.
“I’d never lifted a brush before. I’d never been next to paint. So I gave it a whirl,” he said in the introductory video.
Accompanying many of the portraits are photographs of Bush with the leader he painted, along with gifts. On display with Bush’s portrait of former British Prime Minister Tony Blair is a book of Churchill’s speeches that Blair gave to Bush with the inscription, “To George, my ally and my friend.”
The exhibit includes more than two dozen portraits. Other subjects include the Dalai Lama, German Chancellor Angela Merkel and Afghan President Hamid Karzai. Bush also painted his father, George H.W. Bush, the 41st president of the United States.
Bush, who was the 43rd president, signs his works “43.” He has quipped: “I tell people that the signature on my paintings is worth more than the paintings.”
Interviewed by his daughter Jenna Bush Hager in a segment that aired Friday on NBC’s “Today” show, he said, “I paint a lot because, as you know, I’m a driven person.”
Talking about his portrait of Putin, he said, “I got to know him very well. It became more intense as time went on.”
He noted to her: “Vladimir is a person who in many ways viewed America as an enemy. I tried, of course, to dispel him of that notion.”
The George W. Bush Presidential Center, which includes the library and museum, opened almost a year ago on the campus of Southern Methodist University.
The portraits include everyone from Prime Minister Stephen Harper to a grim-looking Russian President Vladimir Putin to a smiling likeness of the late Czech playwright and President Vaclav Havel.
A spokesman for Harper said the prime minister was always on friendly terms with Bush.
“President Bush has said these portraits were painted in the spirit of friendship, and that he chose to paint leaders he admired. That’s a kind gesture from a President that Prime Minister Harper respected and with whom he has enjoyed a good personal and professional relationship,” Jason MacDonald said in an email.Opening Saturday at the George W. Bush Presidential Library and Museum in Dallas, the exhibit is called “The Art of Leadership: A President’s Personal Diplomacy.” It runs through June 3.
“I spent a lot of time on personal diplomacy and I befriended leaders and learned about their families and their likes and dislikes, to the point where I felt comfortable painting them,” he said in an introductory video to the exhibit.
“Painting portraits of my friends and some people who weren’t necessarily my friends gave me a sense to convey a feeling I have about them because I got to know them well in the presidency,” he added in the video.
Bush, who started painting in 2012, three years after leaving office, said reading an essay by the late British Prime Minister Winston Churchill on painting inspired him to take lessons.
“I’d never lifted a brush before. I’d never been next to paint. So I gave it a whirl,” he said in the introductory video.
Accompanying many of the portraits are photographs of Bush with the leader he painted, along with gifts. On display with Bush’s portrait of former British Prime Minister Tony Blair is a book of Churchill’s speeches that Blair gave to Bush with the inscription, “To George, my ally and my friend.”
The exhibit includes more than two dozen portraits. Other subjects include the Dalai Lama, German Chancellor Angela Merkel and Afghan President Hamid Karzai. Bush also painted his father, George H.W. Bush, the 41st president of the United States.
Bush, who was the 43rd president, signs his works “43.” He has quipped: “I tell people that the signature on my paintings is worth more than the paintings.”
Interviewed by his daughter Jenna Bush Hager in a segment that aired Friday on NBC’s “Today” show, he said, “I paint a lot because, as you know, I’m a driven person.”
Talking about his portrait of Putin, he said, “I got to know him very well. It became more intense as time went on.”
He noted to her: “Vladimir is a person who in many ways viewed America as an enemy. I tried, of course, to dispel him of that notion.”
The George W. Bush Presidential Center, which includes the library and museum, opened almost a year ago on the campus of Southern Methodist University.
Thursday, April 3, 2014
MH370 'black box' ship due in search zone
Australian navy vessel Ocean Shield, which is fitted with a US-supplied "black box" detector, was Friday expected in the area being scoured for wreckage of Flight MH370 as 14 planes continued the arduous search.
Nearly a month after the Malaysia Airlines jet carrying 239 people vanished authorities still have no idea how or why it crashed and warn that unless the black box is found, the mystery may never be solved.
