Tuesday, January 22, 2013

Surprise! President and first lady greet unsuspecting White House tours


whitehouse.gov
White House tours happen every day, but visitors scheduled for a Tuesday visit got a particularly memorable treat. The president and first lady — along with the well-trained first dog, Bo — surprised unsuspecting tour groups with handshakes, hellos and the occasional fist bump — and displayed it all on a live stream for the rest of the (envious) world to see.

Visitors young and old were greeted by the first couple, who are apparently recovering very well from Monday's day-long inaugural festivities. Obama pointed out that one visitor was wearing "Hawkeye's colors" — yellow and black to support the University of Iowa — and the fan giggled back, "Yes, yes I am!"     Many following #WHSurprise on Twitter were impressed by Bo's manners. Tweeted Luke Russert:

Las Vegas police in shock after lieutenant kills wife, son, self


Steve Marcus/Las Vegas Sun
Law enforcement officials confer during a shooting investigation in Boulder City, Jan. 21, 2013.
Las Vegas police were searching for answers Tuesday after one of their own killed his wife and son, called 911 to confess, then set his house on fire and committed suicide as rifle-toting cops moved in.
"I can't think of a reason for this, where something can get so bad that you'd do this," one veteran supervisor told the Las Vegas Review-Journal after the Monday murder-suicide.

Police have not released the name of the shooter but said he was a 52-year-old lieutenant with more than 20 years on the force. His wife was a retired officer, the newspaper said. Their son was about seven years old.
They lived in Boulder City, a small community 20 miles from Sin City that boasts a low crime rate.  At 8:20 a.m. on Monday, the lieutenant called 911 and said he had killed his wife and child, was setting his house ablaze and would shoot anyone who approached, a police spokesman said.  When police arrived, they found the man in the doorway of the ranch-style home, holding a pistol.  "Put your gun down!" an officer shouted, according to a neighbor.  The man retreated into the burning home where he apparently killed himself, police said. The responding officers never fired a shot but circled the house with guns drawn while firefighters put out the flames that engulfed the roof.  Neighbors said the family kept to themselves. There were no details on the lieutenant's work record. A colleague told the Review-Journal he had seen the man Saturday night and he seemed "totally fine."  "You just wonder how and why this could happen," the officer said.

Shots fired at Texas college campus; 3 wounded


 Lone Star College shooting: Students evacuate on foot with a Sheriff's Deputy alongside at the Lone Star College North Harris campus in Houston, Texas, Tuesday. IMAGE

Reuters: Richard Carson. Lone Star College shooting: Students evacuate on foot with a Sheriff's Deputy alongside at the Lone Star College North Harris campus in Houston, Texas, Tuesday. IMAGE

Police responded to reports of multiple people shot on the Lone Star College-North Harris campus near Houston.
Two people exchanged gunfire Tuesday at a Texas college near Houston, and at least three people were wounded, authorities said.
Investigators said the shooting happened around 12:30 p.m. on the campus of Lone Star College-North Harris, north of Houston.
College shooting: Map locating the North Harris campus of Lone Star College. IMAGEMSN News. College shooting: Map locating the North Harris campus of Lone Star College. IMAGE
"At first glance, (the shooting) appears to be between two individuals," Jed Young, a spokesman for the Lone Star College System, told CNN. "There were two students we believe were shot in the crossfire."
Maj. Armando Tello of the Harris County Sheriff’s Office said a total of three people were confirmed injured and one "person of interest" was detained.
The other shooter fled campus, and officers were scouring the area for him, Young said.
"Police believe the danger has been mitigated. The school is under control," though evacuations continued, Young told CNN.
Young didn't know if the shooters were students.
KPRC-TV reported that a fourth person suffered a possible heart attack during the chaos.
Dozens of law enforcement officers were searching a wooded area north of the campus for the second suspect, KHOU reported.
"It's a pretty chaotic scene at this point in time," Vicki Cassidy, manager of media relations for Lone Star College System, told The Houston Chronicle.
The school posted a notice on its website about the shooting.
Cody Harris, 20, said he was in a classroom with about six or seven other students waiting for a psychology class to start when he heard eight shots. He and other students looked at each other, said "I guess we should get out of here," and fled.
"I was just worried about getting out," Harris told The Associated Press. "I called my grandmother and asked her to pick me up."
There were conflicting reports on where the shooting started on campus.
Student Amanda Vazquez told CNN she believed the gunfire started in the campus library and then continued in the Academic Building. She said she heard about a half-dozen shots ring out on the first floor of the Academic Building.
"I told my mom that someone was shooting in the building and that I didn’t know what was going to happen" a shaken Vazquez told CNN.

