Mississippi town mourns 2 slain police officers; 3 suspects arrested

HATTIESBURG, Miss. (AP) — One was a decorated “Officer of the Year.” The other was a proud recent graduate of the police academy.

A routine traffic stop led to their shooting deaths Saturday night — the first Hattiesburg police officers to die in the line of duty in more than 30 years — and three suspects were in custody, including two who were charged with capital murder.

The deaths of Officers Benjamin Deen and Liquori Tate stunned this small city in southern Mississippi. On Sunday morning, bloodstains still marked the street where the two were shot, and in the nearby New Hope Baptist Church, worshippers prayed for them and their families.

“This should remind us to thank all law enforcement for their unwavering service to protect and serve,” Mississippi Gov. Phil Bryant said in a statement. “May God keep them all in the hollow of his hand.”

Marvin Banks, 29, and Joanie Calloway, 22, were each charged with two counts of capital murder, said Warren Strain, a spokesman for the Mississippi Department of Public Safety. Banks also was charged with one count of being a felon in possession of a firearm and with grand theft for fleeing in the police cruiser after the shooting, Strain said.

—

Tropical storm warnings discontinued as Ana weakens to depression, moves inland in Carolinas

CHARLOTTE, N.C. (AP) — Tropical Storm Ana lost the last of its strength and was downgraded to a depression as it created wet and windy conditions along the North and South Carolina coasts.

At 2 p.m. Sunday, the National Hurricane Center said the center of the depression was located about 30 miles north of Myrtle Beach. The storm’s maximum sustained winds were at 35 mph. Gradual weakening was expected over the next few days, according to the hurricane center.

While the storm was stationary over the northeastern coast of South Carolina, forecasters said Ana should resume moving to the north on Sunday, turn to the northeast and pick up speed. It was expected that the storm would move over eastern North Carolina on Sunday night.

The forecast also called for between 2 and 6 inches of rain over the affected regions, and coastal flooding, especially around high tide. A combination of storm surge and the rising tide created the possibility of up to 2 feet of water above normal from Cape Hatteras as far south as South Carolina. Forecasters said those conditions should diminish as well over the next day or so.

Forecasters also reiterated their warnings for rip currents along the southeastern U.S. coast.

—

The Latest: Members pray for the 2 Mississippi officers killed right outside their church

HATTIESBURG, Miss. (AP) — 4 p.m.

At the shooting scene, blood stained the street beside New Hope Baptist Church. Inside, members prayed both for the slain officers and their relatives during worship Sunday morning on Mother’s Day.

Dorothy Thompson, wife of the pastor, said, “It’s sad. It’s just a tragedy, going from one mother to another.” She added, “Every day is a bad day (for violence), but especially on a day like today.”

The U.S. flag flew at half-staff outside the Hattiesburg Police Department, and red roses placed on a concrete sign wilted under the hot afternoon sun.

Police officers Benjamin Deen, 34, and Liquori Tate, 25, were shot and killed during a traffic stop late Saturday.

—

Raul Castro at Vatican thanks pope for Cuban-US detente, says he might return to church’s fold

VATICAN CITY (AP) — Cuban President Raul Castro paid a call Sunday on Pope Francis at the Vatican to thank him for working for Cuban-U.S. detente — and said he was so impressed by the pontiff he is considering a return to the Catholic church’s fold.

“Bienvenido (welcome)!” Francis said in his native Spanish, welcoming Castro to his studio near the Vatican public audience hall. The Cuban president, bowing his head, gripped Francis’ hand with both of his, and the two men began private talks. The meeting lasted nearly an hour, as the Argentine-born Francis and Castro spoke in Spanish.

Francis will visit Cuba in September en route to the United States.

After leaving the Vatican, Castro, the brother of Fidel, the revolutionary leader who brought the Communists to power in Cuba, gushed with praise for Francis.

The pontiff “is a Jesuit, and I, in some way, am too,” Castro said at a news conference. “I always studied at Jesuit schools.”

—

Weather casts wide net: South Dakota sees snow, tornado, while Carolinas get tropical rain

South Dakota was the center of weather extremes Sunday, with a tornado damaging a small town on the eastern side of the state and more than a foot of snow blanketing the Black Hills to the west.

Several Great Plains and Midwest states were in the path of severe weather, including in North Texas, where the National Weather Service said a likely tornado damaged roofs and trees near Denton. At the same time, a tropical storm came ashore in the Carolinas and wintry weather also affected parts of Colorado.

