News Synergy National Headlines

Officials: Unattended campfire caused Calif. fire

Tue, 18 Jun 2013 19:55:39 -0500

MARIPOSA, Calif. (AP) — Fire officials in California say an unattended campfire near a main route into Yosemite National Park has grown into a blaze that has led to the evacuations of 800 homes and 1,500 people.

More than 2,000 firefighters are battling the blaze in windy and dry conditions. The fire, which started Sunday, is six miles northeast of Mariposa and has burned more than two square miles. It's 15 percent contained. Though temperatures are down, officials fear the weather conditions could still fuel the flames.

Meanwhile, firefighters in Colorado say crews are mopping up remaining hot spots from the most destructive wildfire in state history. The Black Forest Fire just outside Colorado Springs killed two, destroyed 502 homes and charred more than 22 square miles. It is 85 percent contained. Hundreds of evacuated residents have been allowed back into the burn area, though they were warned that many would return to rubble, not their homes.

Colorado firefighters were also finishing work putting out a wildfire that burned 5 square miles near Canon City in southern Colorado.

Stanley Cup Game 3 draws record viewers for NBCSN

Tue, 18 Jun 2013 19:09:22 -0500

STAMFORD, Conn. (AP) — The Stanley Cup finals' Game 3 drew the most viewers for the NHL on NBC Sports Network since the cable channel started televising the league in 2006.

The Bruins' 2-0 win over the Chicago Blackhawks on Monday night averaged just over 4 million viewers, topping the 3.96 million for Boston's overtime victory in Game 2. It's nearly double the close to 2.1 million for the second finals game on the network last year, Game 4 between the Devils and Kings.

'Dead zones' predicted for Gulf, Chesapeake Bay

Tue, 18 Jun 2013 18:41:39 -0500

NEW ORLEANS (AP) — Scientists are predicting a big summer "dead zone" in the Gulf of Mexico, while it will be smaller than average in the Chesapeake Bay.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration released predictions Tuesday for the annual zones where nutrient runoff from major rivers depletes oxygen so marine life can't exist.

It says the Gulf zone prediction is 7,286 to 8,561 square miles — anywhere from the top 10 to the largest ever. A tropical storm shortly before that would reduce the size by stirring more oxygen into the area.

The size of the zone is expected to be smaller in the Bay, which is the nation's largest estuary.

Lil Wayne: I'm not stepping on US flag in video

Tue, 18 Jun 2013 18:35:23 -0500

NEW YORK (AP) — Lil Wayne says he wasn't intentionally stepping on the American flag when shooting his latest video.

Video of the rapper from his music video shoot for the song "God Bless Amerika" hit the Web on Monday. In it, he appears to be stepping on top of the American flag. But he said in a Facebook post Tuesday the flag on the ground will not appear in the clip.

He writes it was never his intention "to desecrate the flag of the United States of America."

He says the flag will reveal a group of people behind him in the video.

The New Orleans-based rapper says in the statement his environment helped shape the way he views America and his song and video represent the people he grew up with.

Man pleads guilty to smuggling snakes on planes

Tue, 18 Jun 2013 18:30:33 -0500

TYLER, Texas (AP) — Samuel L. Jackson would have been cursing up a storm.

An East Texas man has pleaded guilty to smuggling snakes on several planes from South America to the United States.

During a court hearing Wednesday in Tyler, William Lamar pleaded guilty to importing wildlife taken in violation of foreign law.

Prosecutors say the 63-year-old eco-tourism guide bought the seven live snakes in August 2012 in a market in Lima, Peru and then smuggled them in his jacket on flights from Lima to Miami and then to Dallas.

Game wardens seized the snakes from Lamar's home in Tyler.

Peruvian law prohibits the exportation of wild live animals coming from the forest or jungle region unless the exporter has the proper paperwork.

Lamar faces up to five years in prison.

Couple guilty in murder of mother of 2-month-old

Tue, 18 Jun 2013 18:22:10 -0500

PLANADA, Calif. (AP) — A California couple is facing prison time after juries convicted them of luring an acquaintance to their home and strangling her to kidnap her 2-month-old boy.