Lone Star College shooting: In this frame grab provided by KPRC Houston, an unidentified person is transported by emergency personnel at Lone Star College Tuesday in Houston. IMAGEKPRC TV. Lone Star College shooting: In this frame grab provided by KPRC Houston, an unidentified person is transported by emergency personnel at Lone Star College Tuesday in Houston. IMAGE
Lone Star student Daniel Flores, 19, said he was in a tutoring lab on the second floor doing homework when he heard what he heard six to seven shots.
"I didn't think they were shots," he told The AP. "It sounded like someone was kicking a door."
About 60 people were in the lab, and they began running out of the room once they realized the sound was gunfire, he said. They fled to a nearby student services center, where authorities kept them there for about 30 minutes before letting them go.
The Lone Star College System has an enrollment of 90,000 students and six college campuses, according to its website.
Along with the college, four nearby schools in the Aldine Independent School District went into lockdown, a district spokesman said.
The Associated Press contributed to this story.

Sunday, January 20, 2013

Obama first two-term president to take oath of office four times


President Obama takes the oath of office administered by Chief Justice John Roberts at the White House, Jan. 20, …

President Barack Obama was officially sworn in for a second term on Sunday, taking the oath of office in a short ceremony in the Blue Room of the White House. Chief Justice John Roberts administered the Constitutionally-required oath. According to the White House, First Lady Michelle Obama, first daughters Sasha and Malia were in attendance.
"I did it," the president said to his daughters after taking the oath.
For Obama, it's actually the third time he's done it. In an infamous scene at President Obama's historic Jan. 20, 2009, inauguration, Roberts flubbed the oath, so Obama was forced to take a "do-over" oath with the chief justice the next day.
The oath of office is historically taken on Jan. 20, officially the first day of a presidential term. But since the 20th fell on a Sunday, the public ceremony was scheduled for the 21st.
So when President Obama publicly takes the oath from Roberts at Monday's inauguration in front of an estimated 800,000 people on the National Mall, it will be--technically speaking--his fourth.
As ABC News noted, President Franklin Roosevelt was also sworn in four times but, unlike Obama, he was elected four times.
This time around, Roberts and Obama are leaving nothing to chance. After the president won re-election on Nov. 6, "the two men exchanged a copy of an oath card, containing the precise wording, punctuation, and emphasis of the 35-word recitation," an inauguration official told Reuters.
Vice President Joe Biden was sworn for his second term early Sunday at his residence on the grounds of the Naval Observatory by justice Sonia Sotomayor, the first Hispanic to administer a presidential oath. According to the New York Times, Biden "used the same 19th-century family Bible he has used in every swearing-in ceremony since he entered the Senate in 1973."

Friday, January 18, 2013

4 bald eagles found shot at Washington state lake


Thu Jan 17 18:24:37 PST 2013

Shooting of 4 bald eagles in Snohomish County sparks outrage

The outrage and rewards keep growing over the shooting of four bald eagles in Snohomish County. $13,000 is already being offered. KING 5 environmental specialist Gary Chittim shows how the crime has struck a nerve. view full article
Officials and a Native American tribe in Washington state are offering $13,750 for information leading to the conviction of whoever killed four bald eagles near a lake last week, according to local media.

Authorities tell The Seattle Times they suspect the bald eagles were shot from the trees and dropped into a Snohomish County lake, where their bodies were found floating. The incident occurred east of Granite Falls, the Herald newspaper of Everett reported.
"I've never seen anything like this in 11 years...it's egregious," Sgt. Jennifer Maurstad of the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife, told NBC station KING of Seattle.

Marustad told The Seattle Times it appears the birds were shot with a small-caliber rifle.  Investigators say the black market for eagle parts can be lucrative, potentially fetching hundreds of dollars, the newspaper reported. Parts could be used in things like high-end artwork or cultural ceremonies, according to The Seattle Times.  "I don't think he (the killer) had any intention of profiting from them," Maurstad told The Seattle Times. "I think it was just a spur-of-the-moment opportunity."  Without a permit, killing a bald eagle -- America's national bird -- is a serious offense.  In the United States, the bald eagle and the golden eagle are protected under multiple federal laws, according to the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service.  