But finding the flight data recorder using the towed pinger locator on Ocean Shield appears increasingly remote with officials warning that without a confirmed crash site, hopes of recovering the device are slim in the vast and unpredictable southern Indian Ocean.
Time is also ticking with the battery-powered signal from the black box expected to expire within days. Ocean Shield left Perth on Monday evening for the three-day voyage to the search zone.
The British navy's hydrographic ship HMS Echo is already in the area and spent Thursday scouring for sonic transmissions from the flight data recorder.
"One alert was experienced but discounted," the Perth-based Joint Agency Coordination Centre (JACC) said.
"False alerts may be experienced from biological sources such as whales or interference from shipping noise."
Weeks of looking for wreckage of the plane that veered off course en route from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing on March 8 have proved fruitless despite eight nations now involved in the increasingly desperate hunt for clues.
They drew another blank on Thursday with 10 military planes, four civil jets and nine ships due to resume the search on Friday, zig zagging across a huge area of about 217,000 square kilometres, 1,700 kilometres northwest of Perth.
"The weather forecast for today's search is fair, with visibility approximately 10 kilometres and a cloud base between 1,000 and 2,000 feet," JACC said.
If floating MH370 debris is eventually found, authorities plan to analyse recent weather patterns and ocean currents to determine where the plane went down.
Malaysia believes the flight was deliberately diverted by someone on board and that satellite data indicates it crashed in the Indian Ocean.
Malaysia's disjointed response to the crisis has been widely criticised, particularly by distraught relatives of the 153 Chinese people on the plane, and Australia has assumed increasing responsibility in the quest to find answers to one of aviation's greatest mysteries.
Prime Minister Tony Abbott on Thursday said there were no current plans to scale back the search but cautioned that a reassessment would have to be made eventually.
On a tour of the Perth military base being used as the staging post for the search effort on Thursday, Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak vowed "we will not rest" until the fate of flight was known.
"We want to find answers. We want to provide comfort to the families and we will not rest until answers are indeed found," he said, while admitting it was a "gargantuan task".
Nearly a month after the Malaysia Airlines jet carrying 239 people vanished authorities still have no idea how or why it crashed and warn that unless the black box is found, the mystery may never be solved.
But finding the flight data recorder using the towed pinger locator on Ocean Shield appears increasingly remote with officials warning that without a confirmed crash site, hopes of recovering the device are slim in the vast and unpredictable southern Indian Ocean.
Time is also ticking with the battery-powered signal from the black box expected to expire within days. Ocean Shield left Perth on Monday evening for the three-day voyage to the search zone.
The British navy's hydrographic ship HMS Echo is already in the area and spent Thursday scouring for sonic transmissions from the flight data recorder.
"One alert was experienced but discounted," the Perth-based Joint Agency Coordination Centre (JACC) said.
"False alerts may be experienced from biological sources such as whales or interference from shipping noise."
Weeks of looking for wreckage of the plane that veered off course en route from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing on March 8 have proved fruitless despite eight nations now involved in the increasingly desperate hunt for clues.
They drew another blank on Thursday with 10 military planes, four civil jets and nine ships due to resume the search on Friday, zig zagging across a huge area of about 217,000 square kilometres, 1,700 kilometres northwest of Perth.
"The weather forecast for today's search is fair, with visibility approximately 10 kilometres and a cloud base between 1,000 and 2,000 feet," JACC said.
If floating MH370 debris is eventually found, authorities plan to analyse recent weather patterns and ocean currents to determine where the plane went down.
Malaysia believes the flight was deliberately diverted by someone on board and that satellite data indicates it crashed in the Indian Ocean.
Malaysia's disjointed response to the crisis has been widely criticised, particularly by distraught relatives of the 153 Chinese people on the plane, and Australia has assumed increasing responsibility in the quest to find answers to one of aviation's greatest mysteries.
Prime Minister Tony Abbott on Thursday said there were no current plans to scale back the search but cautioned that a reassessment would have to be made eventually.
On a tour of the Perth military base being used as the staging post for the search effort on Thursday, Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak vowed "we will not rest" until the fate of flight was known.
"We want to find answers. We want to provide comfort to the families and we will not rest until answers are indeed found," he said, while admitting it was a "gargantuan task".
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