Tropical Storm Ana made landfall near Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, on Sunday morning and was downgraded to a tropical depression by Sunday afternoon. The storm’s maximum sustained winds were at 35 mph, and it was expected to move over eastern North Carolina on Sunday night.

In South Dakota, National Weather Service meteorologist Philip Schumacher said law enforcement reported a tornado about 10:45 a.m. Sunday in Delmont — about 90 miles from Sioux Falls. Delmont Fire Chief Elmer Goehring told The Associated Press that there “have been some injuries,” and Avera Health spokeswoman Lindsey Meyers said three people were in good condition at a local hospital. No deaths were reported.

South Dakota Department of Public Safety spokeswoman Kristi Turman said about 20 buildings were damaged and the town has no water, power or phones.

—

As sea level rise threatens massive Florida coast, state offers no clear plan or coordination

ST. AUGUSTINE, Fla. (AP) — America’s oldest city is slowly drowning.

St. Augustine’s centuries-old Spanish fortress sits feet from the encroaching Atlantic, whose waters already flood the city’s narrow streets about 10 times a year — a problem worsening as sea levels rise. The city relies on tourism, but visitors might someday have to wear waders at high tide.

“If you want to benefit from the fact we’ve been here for 450 years, you have the responsibility to look forward to the next 450,” said Bill Hamilton, whose family has lived in the city since the 1950s. “Is St. Augustine even going to be here? We owe it to the people coming after us to leave the city in good shape.”

St. Augustine is one of many chronically flooded communities along Florida’s coast, and officials in these diverse places share a concern: They’re afraid their buildings and economies will be further inundated by rising seas in just a couple of decades. The effects are a daily reality in much of Florida. Drinking water wells are fouled by seawater. Higher tides and storm surges make for more frequent road flooding from Jacksonville to Key West, and they’re overburdening aging flood-control systems.

But the state has yet to offer a clear plan or coordination to address what local officials across Florida’s coast see as a slow-moving emergency. Republican Gov. Rick Scott is skeptical of man-made climate change and has put aside the task of preparing for sea level rise, an Associated Press review of thousands of emails and documents pertaining to the state’s preparations for rising seas found.

—

Girls, women rescued from Boko Haram, dozens raped and pregnant, confront trauma and stigma

YOLA, Nigeria (AP) — The taunts wouldn’t stop. “Boko Haram wives,” the schoolgirls were called because they had been briefly held by Nigeria’s Islamic extremists before escaping. The teasing was so relentless that some of the Chibok girls left their town and families.

Their plight does not bode well for hundreds of girls and women recently rescued from months of captivity by Boko Haram, including dozens who are pregnant. After enduring captivity by the militants, the females may now face stigma from their communities.

“The most important thing is to restore their dignity,” the executive director of the United Nations Population Fund, Babatunde Osotimehin, told The Associated Press in a telephone interview from his office in New York.

“When you have been in captivity against your will, and God knows whatever they have done to them, some of them will have been violated, some raped, food insecure … We need to take them, work with them and bring them back to the reality of their lives,” said Osotimehin, who is Nigerian.

His agency is providing the women and girls with intense psychosocial counseling and medical care for reproductive and maternal health. It is also encouraging communities to allow the girls to return in peace.

—

In Syrian civil war, AP journalists gain rare glimpse as Hezbollah fights for mountain range

QALAMOUN MOUNTAINS, Syria (AP) — Here in pockets of the rugged mountains near the Lebanese border, the distinctive yellow flag of Hezbollah now flies where al-Qaida militants once held sway.

These gains in the Qalamoun Mountains represent a bright spot for embattled Syrian President Bashar Assad’s government, now reeling from a unified insurgent assault in the country’s northwest. And again, they show the power and influence of the Lebanese militant group in Syria’s civil war, grinding on into its fifth year after killing more than 220,000 people.

A team of Associated Press journalists traveling with Hezbollah into Syria found smiling Hezbollah fighters proudly showing newly dismantled booby traps and food quickly left behind by the Sunni insurgents as commanders promised further advances they say protect Lebanon. But in Lebanon, worries persist that Hezbollah’s battlefield successes only further entangle the tiny country in Syria’s violence, risking attacks back home as well.

The Qalamoun Mountains are on the Syrian side of the border with Lebanon. They tower near Syria’s capital, Damascus, and linking that base of Assad’s power to the coast, an enclave of his Alawite sect, an off-shoot of Shiite Islam.

But the Sunni militants of the local al-Qaida chapter called the Nusra Front and the Islamic State group, have been dug into the terrain for years.