Per the Bald and Golden Eagle Protection Act, felony convictions can lead to a maximum fine of $250,000 or two years in prison. Civil penalties are also subject to thousands in fines and imprisonment. Bald eagles are also protected under the Migratory Bird Treaty Act and the Lacey Act. The bald eagle was removed from the Endangered Species federal list in 2007.  The act is also a misdemeanor under Washington state law, according to The Seattle Times.  The Stillaguamish Tribe, a Native American group based in Arlington, Wash., has pledged $10,000 toward the reward fund.
"The Tribe is shocked and offended at the wanton wastage of wildlife and supports the efforts of state authorities to investigate and prosecute this case," the tribe said in a statement Friday.

Thursday, January 10, 2013

Two reported shot at California high school


By Vignesh Ramachandran

Updated at 2:25 p.m. ET: At least two people were shot at Taft Union High School in California's southern San Joaquin Valley on Thursday morning, NBCLosAngeles.com reported, citing a local fire department.

The incident happened around 9 a.m. local time and students were evacuated to the football field, NBC affiliate KGET of Bakersfield reported. The local sheriff's department told KGET a student came onto campus armed with a shotgun and shot another student, who is believed to have non-life-threatening injuries and was airlifted to the hospital.

The sheriff also told KGET a teacher, who was possibly grazed by a shotgun pellet, was taken from the scene, however the extent of injuries to the teacher is unknown.  The student suspect is in custody.  KGET reported that at least three ambulances and a medevac helicopter had been sent to the scene.  Taft police told NBC News that they are responding to the situation and the school is on lockdown. Deputies are conducting a room-to-room search, according to KGET.

The Kern County Sheriff's Department tells NBCLosAngeles.com the shooting happened on the second floor of a science building on campus.  Taft is in California's southern San Joaquin Valley, about 30 miles southwest from Bakersfield.  Thursday's shooting comes just a month after the Dec. 14 shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn., which claimed the lives of 20 children and six adults and renewed a nationwide debate about gun control.  

This breaking story is developing. Check back for updates.

Wednesday, January 9, 2013

Abandoned baby's mom found dead; police chief starts drive for reward money


David Carson / St. Louis Post-Dispatch via AP
Police officers inspect a car belonging to missing woman Ebony Jackson that was found in St. Louis on Tuesday, Jan. 8, 2013.
A 30-year-old woman suspected of abandoning her infant son last week in an apartment building in St. Louis was found dead in the trunk of her car, prompting the police chief in a nearby town to stand on a street corner soliciting reward money for the hunt for her killer.

Ebony Jackson's 2004 Mitsubishi Galant was found around 10 a.m. Tuesday in Breckenridge Hills, about 16 miles away from St. Louis. Her car, found on the 4400 block of Elmbank Avenue, was located via GPS, and the vehicle was towed to a secure location so police could begin a thorough search.
Jackson's 3-month-old baby was discovered in the hallway of the Hickory Trace Apartment building on Friday, Jan. 4, nearly 12 miles away from where her car was found. The child was in a car seat and was in good health, police said.

Meanwhile, the police chief of Pine Lawn, about nine miles from St. Louis, began collecting money to put toward a reward for information leading to the arrest and conviction of Jackson’s killer.  Police Chief Rickey Collins said neither he nor his department have any connection with Jackson, only that her death “rocked” the community. So he stood on a street corner beginning at 9 a.m. Wednesday, with the goal of collecting $5,000 by 3 p.m.  “It was an unbelievable murder that really touched a lot of hearts of the people here in St. Louis because it went from child abandonment to homicide,” Collins told NBC News. “I know Missouri is a very generous state and collecting rewards has always brought witnesses and evidence forward, so I hope to get information to bring the person forward and solve the case.” 

A man from Oklahoma claiming to be the father of the baby said Jackson left with their son and headed to Missouri. That man came to St. Louis earlier this week to take a paternity test, the results of which are still pending, NBC affiliate station KSDK in St. Louis reported.  With less than an hour left of standing outside, Collins, who is on vacation until Jan. 22, said he thought he would get close to reaching his goal.
“You would think that everyone knows this woman,” Collins said. “People have been very generous, they are participating, giving thumbs up as they pass by and are very supportive of what we’re doing and why we’re doing it.”
The St. Louis Metropolitan Police Department did not identify a cause of death for Jackson. An autopsy will be performed, police said.
On Thursday, the Pine Lawn Police Department plans on releasing the official amount raised for the reward.

