News briefs

Hillary Clinton warns of possible Trump 2024 run

He’s running again — and democracy is on the line, according to Hillary Clinton.

The former secretary of state says she thinks former President Donald Trump is planning for a presidential bid in 2024 and warned that a second term would make his tumultuous first four years in the White House seem like child’s play.

“If I were a betting person, I’d say Trump is going to run again,” Clinton told MSNBC in a new interview that aired Thursday. “If he’s not held accountable and he gets to do it again, I think that could be the end of our democracy.”

The former first lady and Democratic presidential nominee warned that allowing Trump to regain the reins of power would be an unprecedented disaster for the U.S.

“This is a make or break point,” Clinton said. “If he or someone of his ilk were to be once again elected president ... you will not recognize our country.”

Clinton offered candid opinions about Trump and her stunning loss to him in the 2016 election during a one-on-one chat with Willie Geist that was taped at her home in suburban Chappaqua.

She said “of course” she feels guilty about botching the chance to keep Trump out of the White House.

“I feel terrible about not stopping him and the people around him,” she said.

Clinton blamed her Electoral College defeat on the “stunt pulled by Jim Comey,” a reference to the former FBI director’s October surprise letter about the investigation into her emails that may have led to a last-minute dip in her support.

—New York Daily News

Coast Guard, bystander rescue 3 from plane crash off Florida

A good Samaritan helped rescue crews save three people from a plane crash in the waters off the Florida Keys this week, the Coast Guard said.

The plane, a Cessna 210, plunged into the water Wednesday afternoon about 10 miles north of Florida Keys Marathon International Airport in the Middle Keys. It’s not clear what caused the plane to ditch in the water.

A Coast Guard crew on a 33-foot Special Purpose Craft set out to rescue the pilot and passengers. They found that a good Samaritan had already saved them from the downed plane.

The Coast Guard took the three survivors to land to get medical treatment for minor injuries. A commercial salvage company was hired to get the submerged plane out of the water.

“Thank you to the good Samaritan for arriving on scene and recovering the three survivors,” said Petty Officer 3rd Class Paul Altieri, a duty watchstander at Coast Guard Sector Key West. “Their quick response undoubtedly played a tremendous role in this rescue.”

—Miami Herald

Insanity defense for California man accused of threats

SACRAMENTO, Calif. — The Sacramento man charged with making threats against former Presidents Bill Clinton and Barack Obama will rely on an insanity defense at trial, his federal defenders disclosed Thursday in a court filing in Iowa federal court.

Kuachua Brillion Xiong, 25, who court papers say is a former grocery clerk in Merced and a Sacramento resident, was scheduled to make a second court appearance in court Thursday, but that video appearance was rescheduled for Jan. 5.

Xiong’s federal defender, Michael F. Maloney, filed notice to the court Thursday of Xiong’s “intent to reply upon an insanity defense at the time of any trial in this matter.”

Xiong is accused in court papers of a bizarre plan to drive to Washington, D.C., from California — armed with an AR-15 rifle, body armor and boxes of ammunition — to kill Clinton and Obama, as well as Dr. Anthony Fauci and Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg.

Court papers say Xiong also told investigators he planned to scale the White House fence with a grappling hook and would “kill President Joseph Biden unless he promised to comply to Xiong’s demands.”

—The Sacramento Bee

Will storms end California’s drought? Snowpack is checked

LOS ANGELES — After two of California’s driest years on record, a spectacularly stormy December blanketed the Sierra Nevada with heavy snow, giving a major boost to the state’s water supplies.

The state’s mountain snowpack now stands at about 160% of average for this time of year, state officials said Thursday as they conducted the first snow survey of the season.

“We are off to a great start,” said Sean de Guzman, manager of snow surveys for the Department of Water Resources. “We need more of these storms to keep coming through.”

De Guzman and other officials measured the water content of the snowpack at Phillips Station snow course, as they do five times during the winter and spring each year. The measurements of snowpack at a network of about 260 other sites across the Sierra Nevada are used to forecast how much snowmelt runoff will fill the state’s reservoirs in the coming months.

The storms that rolled in this month brought record snowfall in parts of the Sierra Nevada. More than 17 feet of snow — 212 inches in all — fell at Donner Pass in December, according to the University of California, Berkeley Central Sierra Now Lab.

California gets much of its rain and mountain snow between November and March.

—Los Angeles Times