The Merced Sun-Star reports (http://bit.ly/ZZfjd6 ) that two juries deliberated the murder case against 34-year-old Maria Robles and 38-year-old Augustine Velarde.

Velarde's jury convicted him late Monday of second-degree murder in the December 2010 slaying of 26-year-old Ana DeCeja.

Robles is facing life without parole after her jury found her guilty of first-degree murder Friday.

Authorities say the couple confessed to luring DeCeja and her baby to the couple's home and then strangling the mother. They panicked and abandoned the baby after media reported the incident.

The baby was reunited with his father after the child was found on a doorstep.

IRS worker says no political bias against tea party

Tue, 18 Jun 2013 17:05:08 -0500

WASHINGTON (AP) — A Democratic congressman has released the full transcript of congressional investigators' interview with an Internal Revenue Service manager and self-described conservative Republican who said the close scrutiny of tea party groups' tax forms originated in his Cincinnati IRS office, not in Washington.

John Shafer oversaw a group of IRS workers who screen applications for tax-exempt status. He said he was unaware of any involvement by the White House in decisions to screen tea party groups.

Shafer said that in February 2010, his group sent its first tea party application to higher-ranking supervisors because media attention such groups were getting seemed likely to make their treatment a high-profile case.

Maryland Rep. Elijah Cummings released the transcript. He had released excerpts from Shafer's interview earlier this month.

US Senators say arming Syrian rebels not enough

Tue, 18 Jun 2013 17:03:42 -0500

WASHINGTON (AP) — A bipartisan trio of key senators is demanding that President Barack Obama take more decisive action to stem the military advance by Syrian President Bashar Assad's forces.

Democratic Sens. Robert Menendez and Carl Levin and Republican John McCain say in a joint letter to Obama that Syrian government forces are advancing so dramatically that providing weapons to the opposition alone is unlikely to shift the war back in the rebels' favor.

The administration last week authorized lethal aid to the rebels. But it isn't trying to enforce a no-fly zone or otherwise intervene militarily to halt a war that has killed almost 93,000 people.

The senators say the U.S. should consider targeting regime airfields, runways and aircraft, and help rebels establish safe zones in Syria.

Gay couples treated worse in home inquiries, study finds

Tue, 18 Jun 2013 16:52:33 -0500

WASHINGTON (AP) — A new study has found that same-sex couples are treated less favorably than heterosexual couples when seeking information about rental housing advertised online.

The Department of Housing and Urban Development commissioned the national study, the first of its kind, which was released Tuesday.

It finds that gay and lesbian couples are less likely to receive a favorable response to email inquiries about rental properties than straight couples are.

Federal housing laws do not bar discrimination based on sexual orientation or gender identity, but 20 states and Washington, D.C. have already passed laws that prohibit such discrimination.

Unruly passenger once worked at US State Dept.

Tue, 18 Jun 2013 16:49:56 -0500

NEWARK, N.J. (AP) — A State Department spokeswoman said Tuesday that a man who ranted about national security -- repeatedly screaming "I'm dead" during a flight from Hong Kong to New Jersey -- once worked at the agency.

The spokeswoman said Tuesday in Washington that the passenger ended his time at the department in 2006. She gave no details about his job or why he no longer works for the agency.

The man started screaming nine hours into Monday's 15-hour flight to Newark Liberty Airport. At one point, a passenger said, the man claimed people were trying to poison him. Passengers helped subdue him.

Passengers said the man was clearly not mentally stable.

The FBI said he was hospitalized after being taken off the plane.

Three in Ohio accused of enslaving mother and daughter

Tue, 18 Jun 2013 16:48:00 -0500

CLEVELAND (AP) — Authorities in Ohio on Tuesday arrested three people on charges of enslaving a mentally disabled young mother and her daughter over a two-year period.

Federal agents and Ashland police said Tuesday the suspects forced the woman to do housework and threatened her and the girl with violence. Authorities also said they fed their pets better than they did the victims.

The break in the case came when police, checking an abuse allegation made by one of the suspects against the mother, went to the apartment where the trio allegedly enslaved her.