57 injured, 1 critical in NYC commuter ferry accident



 A victim of the Seastreak Wall Street ferry accident is carried on a stretcher by rescue personnel. IMAGE
AP Photo: Mark Lennihan. A victim of the Seastreak Wall Street ferry accident is carried on a stretcher by rescue personnel. IMAGE

Officials say the boat had a "hard landing" near Manhattan's South Street Seaport.
NEW YORK — A commuter ferry crashed into a pier in lower Manhattan early Wednesday, injuring 57 people, one critically, the New York City Police Department said.
Passengers lying on stretchers littered the pier near South Street Seaport, attended to by firefighters and rescue workers who rushed to the scene of the 8:43 a.m. hard landing.
"People were thrown into the air and onto the ground," passenger Elizabeth Banta told CNN. "There were definitely many people on the ground who were not moving."
Some of the injured were taken to the hospital, while others were treated at the scene, she said.
A police department spokesperson said one of the 57 people injured appeared to be in critical condition.
"The boat was backing up and hit something and that's when everything went crazy," said one witness, a construction worker who declined to be named, who was working nearby when the 400-passenger ferry slammed into the pier.
The National Transportation Safety Board tweeted that its investigators were gathering information about the cause of the crash.
Television images showed damage to the side of one end of the ferry, called Seastreak Wall Street, which departed from Atlantic Highlands, New Jersey.
In October 2003, a Staten Island ferry crashed into a maintenance pier, killing 11 people and injuring dozens more, and the same vessel, the Andrew J. Barberi, was involved in a second accident in May 2010 that injured around 40 people.
The ferry pilot in the 2003 crash and his supervisor were sentenced to more than a year in prison each for their roles in the accident. The pilot, Richard Smith, had passed out at the helm.
The ferry that crashed on Wednesday is run by Seastreak, a privately owned company that also holds the Interlake Steamship Company, Mormac Marine Group, Inc., and Moran Towing Co., the largest tug and barge operator on the East and Gulf Coasts, according to the company's website.

Tuesday, January 8, 2013

California man arrested a day after girlfriend set on fire


  • By Lisa Fernandez and Monte Francis, NBCBayArea.com

    San Francisco Police Department
    Dexter Oliver, 22, is suspected of attempted murder of a San Francisco woman.
    A day after his girlfriend was set on fire in San Francisco, police and the U.S. Marshal's Service Task Force arrested a 22-year-old man in connection with the fiery attack.
    Without giving away too much detail, San Francisco police said they "received information" about Dexter Oliver's whereabouts, and arrested him at a hotel in Oakland. He surrendered without incident, police said. He was taken to San Francisco and was booked on charged of attempted murder and arson, police said.
    Police say that on Sunday, Oliver allegedly threw flammable liquid on his 25-year-old girlfriend - Starr Lamare - and set her on fire, sending her to the hospital with severe burns.

    "She said he had to get out and they were over," Lamare's sister, Precious Craig told NBC Bay Area on Sunday night. "And she left the laundromat and ten minutes later, she was burned."
    Family members said that Lamare and Oliver had been dating for six months and had a rocky relationship. Relatives also said that the couple was returning from the laundromat down the street, when Lamare told Oliver she wanted to break it up. Oliver allegedly returned home to get some gasoline, relatives and police said.
    Officers were called about noon to Hollister Avenue between Jennings Street and Ingalls Street near the Bayview district on reports of a woman screaming. When they arrived, they found that she had been severely burned.
    Craig told NBC Bay Area that when she visited her sister in the hospital, her face and chest were so burned that she barely recognized her.

    "They argue all the time," Craig said. "Couples argue all the time, but I didn’t know it was going to go this far."

Sunday, January 6, 2013

Hospital's mistake leaves single Brooklyn mom with 6 months to live


EXCLUSIVE: When Laverne Wilkinson first felt chest pains, the Kings County Hospital doctor told her to take Motrin. But the doctor failed to tell her that her chest X-ray, in fact, showed a suspicious, 2-centimeter nodule in Wilkinson’s right lung.

