Midday Roundup: Misery upon misery in aftermath of Nepal quake

Buried alive. Heavy rain and snow complicated rescue efforts in Nepal today, triggering landslides and bringing fresh misery to the region still struggling to comprehend the magnitude of Saturday’s massive earthquake. In one remote village, 250 people are missing after an unstable hillside sloughed mud and rock onto homes. Rescue workers are still struggling to reach many remote villages on Mt. Everest after they were buried behind walls of snow and earth in massive avalanches triggered by Saturday’s devastating earthquake. Helicopter evacuations began Monday to rescue climbers trapped at altitudes of 20,000 feet on the world’s tallest mountain. Filmmaker Michael Churton survived the avalanche but is still missing a person from his team. “It was like 4,000 feet of snow coming and there’s nowhere to run,” he said. “So I told everybody to get down, and I put my hands over my head and buried myself as best I could.” The 7.8 magnitude quake has now claimed at least 4,400 lives in Nepal and three neighboring countries. At least four Americans are among the dead. The United Nations says 1.4 million people need food assistance.

Killing others. A Colorado jury began hearing evidence Monday in the trial of James Holmes, who killed 12 people and injured 70 others when he opened fire in a packed movie theater in Aurora on July 20, 2012. Holmes has pleaded not guilty by reason of insanity. He faces the death penalty. During the trial’s first day, both prosecutors and defense attorneys quoted from a journal Holmes sent to a psychiatrist shortly before launching his attack. The journal, like much of the other evidence expected to come out during the trial, has been kept under wraps until now. Unlike some other high profile murder cases, Holmes’ trial is expected to contain evidentiary surprises as his defense team works to convince jurors he is not responsible for his actions that day. While the journal contained long, rambling philosophical passages, it also included chilling musings about his desire to kill. “I decided to dedicate my life to killing others,” Holmes wrote in one entry.

New sentence. A South Korean appeals court judge increased the prison term for the captain of the Sewol ferry, which sank in April 2014 killing almost 300 people. Most of the passengers were high-school students on a school trip. Lee Joon-seok was convicted in November of gross negligence and sentenced to 36 years in prison. Prosecutors protested, saying the 70-year-old captain deserved the death penalty. But the appellate judge stopped short of ordering an execution, sentencing Lee to life in prison instead. Lee abandoned ship while most of his passengers remained onboard. During today’s hearing, the judge also lightened the sentences of several Sewol crew members, saying they were acting on orders at the time of the disaster and should not be punished so severely.

Free to pay? The Obama administration may be reconsidering a long-held policy forbidding families of terror hostages to pay ransom. Unnamed senior White House officials last week began leaking news that families of terror hostages would no longer face criminal prosecution if they paid ransoms. The recommendation for the change was to come from an advisory panel looking into the way federal agencies communicate with hostage families. But when reporters raised the question Monday, White House spokesman Josh Earnest dodged the issue. “Prosecutorial decisions are decisions that are made by prosecutors at the Department of Justice, not by the White House,” he said. The rumors of a policy change came in the wake of reports that the family of hostage Warren Weinstein paid a ransom to al-Qaeda last year. The White House admitted last week Weinstein was killed accidentally in a U.S. drone strike in January.

Refining fire. Persecution of Christians and other religious minorities in China is at a 10-year high, according to a report by human-rights group ChinaAid. China’s Communist Party has even started targeting government-sanctioned churches, said ChinaAid President Bob Fu. But the persecution hasn’t slowed the church’s growth. ChinaAid estimates the country is now home to between 70 and 90 million Christians. “It’s a revival,” Fu said. “The growth of the church has been phenomenal.”

WORLD Radio’s Mary Reichard and Carl Peetz contributed to this report.