—

Exit poll: Opposition candidate wins 1st round of Poland’s presidential vote, runoff needed

WARSAW, Poland (AP) — An exit poll predicted Sunday that nationalist opposition candidate Andrzej Duda will win the most votes in the first round of Poland’s presidential election and will face incumbent Bronislaw Komorowski in a May 24 runoff.

In a surprise prediction for the vote that took place Sunday, Duda, who is no fan of the European Union, is expected to capture 34.8 percent of the vote to Komorowski’s 32.2 percent, according to the IPSOS poll published by the private TVN24 and the state-run PAP news agency.

The prediction also suggested a rising dissatisfaction with the ruling pro-EU establishment led by the center-right and pro-business Civic Platform party, which has been in power since 2007. That dissatisfaction was also seen in the unexpectedly high support — 20.3 percent of the vote — predicted for punk rock star Pawel Kukiz, a candidate who is critical of the government.

The vote was a test for Poland’s two major political forces, represented by Komorowski and Duda, ahead of the country’s parliamentary election in the fall. Duda’s Law and Justice party backs a mix of national pride, Catholic values and socialist welfare promises and is more conservative than the current government.

Komorowski, who has served since 2010 and made harmony his trademark, called for a debate with Duda and vowed to urgently present new reforms.

—

What a catch! Phillies fan makes play of the day, snags foul ball with baby strapped to chest

PHILADELPHIA (AP) — Oh, baby, what a catch!

A daring dad made the play of the day on Mother’s Day at Citizens Bank Park, snagging a hard foul ball with his 7 1/2-month-old son strapped to his chest.

Phillies fan Mike Capko caught the souvenir off the bat of the Mets’ Daniel Murphy with his left hand Sunday while sitting in the second deck behind home plate.

The 30-year-old Capko had son Kolton cradled in a baby carrier. Capko said it was the first foul ball he’d ever caught and that it was the infant’s first game.

“It was a natural reaction,” Capko said. “It was great, great.”

The cuisine of Charleston reflects such a distinct melange of ingredients and traditions that visitors from other regions of the U.S. may feel as if they’ve arrived on a foreign shore.

This is the land where menus populated with regional favorites — such as she-crab soup, Charleston red rice, shrimp and grits, fried green tomatoes, pickled okra, Hoppin’ John, benne wafers and coconut cake — are luring food lovers from around the world.

Last year more than 4.5 million people visited Charleston, the oldest and second-largest city in South Carolina. Founded by English colonists more than 300 years ago, the luster of “The Holy City” (nicknamed for the numerous church steeples that dominate its otherwise low skyline) hasn’t faded.

Despite having been ravaged by the Civil War in 1861, a 7.3-magnitude earthquake in 1886, and Hurricane Hugo in 1989, Charleston not only has persevered but has thrived. In 2014, the city ranked No. 1 (in the U.S. and Canada) in the Travel + Leisure World’s Best Awards and No. 1 city (in the U.S.) in the Conde Nast Traveler Reader’s Choice Awards.

Located on a scenic peninsula at the confluence of the Ashley and Cooper rivers and surrounded by sea islands, the downtown historic area is relatively flat, laid out in a simple grid. Ironically, because the city didn’t have the financial wherewithal to rebuild or remodel structures devastated by the war, Charleston displays a remarkably intact and varied architectural history with more than 3,500 well-preserved buildings. In fact, the nation’s first historical preservation zoning ordinance was passed in Charleston.

The city’s culinary renaissance

lRelated
TravelTop destinations for summer travelersSee all related

Experts mark the late 1970s as the turning point for the ascent of Charleston as a food destination. In 1977, the city was chosen to host the U.S. version of the Spoleto Festival for the performing arts. With an influx of sophisticated guests arriving for 17 days each spring, restaurants ramped up their efforts to cater to Europeans and other visitors, said Erin Perkins, editor of the online publication Eater Charleston.

Of course, Charleston already was well poised to create a culinary stir on the basis of its singular mix of geography, terroir and traditions.

“Charleston is surrounded by fertile fields, vibrant forests and thriving estuaries that serve as fish and shellfish incubators as well as by a massively stocked ocean,” explained Eve Felder, an executive chef and Charleston native who is managing director of the Singapore campus of the Culinary Institute of America.

“In addition to the abundance of ingredients, the city’s food heritage also derives from the varied cultural influences of its citizens: people of African descent, the French Huguenots and the English aristocracy,” she said.