Laverne Wilkinson went to the hospital in 2010, believing she was having heart attack. Despite X-ray showing suspicous nodule in her lung, she was told to go home and take pain medication. Now, she has has lung cancer that has spread to  brain and spine. Photos by Debbie Egan-Chin/Daily News

Debbie Egan-Chin/New York Daily News

Laverne Wilkinson went to the hospital in 2010, believing she was having heart attack. Despite X-ray showing suspicous nodule in her lung, she was told to go home and take pain medication. Now, she has has lung cancer that has spread to brain and spine.

First-year resident Dr. James Willis assured Wilkinson that her tests were normal.
“You should take Motrin for pain, and follow up with your doctor,” Willis wrote on her chart.
He was dead wrong.
The chest X-ray, in fact, showed a suspicious, 2-centimeter nodule in Wilkinson’s right lung. The radiologist had recommended in his written report that Wilkinson have a followup X-ray in three months, and if “clinical concern warrants, a CT scan is suggested.”
LAVERNE16N_1_WEB

Debbie Egan-Chin/New York Daily News

Laverne Wilkinson

But Wilkinson was never given this information. Not that winter day in 2010. Not during two years of followup clinic appointments, during which she complained of a chronic cough. Not from her primary care clinic doctors at Kings County.
When Wilkinson returned to the ER in spring 2012 — wheezing and short of breath — a new chest X-ray was taken. It showed the nodule was cancerous, had more than doubled in size and spread to her left lung.
Now the diagnosis was Stage 4 lung cancer — and it had metastasized to her liver, spine and brain.
DOCTOR: TIME IS CRUCIAL WHEN TREATING LUNG CANCER
As Wilkinson’s lung cancer galloped unchecked for more than two years, Kings County doctors botched her care, offering her cough medicines, inhalers and steroids in the blind belief that her ailments were caused by her longstanding asthma.
“I was shocked. I was told I had six months to a year to live,” the former home health aide told the Daily News in an emotional interview in her public housing apartment in Brooklyn.
Breaking down in tears as she spoke about her only child, a severely retarded and autistic 15-year-old daughter, Wilkinson sobbed, “She is going to be left without a mother. What is going to happen to my little girl?”
As if a diagnosis of terminal metastatic cancer wasn’t horrible enough, there was one more bombshell to be dropped on Wilkinson — she probably could have been cured.
Dr. Gary Briefel, the attending physician on call when Wilkinson was in the hospital in May 2012, broke the stunning news to her about the findings on the February 2010 chest X-ray, and that she had a chance to live.
LAVERNE16N_9_WEB

Jeff Bachner/for New York Daily News

Laverne Wilkinson (seated center), at church with (left to right) Valerie Thompson, Angie Hansen, Linsey Morris, Kim Call and Mara Kofoed.

His shockingly candid chart note of May 18, 2012, written after a bedside visit, said it all:
“I spoke to the patient about the fact that she had a chest X-ray in Feb 2010 while she was in the ED that showed a nodule that probably represented an earlier stage of what we now know is Squamous Cell Cancer,” Briefel wrote. “I told her that apparently nobody saw the report, which suggested either repeating the X-ray or getting a CT scan. I told her that it was not clear whether earlier diagnosis would have led to a cure, since many lung cancers by the time they are seen on a CXR (chest X-ray) have already spread, but that it was possible that a surgical cure could have been achieved.”
Wilkinson recalled the doctor giving her a hug and apologizing.
Reached at home by The News, Briefel said he remembered Wilkinson vividly, but he was not at liberty to talk without the hospital’s permission.
“Everyone felt terrible about what has happened,” he said.
A spokeswoman for the city’s Health and Hospitals Corporation — which oversees Kings County Hospital — declined comment, citing possible litigation.
“It’s mortifying,” said Judith Donnel, Wilkinson’s attorney. “No one looked at the radiology report for more than two years. And over those same two years, her primary care doctors at Kings County clinics ordered all these drugs that were breathing-related but never ordered another chest X-ray or pulmonary-function test. Her life could have been saved.”
Donnel has filed a Notice of Claim, the first step in a potential lawsuit against the city. A hearing is scheduled for Jan. 25. The claim seeks monetary damages for severe injuries, pain and suffering inflicted upon Wilkinson “as a result of the carelessness, recklessness, negligence and medical malpractice” at Kings County Hospital.
LAVERNE16N_4_WEB

Emergency Room doctors tell Brooklyn mom her chest x-ray was normal and sent her home.

