LOS ALAMOS, N.M.

Mass evacuation ordered ahead of raging wildfire

Authorities ordered Los Alamos evacuated Monday as a fast-growing and unpredictable wildfire bore down on the northern New Mexico town and its sprawling nuclear laboratory.

The blaze that began Sunday already had destroyed a number of homes south of the town, which is home to some 12,000 residents. It also forced closure of the nation’s pre-eminent nuclear lab while stirring memories of a devastating blaze more than a decade ago that destroyed hundreds of homes and buildings in the area.

Los Alamos County Fire Chief Doug Tucker said the blaze Sunday night was the most active fire he had seen in his career, forcing residents near Cochiti Mesa and Las Conchas to flee with “nothing but the shirts on their back.”

He said the 44,000-acre blaze had destroyed at least 30 structures but it wasn’t clear how many were homes. The fire has the potential to double or triple in size, Tucker said, and firefighters had no idea which direction the 60 mph-plus winds would take it.

SAN FRANCISCO

Former stockroom worker files suit against retailer

A former stockroom worker for Abercrombie & Fitch Co. sued the clothing retailer in federal court Monday, saying she was illegally fired after refusing to remove her Muslim headscarf while on the job.

Hani Khan said a manager at the company’s Hollister Co. store at the Hillsdale Mall in San Mateo hired her while she was wearing her hijab. The manager said it was OK to wear it as long as it was in company colors, Khan said.

Four months later, the 20-year-old says a district manager and human resources manager asked if she could remove the hijab while working, and she was suspended and then fired for refusing to do so.

DESTIN, Fla.

Woman forced to remove diaper for security check

A gravely ill 95-year-old woman had to remove her wet diaper at an airport so that she could be patted down by security screeners and nearly missed her flight, her daughter said Monday.

During the pat-down, Transportation Security Administration inspectors found a mass on Lena Reppert’s upper thigh, her daughter Jean Weber said. The mass was a hard spot on the diaper that had become heavy and concentrated in that place because it was wet. Reppert, who is in a wheelchair, had to be patted down because she couldn’t go through a scanning machine, and the TSA agents said they could not search the diaper while she was still wearing it, Weber said.

Reppert couldn’t board a June 18 flight from Northwest Florida Regional Airport in Fort Walton Beach to Detroit until she was cleared by security, Weber said. Reppert, who has leukemia and had been living in the Florida Panhandle, was returning to her native Hastings, Mich., where she wants to be buried.

Weber, a waitress, said she was told the diaper would have to be removed so the agents could finish their pat-down.