Many dishes reflect Charleston’s Lowcountry history and coastal location too. “This unique cuisine is based on the abundance of products brought by African slaves (such as okra, eggplant, sesame and their knowledge of rice cultivation), and the indigenous foods of the region (creek shrimp, blue crabs, wild tuna, flounder and bass; marsh hens, wild ducks, geese, turkey, quail and deer; and scuppernong grapes and wild mushrooms),” Felder said. Some of the region’s best vegetables are grown in nearby barrier islands, such as Wadmalaw and Edisto, she added.

The roots of Southern cooking run deep in Charleston, said Perkins of Eater Charleston. She noted that the 1984 opening of a Johnson Wales University campus in the city (offering programs in food service, hospitality and travel tourism) also inspired a cadre of talented and committed culinary professionals. Although the campus was consolidated with the one in Charlotte, N.C., 20 years later, many graduates remained in Charleston and in other parts of the South, reinterpreting the fried chicken and pickled vegetable recipes handed down generations ago.

Lead with your nose

The diverse neighborhoods within downtown Charleston are eminently walkable (There’s also a free trolley system). Wherever you go, you’re likely to find a restaurant, bar, cafe, market or bakery with local flavor and extremely friendly and solicitous wait staff. Precious few are part of national chains.

“Stay downtown and roam her streets and follow your nose,” Felder said. “Get an early morning start and explore the alleys, cobblestone streets, nooks and crannies and let Charleston embrace you with her magic.”

Depending on your budget and the time you have available, here are some options for the first-timer:

Take a tasting tour — A number of companies offer tasting tours of the city. For example, Charleston Strolls features 2½-hour Savor the Flavors tours by licensed guides that allow participants to taste specialties such as stone ground grits, benne wafers, locally made gourmet chocolates, southern pralines, sweet tea, collard greens and Lowcountry barbecue.

Attend a food festival — Many tourists plan their visit around one of the annual festivals that showcase Charleston’s culinary treasures. These include Taste of Charleston (September), The Lowcountry Oyster Festival (January), and the 5-day BBT Charleston Wine + Food Festival (March), now in its tenth year with over 160 participating chefs from Charleston and across the country.

Visit the city market — The Charleston City Market, one of the oldest public markets in the country, occupies a series of sheds from Meeting Street to the Cooper River. Originally erected in 1804, it once sold meat, fish and vegetables. The complex has seen its share of adversity, too—destroyed by fire in 1838 and damaged by tornadoes nearly a century later. In 1973, it was placed on the National Register of Historic Places, and received a $5.5 million makeover in 2010.

The market is home to 285 local vendors selling local jams and fruit preserves, pickled and dried foods, candies, boiled peanuts, crafts and other quintessential Lowcountry souvenirs. Artists of African origin make and sell hand-woven sweetgrass baskets, used during colonial times to separate rice seed from its chaff.

Rely on the advice of local experts — Restaurant menus are built on local, seasonal ingredients that reflect the city’s “sense of place.” Be sure to taste characteristic foods and products of the region, and sample dishes that have brought national acclaim to the city’s long list of award-winning chefs.

The experts at Eater Charleston recently compiled various lists (with reviews) of essential restaurants (not-to-be-missed classics) http://www.tinyurl.com/charlclassics, oldest restaurants (noteworthy for their longevity) http://www.tinyurl.com/charloldest and “hot” restaurants (that are popular at the moment) http://www.tinyurl.com/charlhot.

If you happen to call Capt. Robert and Roberta Johnson when they aren’t near the family landline, their recording says, “You have reached the historic Quarantine House. We are not quarantined right now, so leave a message…”

It’s a badge of honor to live in one of the oldest residences in Lee County listed on the National Register of Historic Places, but it’s even more impressive that it has remained in the Johnson family for more than a century. The circa-1892 home on Belcher Road in Boca Grande served as the region’s quarantine station, housing a physician and his assistant near the Gasparilla Island Lighthouse to inspect incoming sailors and crews entering the deep-water port for communicable diseases.

The state built the quarantine station, but the federal government took over the operation in 1904 and built a new one across Boca Grande Pass on the barrier island of La Costa (Cayo Costa). Johnson’s grandfather, Iredell W. Johnson, and great uncle, William H. Johnson, acquired the structure when it was designated surplus, launching a three-generation empire of harbor pilots in Charlotte Harbor.

“It’s a matter of pride, as you can imagine—pride that this house has been in the Johnson family over 100 years and we live on an island in a place like Boca Grande that is changing almost daily with new people coming in,” says Johnson, a retired harbor pilot. “It may be egotistical, but it’s nice to be able to say I don’t have $40 million but I live in the oldest house on the island.”

