Author: Sunfire

Mail.com

PORTLAND, Ore. (AP) — A man surrendered in Oregon after police say he killed his girlfriend, posted gruesome photos of her body and the crime scene online, and wrote that he wanted authorities to kill him.

David Kalac’s arrest Wednesday night nearly 200 miles from the crime scene in Washington state came after a daylong manhunt. He’s accused of killing Amber Lynn Coplin, whose teenage son heard the couple loudly arguing and then found his mother dead in their apartment.   Continue reading “Suspect in slaying, posting death photos caught”

Mail.com

JERUSALEM (AP) — Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu moved to ease tensions at Jerusalem’s most sensitive holy site Thursday, calling Jordan’s king to reassert his commitment to protecting the sacred shrines in hopes of quieting weeks of unrest.

His outreach came a day after Jordan, a key ally of Israel, recalled its ambassador to protest what it called an “unacceptable” Israeli police assault on the hilltop compound in Jerusalem’s Old City. Tensions were further heightened after a Palestinian slammed his van into a crowd waiting at a train stop, killing an Israeli policeman, in what his family and the militant group Hamas said was a revenge attack.   Continue reading “Israel, Jordan try to ease tensions in Jerusalem”

Mail.com

NEW YORK (AP) — Water bottles filled with vodka that go uninspected. Lunch boxes packed with drugs allowed to bypass X-ray machines. Razor blades and other objects waved on through, even when they set off metal detectors.

Gaping security holes at the city’s Rikers Island jail allowed guards and other staffers to easily smuggle in all manner of contraband — including heroin, marijuana, booze and weapons — to the inmates they are supposed to be watching, city investigators found.   Continue reading “Probe finds porous security at NYC’s Rikers Island”

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PHILADELPHIA (AP) — A woman seen on surveillance video putting up a fight while being abducted off a Philadelphia street was found safe outside Baltimore on Wednesday, and the man who snatched her was arrested, police said.

Carlesha Freeland-Gaither was spotted in Jessup, Maryland, with the man in a car with a broken-out back window and was rescued soon after, police said. The man was nabbed after he stepped out of the car, police said.   Continue reading “Woman abducted on Philadelphia street found safe”

RT

Eight felony counts, including voting fraud and perjury, should have landed a Democrat senator in jail for 90 days. Instead he received a slap on the wrist – being released from the jail without seeing as much as the inside of a cell.

State senator Roderick Wright turned himself in on late one Friday evening and released 70 minutes later after being processed and booked, according to Nicole Nishida, the spokeswoman for Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department.   Continue reading “70 minutes in jail: ‘VIP treatment’ for CA senator convicted on 8 felony counts”

RT

Voters in Denton, Texas approved a ban on hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, on Tuesday, making the city the first in Texas to outlaw the controversial gas-extraction process.

The ban is likely to garner legal challenges, but, for now, supporters celebrating the landmark vote in a state famous for oil and gas development.

“Denton, Texas is where hydraulic fracturing was invented,” said Bruce Baizel, Earthworks energy program director, according to Reuters. “If this place in the heart of the oil and gas industry can’t live with fracking, then who can?”   Continue reading “Fracking banned in its birthplace: Texas town votes to outlaw hydraulic fracturing”

RT

Water in the world’s largest aquifers is being pumped out at greater rates than can be replenished naturally. NASA says this poses a greater threat to US food supplies and global security than previously thought.

Groundwater in the globe’s largest aquifers – the US High Plains, California’s Central Valley, China and India – is being depleted at alarming rates according to new analysis by the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL). The majority of the aquifers lie under the world’s great agricultural regions – and 80 percent of the world’s fresh water usage is in growing crops – meaning their reduction poses a serious threat to the world’s food supply.   Continue reading “NASA: Major droughts threaten food supply, global security”

Mail.com

PHILADELPHIA (AP) — Relatives of a woman violently abducted from a Philadelphia street pleaded for her safe return Tuesday as police sought the public’s help in tracking down the man seen in photographs using the woman’s bank card and in video walking through a Maryland store.

Family members of the 22-year-old woman, Carlesha Freeland-Gaither, said they didn’t recognize the man in the photos. Detectives hope someone who does comes forward. They released the video (http://youtu.be/p1DMx3xc2iE), which has a clearer image of the suspect, Tuesday night.   Continue reading “Man sought in woman’s abduction in store video”

Mail.com

GRANTS PASS, Ore. (AP) — A mother accused of throwing her son to his death from an Oregon bridge posted cheery videos on YouTube nearly a year ago of her 6-year-old boy holding a stuffed toy lion while tossing coins in a fountain to make a wish.

