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cuers racing to reach dozens of people feared trapped in the rubble.
• It was the third deadly building collapse in six months in Mumbai, in a country where shoddy construction and lax inspections make such disasters all too common.
• Relatives of the missing wailed and clung to one another, as heavy machinery lifted the largest slabs of concrete away. Dozens of rescue workers hacked away with crowbars at the flattened remains of what was once a five-story building.
• At least three people were killed and 16 others have been pulled alive from the building and rushed to a hospital, said Alok Awasthi, local commander of the National Disaster Response Force.
• "Approximately 80 to 90 people are believed to be left behind in the building and trapped," Awasthi said, indicating the death toll could soar higher in the coming hours and days.
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• TUOLUMNE CITY, Calif. (AP) -- In the midst of a foreboding canyon scorched bare by the Sierra Nevada's most destructive fire in centuries, tiny ferns unfurl along a spring, black oaks push through charred soil normally blanketed with pine needles and a hawk soars above towering dead and denuded trees.
• Just four weeks after the most intense day of California's Rim Fire -- when wind and extremely arid conditions created a conflagration that turned 30,000 acres of dense conifers and oaks into a moonscape -- life is returning as the forest begins to repair itself.
• "It's a pretty harsh environment, but we know fire can be good and that species depend on it, and that fire allows seeds to germinate," said Sean Collins of the South Central Sierra Incident Command Team as he examined tiny patches of greenery amid a disorienting sepia-tone landscape.
• "Next spring we'll see a lot of wildflowers and plants that haven't been seen around here for a long, long time. In 20 years, we'll see something really nice. But it will take 200 years at least for it to grow back the way it was," he said.
• A hunter's illegal campfire ignited California's third-largest fire in history Aug. 17 in Stanislaus National Forest, launching a 400-square-mile mosaic of destruction interspersed with unaltered refuges across the 1,400-square-mile forest. It scorched canyon walls in 25 watersheds nurturing sensitive trout and supplying drinking water to millions of Californians before spreading into Yosemite National Park.

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