Indeed, lung cancer experts say patients such as Wilkinson — nonsmokers with a 2-centimeter “squamous, nonsmall cell cancer” — have a good chance of being cured with surgery.
“If you find a lung cancer early, before it has invaded lymph nodes, the cure rate is 75%,” said Dr. Roy Herbst, chief of medical oncology at the Yale School of Medicine. “Once it spreads, a cure doesn’t exist.”
Wilkinson, now 41, is growing weaker. She told The News her head and back often hurt, and she is not able to do as much as she did before the cancer spread. Just last week, she was hospitalized for five days for a blood clot that developed in her lung.
With very little family in the city, she is sustained by one aunt and members of her church, who have taken her and her daughter, Micalia, under their wing.
It was a church member, a tax professor at Brooklyn Law School, who suggested she speak with a medical malpractice lawyer when he learned of Wilkinson’s plight.
“I am just going to say there is no amount of money in the world,” Wilkinson said, her voice cracking with emotion. “If someone was to give me a choice between having money or having my life back and my health back, I would choose my health and having my life back for the sake of this beautiful, little girl.
“Doctors need to be more careful and realize they have the lives of their patients in their hands,” she added. “They are human and do make mistakes. If it were a mistake where I was going to lose a lung and still live, then I could deal with that.”
But Wilkinson wasn’t given that chance.
LAVERNE16N_6_WEB

“We trust our doctors,” she said. “I think that’s where a lot of us go wrong, because we put this trust in them that if there is something going on with me, I will get the information and I will be sent for followup care.”
Now, as she measures her days, Wilkinson thinks only of the girl she has devoted her entire life to. Micalia doesn’t speak, and is a physical handful as she gets older and stronger. She is dependent on her mother for every aspect of her life. Wilkinson said she has appointed a guardian for Micalia, but church friends say she worries her daughter may end up in an institution without her round-the-clock devotion and singular love.
Wilkinson’s great source of comfort has been the congregation at The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints in Park Slope. One member, Mara Kofoed, has known her for 10 years. Along with other congregants, she has accompanied Wilkinson to her chemotherapy treatments in hopes of slowing the disease, and has brought the family dinner as Wilkinson struggles with her health.
“Laverne is just one of the most loving people I ever met,” said Kofoed, 35, as the two shared a warm moment at a recent Christmas church service. “She is incredibly patient, just loves her daughter to no end. That woman is full of wisdom, and strength and peace.
“What has happened to her is heart-wrenching. It’s heartbreaking to think of her having to let go of Micalia.”
Wilkinson said she decided to go public with her tragedy to “help prevent this from ever happening to anyone else.” Looking sullen and resigned, she added, “This may be my last Christmas with my daughter.”
Reviewing Wilkinson’s medical records, it is unclear how many doctors failed her and how such a lethal lapse could have happened. What is clear is that the ER’s first-year resident Willis — and the attending Dr. Antonia Quinn — told Wilkinson she was fine and discharged her around noon on Feb. 2, 2010. Radiologist resident Dr. Driss Raissi and attending Dr. Russell Areman’s final report documenting the nodule in her right lung was written at 2 p.m. — two hours after Wilkinson went home.
In his May 18, 2012, chart note, written after his bedside visit with Wilkinson, Dr. Briefel promised a shattered Wilkinson that a thorough review of her case would be undertaken “with the goal of finding ways to improve how we provide care and that the hospital would let her know the results of the investigation.”
It has been nearly eight months. Wilkinson has never heard a word from administrators or doctors at Kings County Hospital.
hevans@nydailynews.com
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Saturday, January 5, 2013

