May 26 Photo Brief: Obama visits tornado victims in Oklahoma, oldest person to climb Mount Everest, fans re-enact “The Hobbit”
President Obama visits tornado victims in Oklahoma, Japanese mountain climber becomes oldest person to conquer Mount Everest, fans re-enact “The Hobbit” in the Czech Republic and more in today’s daily brief.
-
- U.S. President Barack Obama visits the tornado affected Plaza Towers Elementary School on May 26, 2013 in Moore, Oklahoma. Obama is in the Oklahoma City area to survey damage from the tornado which struck a week ago and meet with victims and first responders. Oklahoma Governor Mary Fallin is third from right. (Mandel Ngan/AFP/Getty Images)
-
- Japanese mountain climber Yuichiro Miura, 80, shows the victory sign upon his arrival at the airport after climbing Mount Everest, in Kathmandu May 26, 2013. Miura, who has had four heart surgeries, reached the top of Mount Everest on Thursday becoming the oldest person to conquer the world’s highest mountain. Miura, who first climbed Everest in 2003 and repeated the feat five years later, takes the oldest climber record from Nepal’s Min Bahadur Sherchan, who reached the summit at the age of 76 in 2008. (Navesh Chitrakar/Reuters)
-
- Buddhist believers release paper lanterns as they pay homage to Buddha on Visakha Puja day, also known as Vesak Day, at the Nadam stadium in Ulan Bator, May 25, 2013. (Mareike Guensche/Reuters)
-
- An opposition supporter masks his face to hide his identity late on May 25, 2013 as protesters clashed with police in the Kodjoviakope neighborhood of Lome. Authorities have banned all protests in the capital after violent clashes this week. A number of protests organized by “Let’s Save Togo,” a coalition of opposition and civil society groups, over various issues have been either banned or dispersed with tear gas in recent months. (Daniel Hayduk/AFP/Getty Images)
-
- The Soyuz TMA-09M spacecraft is transported to its launch pad at Baikonur cosmodrome May 26, 2013. Soyuz with U.S. astronaut Karen Nyber, Italian astronaut Luca Parmitano and Russian cosmonaut Fyodor Yurchikhin is due to travel to the International Space Station on May 29. (Shamil Zhumatov /Reuters)
-
- Fans dressed as characters of the Tolkien classic “The Hobbit”, take part in the re-enactment of a battle in a forest near the village of Doksy, northern Czech Republic on May 25, 2013. The epic clash that pits men, elves and dwarves against goblins and wargs in J.R.R. Tolkien’s 1937 novel “The Hobbit” has become a springtime tradition as more then eight hundreds of Czech fans. (Michal Cizek/AFP/Getty Images)
-
- Bayern Munich’s Franck Ribery (foreground) holds up the trophy to fans as he celebrates after winning the Champions League final soccer match at Wembley stadium in London May 25, 2013. Bayern Munich beat Borussia Dortmund 2-1 in an all-German Champions League final on Saturday to become European champions for the fifth time. (Stefan Wermuth/Reuters)
-
- Pakistani youth enjoy at a river canal on a hot day in Lahore on May 26, 2013. Temperatures dropped by three to four degrees Celsius in many cities on Sunday because of the westerly wave over upper parts of the country, but it was still too hot to tolerate especially in the afternoon in Lahore. (Arif Ali/AFP/Getty Images)
-
- Supporters of the anti-gay marriage movement “La Manif Pour Tous” (Demonstration for all) wave flags in front of the Eiffel Tower during a mass protest on May 26, 2013 in Paris against a gay marriage law. France on May 18 became the 14th country to legalise same-sex marriage after President Francois Hollande signed the measure into law following months of bitter debate and demonstrations. (Francois Guillot/AFP/Getty Images)
-
- Blanka Vlasic of Croatia clears the bar at 1.94 meters to win the women’s high jump at the Diamond League Adidas Grand Prix in New York, May 25, 2013. (Gary Hershorn/Reuters)
-
- A Bangladeshi worker ties his pushcart during a nationwide strike called by the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) in Dhaka on May 26, 2013. The country’s opposition parties have combined to enforce the shutdown as they demand the restoration of the caretaker government system during national elections. (Munir uz Zaman/AFP/Getty Images)