The brothers had first moved to the region from the mainland of Outer Banks, N.C., for the robust mullet fishery. They wended their way to Punta Gorda in 1885 on a steamer from Cedar Key—the same year inventor Thomas Edison took the same route to Fort Myers, if not the same journey. The brothers became master and mate of a steamship that transported passengers to Lee County.

With the discovery of phosphate in the Peace River in the late 1880s, it was a fortuitous time for the Johnson brothers, who earned their status as harbor pilots because of their experience navigating large vessels. (Harbor pilots board large ships and steer them into port, unlike a tug boat, which leads them to safety.) They got busy ushering dried phosphate to deep-draft sailing, followed by steam, vessels. “They were the first harbor pilots to remain on Charlotte Harbor the next 100 years,” Johnson says. Johnson Shoals is clearly marked on local nautical maps. “I think it was more of a joke on somebody’s part to name a shoal after a pilot family whose purpose is to keep ships off of shoals,” Johnson says in his gracious and genteel cadence.

The phosphate cargo invigorated the island. The railroad came in 1910, followed by the first automated loading dock in the United States. Boca Grande had been officially named and platted, boasting as many residents as Sarasota to the north. The phosphate shipments ended in 1979, but oil for Florida Power Light’s electrical plant in the Caloosahatchee kept up the pilot work. When it began dwindling, Robert and Roberta Johnson headed for Old Town Key West, where he piloted cruise ships for another 19 years. There, they also lived in historic homes.

Though Johnson knows his ancestral and island history like no other, he only recently discovered the potential crossing of paths of the world-famous inventor with his forebears when he hosted a home tour—which the Johnsons are happy to do—for an Edison Ford Winter Estates group. And there are other stories that aren’t explained, such as the 1904 silver “loving cup” that was won in a Useppa Island Club yachting race. “Why do we have one? We weren’t sailors in that sense. We weren’t yachtsmen,” says Johnson. His father wrote “Memoirs of an Island Son,” which explains pilot vessels going back to the days of schooners. The theory is that one of the Johnsons was heading out or coming back in “when they got involved in some way or another” with the exclusive club’s race—and won. (It was customary for pilots to race to incoming ships in busy harbors, such as Baltimore and Philadephia, to be the first one there—and get the business. These competitions laid the basis for the America’s Cup.)

Robert and Roberta, who also grew up on the island and whose parents ran The Mercantile, have been married for 56 years. They wed in the First Baptist Church of Boca Grande, which his forefathers were instrumental in establishing in 1909. It’s where his daughter was first married, and his granddaughter recently, too.

Since retiring in 2002 and returning to the island, Johnson has helped oversee two renovations of the Quarantine House and get it nationally listed. He’s been actively involved with the Boca Grande Historical Society and Museum, serving in leadership and curatorial roles, currently as historian. For 12 years, he’s been planning documentaries based on two dozen video interviews conducted by the society in a series called “History Bites.” (There are actually around 52, but some are only voice recordings.) He’s working to break the interviews into themes that eloquently convey the island’s complex history that simultaneously included commercial and recreational fishing, railroad workers and bosses, the phosphate industry and the influx of wealthy New Englanders to their “winter colony.”

“Boca Grande was probably the most diverse barrier islands in the state of Florida. We want to showcase the real Boca Grande, who they were, how they interfaced and socialized, and how they lived together, mostly but not entirely, in harmony,” he says.

While other barrier islands were mostly centered on tourism, such as Sanibel, Captiva and Sarasota County, only the northernmost one in Lee County boasts the industrial activity associated with the deep-water port (with two others in the state). Johnson estimates at the height of phosphate shipping, sailors from more than 20 countries regularly visited Boca Grande.

“It was a phenomenal mix; if you worked here, you lived here. There was no commuting,” he says. Now, he laments, “That kind of diversity is no longer here. We have multimillionaires by the score but not many ordinary people. We have a one-dimensional community.”

Robert W. Johnson
» Age: 76 » Education: Studied for one year at University of Florida, attended University of Tampa for two years, and studied business, history and political science; four-year harbor pilot apprenticeship followed by State of Florida and U.S. Coast Guard harbor pilot exams » Family: Wife, Roberta, two grown children, son, Darian, and daughter, Sabrina, with granddaughter and two great-grandchildren » Personal interests: Creating films that document the uniquely diverse history of Gasparilla Island/Boca Grande