Large earthquake strikes off Alaska coast, prompting tsunami warnings


By Marian Smith, NBC News

A 7.5-magnitude earthquake struck off the coast of Alaska near midnight on Friday, the U.S. Geological Survey said, prompting tsunami warnings and advisories down the coast of Alaska and Canada's British Columbia.
All tsunami warnings, watches and advisories were later canceled, the West Coast and Alaska Tsunami Warning Center (of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration) said.
The Alaska Tsunami Warning Center said the waves were too small to pose a threat, reaching just six inches above normal sea level in places such as Sitka and Port Alexander.  "Initially, in the first 15 to 20 minutes, there might have been a bit of panic," Sitka Police Chief Sheldon Schmitt told The Associated Press. But he said things calmed down as the town waited for the all clear and the tsunami warning was canceled by 2 a.m., according to the Daily Sitka Sentinel.  Residents of Sitka gathered at the high school early Saturday, bundled up with pillows in tow, waiting for more information.  The quake struck in the Pacific Ocean about 60 miles southwest of Port Alexander, Alaska, at a depth of about 6 miles at 11:58 p.m. local time (3:58 a.m. ET), the USGS said.  Initially, the USGS reported that the temblor had a magnitude of 7.7, but it later downgraded the quake's strength to 7.5.

Read real-time updates from BreakingNews.com  A 6-inch rise in sea level was reported in Port Alexander, but there were no early reports of damage.  A tsunami warning was issued for the coastal areas of British Columbia from the north tip of Vancouver Island to Cape Suckling, but it was later canceled.
"A tsunami was generated by this event but does not pose a threat to these areas," NOAA said in a statement. "Some areas may see small sea level changes. The decision to re-occupy hazard zones must be made by local authorities."  

The NOAA also issued tsunami advisories from the Washington state-British Columbia border to the north tip of Vancouver Island. They were later canceled.  According to the NOAA, a tsunami warning means "that a tsunami with significant widespread inundation is expected or is already occurring."  There was no danger of a tsunami hitting Hawaii, according to the NOAA's Pacific Tsunami Warning Center.
The Associated Press contributed reporting.

4 dead after police standoff at a Colo. townhome


Associated Press – 

Police Sgt. Cassidee Carlson said a SWAT team was called after gunshots were heard at the Aurora, Colo., home at about 3 a.m. Investigators said three victims, all of them adults, appeared to have been killed before officers arrived.
Carlson said the suspect shot at officers at about 8:15 a.m. and was killed during a gunfight about 45 minutes later when police entered the home. It remained unclear if officers shot the suspect or if he shot himself.
A motive for the killings also was unknown.
"We're just getting in there with our crime scene detectives, so obviously we'll have to determine if it was our rounds or his rounds," Carlson said. "This is a big investigation, and a lot is entailed."
A fifth person escaped uninjured before officers arrived and reported that she saw three people inside the home who "appeared lifeless," Carlson said. The sergeant declined to elaborate about the woman's escape.
Police declined to release the name of the suspect or the victims.
Violence marred Aurora and put the Denver suburb in the national spotlight nearly six months ago when a gunman's bloody rampage inside a movie theater left 12 people dead. Prosecutors will go to court Monday to outline their case against the suspect, James Holmes.

'Drivin drunk' Facebook status sends 'hit and run' teen to jail


Astoria Police Department, Oregon
Jacob Cox-Brown's mugshot.
Astoria, Oregon Police Department
The Facebook posting that led to the arrest.
An 18-year-old in Oregon joked on Facebook about driving drunk and getting in a hit-and-run accident, then was arrested after "friends" saw the posting and reported it to police. No one was injured, thankfully, but two cars were damaged.
"We have used Facebook previously as an investigative tool, but this is the first time I believe we have arrested someone who posted they had committed the crime," Brad Johnston, deputy chief of police in Astoria, Ore., told NBC News on Friday.
Here's what Jacob Cox-Brown of Astoria wrote on his Facebook page on New Year's Day, not realizing he'd hit two vehicles, not just one:
Drivin drunk... classsic ;) but to whoever's vehicle i hit i am sorry. :P
Two of Cox-Brown's 656-plus friends on the social network took notice and separately contacted Astoria police to report what they'd seen.

Astoria police "have an active Social Media presence. It was a private Facebook message to one of our officers that got this case moving," said Johnston in an incident report file shared on the department's website — which included a screenshot of Cox-Brown's Facebook posting.

"When you post [that] on Facebook you have to figure that it is not going to stay private long," Johnston said in the release.