As darkness fell Monday, Jillian McCabe parked her car at the north end of the picturesque Yaquina Bay Bridge in the coastal Oregon town of Newport, took her son in her arms, carried him to the middle of the span and threw him to his death in the water below, a police affidavit said.   Continue reading “Mom posts sunny video before son tossed off bridge”

RT

Police in northern California are looking into who gave a plastic bag of methamphetamine to a trick-or-treating 8-year-old girl on Halloween.

Her father found the small zip-style bag filled with powder-like substance among the kid’s Halloween candy and called the police at around 8.30 am local time Monday.

Police found that the bag contained one-tenth of a gram of crystal methamphetamine, AP reported.   Continue reading “Trick-not-treat: 8yo California girl given crystal meth with Halloween candy”

Mail.com

BANGKOK (AP) — One of the founders of popular file-sharing website The Pirate Bay has been arrested under an Interpol warrant as he was crossing into Thailand from Laos, police said Tuesday.

Hans Fredrik Lennart Neij, who uses the alias TiAMO, was detained Monday by Thai immigration police at a checkpoint in Thailand’s Nong Khai province, about 500 kilometers (310 miles) northeast of Bangkok.   Continue reading “Pirate Bay co-founder arrested at Thai-Lao border”

RT

China has developed and successfully tested a highly accurate laser defense system against light drones. The homemade machine boasts a two-kilometer range and can down “various small aircraft” within five seconds of locating its target.

Boasting high speed, great precision and low noise, the system is aimed at destroying unmanned, small-scale drones flying under an altitude of 500 meters and at speeds below 50 meters per second, the official Xinhua news agency reported, citing a statement by one of the developers, the China Academy of Engineering Physics (CAEP).   Continue reading “China unveils anti-drone laser weapon able to shoot down ‘small aircraft’ within 5 seconds”

RT

Germany’s Chancellor Angela Merkel has signaled she would rather see the UK leave the EU than compromise the free movement of immigrants, German magazine Der Spiegel reported.

The UK is nearing a “point of no return,” as British Prime Minister David Cameron attempts to renegotiate the terms of the country’s EU membership targeting the freedom of movement, Merkel reportedly said.   Continue reading “‘Point of no return’: Merkel warns UK could exit EU over immigration policy – report”

Mail.com

LOS ANGELES (AP) — A space tourism rocket broke apart in flight over California’s Mojave Desert after a device to slow the experimental spaceship’s descent deployed too soon, federal investigators said.

The cause of Friday’s crash of Virgin Galactic’s SpaceShipTwo has not been determined, but investigators found the “feathering” system — which rotates the tail to create drag — was activated before the craft reached the appropriate speed, National Transportation Safety Board Acting Chairman Christopher Hart said.   Continue reading “Virgin spaceship’s descent system deployed early”

Mail.com

PORTLAND, Ore. (AP) — Brittany Maynard stuck by her decision.

The woman with brain cancer who revived a national debate about physician-assisted suicide ended her life Saturday by swallowing lethal drugs made available under an Oregon law allowing terminally ill people to choose when to die. She would have been 30 on Nov. 19.   Continue reading “Terminally ill Brittany Maynard takes her own life”

Mail.com

LOS ANGELES (AP) — Police in suburban Los Angeles say they have made multiple arrests in the hit-and-run deaths of three teenage girls who were trick-or-treating on Halloween, but few other details have been released.

Authorities in Santa Ana had been looking for the driver and another person who fled the scene of Friday evening’s crash, which claimed the lives of 13-year-old twins and their 13-year-old friend at a crosswalk. A damaged black Honda SUV was found a short distance from where the collision occurred.   Continue reading “Arrests in Halloween hit-and-run deaths of 3 girls”

Mail.com

HONG KONG (AP) — Hong Kong police charged a British banker on Monday with killing two women, including an Indonesian whose body was found in a suitcase on the balcony of the man’s upscale apartment, authorities said.

The killings have shocked Hong Kong, an Asian financial hub with a reputation as a safe city with a low rate of violent crime. Rurik George Caton Jutting appeared briefly at a preliminary hearing at which he spoke only to confirm that he understood the two murder charges against him.   Continue reading “British banker charged in Hong Kong double killing”

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PARIS (AP) — French security officials are investigating a spate of mysterious and illegal flights by drone aircraft over more than a dozen nuclear power stations in France, raising security concerns in a country that largely lives off atomic energy.

In what environmental activists call a worrisome development, authorities have tallied at least 15 overflights of nuclear sites since early October, culminating Friday with five at separate sites, government and utility officials said Monday.   Continue reading “Mystery drones fly over French nuclear sites”