Apartment City

Kansas City firefighters now take two simple safety steps that might have saved the lives of two colleagues in a 2015 building collapse . The steps were among the recommendations in a federal report released Thursday . Emergency tones are sounded, as they were two years ago, when firefighters are ordered out of a collapse zone. But now heads are counted to make sure everyone got the message — which was not done before. Fire Chief Paul Berardi acknowledged those steps might have saved the lives of John Mesh and Larry Leggio, who perished at a fire scene on Independence Boulevard. The federal report cites a series of operational failures that contributed to the firefighters’ deaths. The report said the two men should not have been in an alley next to the three-story building after all personnel were directed to pull back because of fears the walls would collapse. Six minutes after that order was given, they died in an avalanche of bricks. Poor communication and the failure to establi...

RIO DE JANEIRO ― Seven years ago, Vila Autódromo was little more than a tranquil fishing village on the edge of Jacarepagua Lagoon, next to the racetrack for which it was named. Like the hundreds of other favelas that dot Rio de Janeiro ’s landscape, it had long been neglected by the city government , and it lacked many basic public services that are standard in the fast- growing wealthier neighborhoods just across the water. But to the more than 600 families that lived there, it was home. “This was a paradise,” said Luiz Cláudio Silva, who lived in Autódromo for more than 20 years. “I thought that I would live here for the rest of my life.” By the time the Rio Olympics are over, just 20 of the families who lived in Autódromo in 2009, the year the International Olympic Committee chose the city to host the games, will remain. The community, which sits less than a mile away from Rio’s Olympic Park, was crushed so that the city could build new access roads to connect Olympic venues . ...