Colorado

Explosion destroys remote mountain lodge

Three youngsters were missing and 16 other people were injured after a fiery explosion that destroyed a remote mountain lodge as people started arriving for a family reunion, authorities said Sunday.

The three missing youngsters, ages 3, 12, and 15, were all from the same family, Delta County Sheriff Fred McKee said.

“We are very concerned that they were last seen in the lodge,” he said.

The explosion Saturday at the Electric Mountain Lodge may have been caused by propane, which was used for heating, the sheriff said.

Authorities on Sunday afternoon called off the active search for the three. The charred rubble was still too hot for searchers to enter the lodge, and snow made it impossible to get heavy search equipment to the site.

The lodge in Paonia is about 230 miles southwest of Denver.

Hawaii

Japanese submarine from WW II found

The wreckage of a large World War II-era Japanese submarine has been found by researchers in waters off Hawaii.

A research team from the University of Hawaii discovered the I-401 submarine Thursday during test dives off Oahu.

“We thought it was rocks at first, it was so huge,” said Terry Kerby, pilot of the research craft that found the vessel. “But the sides of it kept going up and up and up, three and four stories tall. It’s a leviathan down there, a monster.”

The submarine is from the I-400 Sensuikan Toku class of subs, the largest built before the nuclear ballistic missile submarines of the 1960s.

An I-400 and I-401 were captured at sea a week after the Japanese surrendered in 1945. Their mission — which was never completed — reportedly was to use the aircraft to drop rats and insects infected with bubonic plague, cholera, typhus and other diseases on U.S. cities.

When the bacteriological bombs could not be prepared in time, the mission was reportedly changed to bomb the Panama Canal.

Both submarines were ordered to sail to Pearl Harbor and were deliberately sunk later.

North Carolina

Memorabilia of Lincoln assassination auctioned

A company that markets historical collectibles is auctioning items connected to President Abraham Lincoln’s assassination, including a letter written by an eyewitness and a ticket from that night’s play at Ford’s Theatre.

An unidentified Raleigh family placed the collectibles up for auction through Raynor’s Limited Edition Historical Collectible Auctions in Graham.

Members of the family are descendants of Ephraim and Margaret Jones, a couple who saw the play “Our American Cousin” at Ford’s Theatre in Washington on April 14, 1865, the night that Lincoln was assassinated.

In the letter Ephraim Jones wrote to his daughter, he said he and his wife had seen the attack. “Bell, your mother and pap was at the theater last night and seen that fellow shoot the president. Your mother was scared almost to death. He made his escape across the stage. I will write particulars in next (letter).”

Bidding began about two weeks ago and ends Thursday.