Author: Sunfire

Mail.com

BEIJING (AP) — Beijing police tightened security around a bar and shopping area popular with foreigners on Thursday as embassies issued warnings for their citizens to be on guard against possible threats against Westerners.

The American, British, French and other embassies said they had received information of possible threats against Westerners in the Sanlitun area on or around Christmas Day, and urged their citizens to be vigilant.   Continue reading “Beijing tightens security as embassies warn of threats”

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RENO, Nev. (AP) — Fifteen years after U.S. regulators started assessing damage and health risks at an abandoned Nevada copper mine, the Environmental Protection Agency is moving to add the contaminated site to its Superfund National Priority List, according to documents obtained by The Associated Press.

Rural neighbors of the World War II-era mine that has leaked toxic chemicals for decades won a $19.5 million settlement in 2013 from companies they accused of covering up the contamination — some of it radioactive — near Yerington about 65 miles southeast of Reno.   Continue reading “EPA wants toxic Nevada mine on Superfund list”

RT

A British Muslim family of 11 on their way to Southern California was denied access to their plane by US Department of Homeland Security officials without explanation. Now a UK politician is calling on her government to investigate.

The perception is that a “widespread condemnation of Donald Trump’s call for no Muslim to be allowed into America contrasts with what is going on in practice,” Labour MP Stella Creasy wrote in the Guardian Tuesday, reacting to multiple cases of UK Muslims being inexplicably prohibited from traveling to the US.   Continue reading “US blocks British Muslim family from flight to see American relatives, Disneyland”

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DENVER (AP) — A Denver man who spent more than a quarter-century in prison for an attack he denies committing walked free Tuesday, locking arms with his wife as his tearful children applauded and his grandkids embraced a man they had never met.

Clarence Moses-EL, 60, had just posted a $50,000 bond that a judge required for his freedom after she overturned his 1988 conviction on rape and assault charges and found that he would likely be acquitted if his case went to trial again. Moses-EL was convicted after the victim identified him, saying his face came to her in a dream.   Continue reading “Man held decades in Colorado for rape he denies walks free”

Mail.com

MINNEAPOLIS (AP) — Prosecutors say a Minneapolis man admitted that he killed his 89-year-old mother because he was upset that a bedbug outbreak would get her kicked out of her home.

Michael Gallagher is charged with second-degree murder in the death of Patricia Ann Gallagher. The 62-year-old’s bail was set at $2 million Tuesday. The St. Paul Pioneer Press (http://bit.ly/1IlqLsj ) reports that Gallagher told investigators that he went to his mother’s downtown Minneapolis apartment on Thursday to help her clean and that he called 911 the next morning and said he had killed her.   Continue reading “Prosecutor: Son, upset about bedbugs, killed elderly mother”

Mail.com

OLYMPIA, Wash. (AP) — More than 3,000 prisoners in Washington have been mistakenly released early since 2002 because of an error by the state’s Department of Corrections that resulted in wrongly calculated sentences for about 3 percent of the prison population.

At a news conference announcing the error Tuesday, Gov. Jay Inslee said he has ordered immediate steps to correct the longstanding computer glitch. “Frankly, it is maddening,” Inslee said. Authorities say a July 2002 state Supreme Court ruling required the Corrections Department to apply good-behavior credits earned in county jail to state prison sentences. However, the programming fix ended up giving prisoners with sentencing enhancements too much so-called good time credit.   Continue reading “More than 3,000 Washington prisoners mistakenly freed early”

Mail.com

LOS ANGELES (AP) — It’s not just a junkyard — or even a really big junkyard — but a living, breathing monument to Los Angeles pop culture. And now it’s headed for the dustbin of history itself.

For 54 years, Aadlen Brothers Auto Wrecking, in a moonscaped, god-forsaken-looking section of the San Fernando Valley, has collected far more than thousands of burned-out, smashed-up, rusted automobiles on its sprawling dirt and asphalt lot.   Continue reading “Final curtain coming down on giant Hollywood junkyard”

RT

A Taliban suicide bomber has killed six NATO troops at the Bagram base outside Kabul. The militant group has also conducting a broad offensive in the Helmand province, in south-eastern Afghanistan.

The attacks targeting foreign troops happened in a village near the Bagram airbase. A suicide bomber on a motorbike approached a joint US-Afghan patrol and set off an explosive device. Local authorities and NATO confirmed that six of its troops were killed, with six more wounded, including several local policemen.   Continue reading “Taliban attacks: 6 NATO troops killed in Afghanistan, part of Helmand province seized”

Mail.com

SHENZHEN, China (AP) — Rescuers were searching Monday for at least 91 missing people a day after a mountain of excavated soil and construction waste buried dozens of buildings when it swept through an industrial park in the southern Chinese city of Shenzhen.

China’s official Xinhua News Agency said the landslide buried or damaged 33 buildings in the industrial park in Shenzhen, a major manufacturing center in Guangdong province across the border from Hong Kong that makes products used around the world ranging from cellphones to cars.   Continue reading “91 missing from landslide that buries buildings in China”

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PARIS (AP) — A retired French police officer traveling on Air France was detained Monday after a fake bomb hidden in a lavatory forced his Paris-bound flight to make an emergency landing in Kenya, according to prosecutors.