-
- Wang Meizhi, who has been searching for her twin sons whom are missing since 1995, cries during an event belatedly marking International Missing Children’s Day, in Taiyuan, Shanxi province, May 26, 2013. Eight parents who lost their children attended the event on May 26, according to local media. International Missing Children’s Day, commemorates the lost children who are missing or found, and the efforts undertaken by people to search for the missing children falls annually on May 25. (Jon Woo/Reuters)
-
- A man holds a portrait of Juan Perez, who disappeared during the internal armed conflict, during a protest against the quashing of the 80-year sentence for genocide of former Guatemalan dictator General Efrain Rios Montt outside Constitutional Court (CC) of Guatemala on May 24, 2013 in Guatemala city. Rios Montt will go back on trial after the nation’s highest court threw out his genocide and war crimes conviction in the latest twist in complex proceedings. (Johan Ordonez/AFP/Getty Images)
-
- Professional slackliner Reinhard Kleindl walks a high wire in front of the Frankfurt skyline May 25, 2013. Austrian Kleindl set a world record on Saturday by walking the highest urban high line at 607 ft. (Ralph Orlowski/Reuters)
-
- A biker demonstrates his skills on Nevsky Avenue in St. Petersburg May 26, 2013. Citizens of St. Petersburg on Sunday celebrated the 310th anniversary of the city’s foundation by Russian Tsar Peter the Great. (Alexander Demianchuk/Reuters)
-
- A member of the group Jaheli dances and puts fire to his tongue during a spectacle in Abidjan on May 24, 2013. (Sia Kambou/AFP/Getty Images)
Obama visits Oklahoma town digging out after tornado
By Jeff Mason | Reuters
2:02 p.m. EDT, May 26, 2013
MOORE, Oklahoma (Reuters) – President Barack Obama arrived in Moore, Oklahoma, on Sunday to tour the town that was hammered last week by a powerful tornado that killed 24 people and assure its residents that the federal government would provide long-term help.
His first stop was Plaza Towers Elementary School, where seven children died and several students and teachers were injured by the May 20 afternoon storm.
Piles of boards, brick and cinder blocks that used to be buildings and houses lined the side of the street. Rare items that survived the disaster – a television set, a pink baby carriage – stood in contrast to the wreckage.
Cars with their bodies dented and windows smashed lay under debris or twisted on their sides. Rising above the wasteland were at least three American flags that had been attached to the rubble, waving in the wind.
“The president’s message is that support is not winding down,” White House spokesman Josh Earnest told reporters on Air Force One. “As demonstrated by our efforts in Tuscaloosa, in Joplin, and those communities in Connecticut, New York, and New Jersey that were affected by Sandy, we’ll be standing with the people of these resilient communities as they come back stronger than ever.”
Obama has been repeatedly called on in recent months to comfort shaken U.S. communities, from a visit last month to Boston in the wake of the marathon bombings, to Newtown, Connecticut, the site of a December mass school shooting.
Tuscaloosa, Alabama, and Joplin, Missouri, were hard-hit by tornadoes two years ago.
The Moore tornado, which rated the most powerful on the five-step scale used to measure the destructive power of twisters, ripped a 17-mile (27-km) long corridor of destruction through the suburb of Oklahoma City, flattening entire blocks of homes, two schools and a hospital in some 50 minutes on May 20.
It was the most powerful of a spate of 76 twisters that touched down in 10 states from May 18 through 20, causing an estimated $2 billion to $5 billion in insured losses, according to disaster modeling company Eqecat.
Some 377 people were injured by the Moore tornado, the deadliest such windstorm to hit the United States in two years.
(Additional reporting by Heide Brandes; Writing by Scott Malone; Editing by Sandra Maler)
Baltimore neighborhoods
Baltimore street photographers
Year in review
Freddie Gray: protests, aftermath
24 hours with...
A. Aubrey Bodine
Viewing Baltimore from above