The department's "active Social Media presence" includes its own Facebook page, on which Cox-Brown's booking mug shot was featured as part of another media story on the arrest, shared by the police:
Facebook

The Astoria Police Department's Facebook page.
On Jan. 1, the police responded to a call about a hit-and-run that left a white Toyota Scion sideswiped with "significant damage." Another car parked in front of the Scion also had damage, police said. They later went to Cox-Brown's house and found a car that "matched the damage done to the two vehicles at the early morning crash."
Cox-Brown was arrested and taken to the county jail. He has been charged with two counts of "failing to perform the duties of a driver" by not stopping and letting the cars' owners know about the accident and how to contact him.

Johnston said the charge is a "class A misdemeanor" that is "punishable by not more than one year in jail and a fine of $6,250."

The youth now joins others on the social network who have made similar incriminating posts on Facebook, including members of a New York street gang who last year boasted of their burglary feats, a South Carolina woman who shared her joy at trashing her ex-boyfriend's house and an 18-year-old from Pittsburgh who burglarized a market and posted with photos of his cohorts and the loot they got.

American Eagle pilot arrested at Minn. airport


Police at Minneapolos-St. Paul International Airport on Friday arrested an American Eagle pilot after he failed a blood-alcohol breath test. The 48-year-old pilot was preparing to fly from the Minnesota airport to New York City, authorities said.

Kolbjorn
Minneapolis/St. Paul Int̢۪l Air
Kolbjorn Jarle Kristiansen, a pilot for American Eagle, was arrested early Friday after failing a blood-alcohol level test.
Kolbjorn Jarle Kristiansen of Raleigh, N.C., was arrested after "officers and (a) TSA agent at Checkpoint 1 detected the odor of a consumed alcoholic beverage" as they passed the pilot waiting for an elevator, according to a public arrest document released by airport police.

Charges are pending, the document showed, and Kristiansen was "released to airline personnel on own recognizance."
The pilot was conducting preflight checks about 6:30 a.m. when airport police officers acting on a tip boarded the aircraft, Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport spokesman Patrick Hogan said. Officers made him take a Breathalyzer test and arrested him on suspicion of being under the influence of alcohol.
"There was a witness who smelled what they thought was alcohol on the pilot's breath and notified police," Hogan said. Passengers had not yet boarded the flight to La Guardia, New York City, he said.
The pilot has been suspended pending an investigation, according to Matt Miller, a spokesman for American Airlines, American Eagle's sister company. The airline is cooperating with authorities and will conduct an internal investigation, Miller said.
The flight was delayed about 2 ½ hours while a replacement pilot was arranged, he said.
After the pilot was taken to Fairview Southdale Hospital to have a blood sample taken for testing, he was returned to the custody of airport police, Hogan said.
The alcohol limit for flying is lower than for driving, Hogan said.
"In Minnesota, the legal limit for pilots is .04, much stricter than someone traveling on a road in the state," he said.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Friday, January 4, 2013

Unruly passenger taped to seat on Icelandair flight


Image:

Courtesy of andyellwood.tumblr.com
An Icelandic man who reportedly drank too much and became unruly on a New York-bound flight was taped to his seat, witnesses and authorities say.

The passenger who became unruly after allegedly drinking too much alcohol had to be taped to his seat on a trans-Atlantic flight, witnesses and authorities said.
A startling photo of the subdued man ended up on a blog run by New York businessman Andy Ellwood, who said he received the picture from an acquaintance who witnessed the incident.
“My friend was on the flight and he sent me the photo because we like to trade travel war stories,” Ellwood told NBC News.

His friend did not want to be identified or talk with the media, Ellwood said, but he recounted the story to him in detail.

The passenger “drank all of his duty free liquor on the flight from Iceland to JFK yesterday,” Ellwood wrote in his blog post.

“When he became unruly, (i.e. trying to choke the woman next to him and screaming the plane was going to crash), fellow passengers subdued him and tie(d) him up for the rest of the flight. He was escorted off the flight by police when it landed.”

The Port Authority of New York & New Jersey confirmed the incident.
“A 46-year-old man was taken into custody last night at JFK off an Icelandic flight and then brought to the hospital because Port Authority police determined he was intoxicated,” said Ron Marsico, a spokesman for the port authority.

“He was not charged ... he’s free to go.”
The man had an Icelandic passport, Marsico said.
Prosecutors declined to charge him because passengers were reluctant to talk about his outburst to authorities, The New York Post reported.

Icelandair did not immediately respond to a request for comment, but a spokesman for the airline confirmed the incident to Icelandic media, adding that plastic ties and tape are standard on board flights to help in such situations.