The hoax — the fourth against Air France in recent weeks — comes amid heightened concerns about extremist violence in many countries, and aggravated passenger jitters around the holidays. The man in custody is a former police officer who was detained upon arrival Monday at Charles de Gaulle Airport, according to an official in the prosecutor’s office in the nearby Paris suburb of Bobigny. The official, who is not authorized to be publicly identified speaking about an ongoing investigation, did not release the suspect’s name or information about what he is suspected of.   Continue reading “Retired French policeman detained after fake bomb found”

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MOSCOW (AP) — The Russian military says aviation experts so far have failed to retrieve information from a flight data recorder from a Russian warplane downed by Turkey last month.

Turkey shot down the Russian Su-24 bomber at the border with Syria on Nov. 24, saying it violated its airspace for 17 seconds despite repeated warnings. Russia insists the plane never entered Turkish airspace.   Continue reading “Black box from Russian jet downed by Turkey damaged”

RT

One hundred and fifty years after the end of the US Civil War, New Orleans City Council is set to vote on whether to remove statues of what some people call pro-slavery “traitors” and others call “Confederate heroes.”

Thursday morning’s vote is expected to draw protesters from both sides and security has been increased.   Continue reading “New Orleans to vote on toppling ‘terrorist’ statues”

Mail.com

IRBIL, Iraq (AP) — U.S. Defense Secretary Ash Carter acknowledged on Thursday that he used a personal email account to conduct some government business until “a few months ago.”

“I should have known better,” Carter told reporters traveling with him in Irbil, Iraq, the regional capital of the Kurds. “It’s not like I didn’t have the opportunity to understand what the right thing to do was. I didn’t do the right thing.”   Continue reading “Pentagon chief: ‘I should have known better’ on email use”

Mail.com

NEW YORK (AP) — Congress may have declined to ban the sale of guns to people on federal terrorism watch lists, but one state — New Jersey — has, at least theoretically, been stopping such purchases since 2013.

It isn’t clear whether New Jersey’s ban has actually stopped a would-be extremist from buying a firearm. But the system could potentially serve as a model for a handful of other states, including New York, Connecticut, Massachusetts, Illinois and California, where lawmakers have been exploring ways to restrict sales without an act of Congress.   Continue reading “States explore blocking gun sales to terror watch lists”

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SAN BERNARDINO, Calif. (AP) — The bodies of a husband and wife behind the California shootings that killed 14 people have been released by authorities and buried.

Attorneys for family members told NBC News Wednesday that the Syed Farook and Tashfeen Malik were buried on Tuesday afternoon in Southern California. The attorneys, David Chesley and Mohammad Abuershaid, confirmed the burial to NBC News, but gave no further details.   Continue reading “Couple behind attack is buried in Southern California”

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WASHINGTON (AP) — The number of people executed in the United States this year dropped to the lowest level since 1991, as states impose fewer death sentences and defendants in capital cases get access to better legal help.

The Death Penalty Information Center, a nonprofit organization that opposes capital punishment and tracks the issue, said 28 inmates were executed as of Dec. 15, down from 35 last year and far below the peak of 98 in 1999.   Continue reading “Executions at lowest level since 1991; death sentences fall”

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SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — A 39-year-old woman and a teenage boy are suspected in the deaths of two children whose bodies were found inside a storage unit in Northern California, in a case that came to light after police checked on a 9-year-old girl who was found starving and injured but alive, authorities said.

Autopsies for the 3-year-old girl and 6-year-old boy, who bodies were found at a storage facility in Redding, were planned for Wednesday. Authorities have not identified them nor said how they were related to the woman and her teenage companion.   Continue reading “Pair linked to deaths of 2 children in Calif. storage unit”

Mail.com

BALTIMORE (AP) — Jurors said they were deadlocked Tuesday as they weighed manslaughter and other charges against a police officer in the death of Freddie Gray. The judge told them to keep deliberating and they went home for the night without reaching a verdict.

The jury reported its difficulty in a note to Baltimore Circuit Judge Barry Williams after about nine hours of discussions over two days. It wasn’t clear if they were stuck on one or more of the four charges Officer William Porter faces. He is the first of six officers to stand trial.   Continue reading “Freddie Gray jurors deadlocked, judge says keep deliberating”

Mail.com

BALTIMORE (AP) — Jurors deliberating in the manslaughter trial of Officer William Porter requested highlighters, an easel and sticky notes Tuesday, suggesting they’re taking a businesslike approach to assessing his role in the arrest and death Freddie Gray.

The jury also asked for and received a set of external computer speakers to improve the sound quality of recordings in evidence, including Porter’s videotaped interview with Baltimore police detectives, police radio transmissions on the day Gray was arrested and cellphone videos made at two of the wagon’s six stops, starting with Gray’s arrest.   Continue reading “Baltimore officer’s jury gets down to business”