The suspects, Jordie Callahan, Jessica Hunt and Daniel Brown of Ashland, were charged with forced labor. They were held to await a federal court hearing.

The names of the victims rescued last month were withheld.

The alleged enslaving occurred in the same city where Ariel Castro allegedly held three women captive inside of his home for more than a decade. Those women were rescued in May.

Woman disfigured by chimp to appeal court decision

Tue, 18 Jun 2013 16:47:58 -0500

NEW HAVEN, Conn. (AP) — An attorney for a Connecticut woman disfigured by a friend's pet chimpanzee in 2009 says he plans to appeal a decision denying her permission to sue the state for $150 million on her claim that officials knew the animal was dangerous but didn't do anything about it.

The state claims commissioner on Friday approved the state's motion to dismiss Charla Nash's claim, saying the law at the time allowed private ownership of chimpanzees and didn't require officials to seize legal animals. The state generally is immune to lawsuits, unless allowed by the claims commissioner.

Nash's lawyer, Charles Willinger Jr., told The Associated Press Tuesday he plans to appeal the decision to the state legislature.

Nash was blinded, lost both hands and underwent a face transplant after being mauled in Stamford.

Cuban family says repression forced them to flee to US

Tue, 18 Jun 2013 16:46:11 -0500

MIAMI (AP) — The daughter of a prominent Cuban dissident who died in a car crash says her family decided to seek refuge in the U.S. after facing continued repression.

Rosa Maria Paya and her mother spoke with reporters Tuesday in Miami.

Paya traveled throughout Europe and the U.S. in April to push for an international investigation into her father's death.

Oswaldo Paya was killed in a car crash in 2012. His daughter says witness accounts, text messages and other evidence raise questions about the Cuban government's official account, which is that the crash was an accident.

Rosa Maria Paya returned to Cuba, even though she said her family had been threatened.

She said Tuesday that attacks and vigilance had intensified against her family and others involved in the movement her father started.

FBI, NYPD offer $65k reward in Times Square bombing

Tue, 18 Jun 2013 16:45:00 -0500

NEW YORK (AP) — The FBI and the New York City Police Department are offering a $65,000 reward for the capture of the man who bombed a military recruitment station in Times Square, officials said Tuesday.

Also on Tuesday, authorities released videos of the bomber riding a blue bicycle to the scene on March 6, 2008.

The bike was later recovered in a Dumpster near Madison Avenue and 38th Street.

The officials said the suspect and possible accomplices may be connected to earlier bombings at the British and Mexican consulates.

No one was injured in the Times Square attack but Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly said the bomber narrowly missed killing or injuring passersby.

Grand jury to hear charges in Virginia mall shooting

Tue, 18 Jun 2013 16:44:08 -0500

CHRISTIANSBURG, Va. (AP) — The case against a man charged with shooting two women at a community college inside a Virginia mall is headed to a grand jury.

Media outlets report that Neil MacInnis, 19, waived his right to a preliminary hearing Tuesday in Montgomery County General District Court.

MacInnis faces malicious wounding and weapons charges in the April 12 shooting at a satellite campus of New River Community College in Christiansburg, just south of Blacksburg.

Part-time employee Taylor Sharpe and student Kristina Bousserghine were shot before the suspect was subdued by an off-duty security guard and Christiansburg police officers. The women are recovering from their injuries. Both attended Tuesday's hearing.

Neither woman appears to have been targeted.

MacInnis was a student at the college. He is being held at Western Virginia Regional Jail.

Judge declares mistrial in case of cop who killed girl

Tue, 18 Jun 2013 16:20:00 -0500

DETROIT (AP) — A judge on Tuesday declared a mistrial in the case of a Detroit police officer -- who shot and killed a young girl during a raid -- after jurors failed to reach a verdict.

Joseph Weekley was charged with involuntary manslaughter in the death of the 7-year-old girl three years ago. He claims that he accidentally fired his gun and struck the girl, while leading officers on the raid to find a murder suspect.

Weekley said the gun went off during a struggle with the girl's grandmother. The grandmother, however, has denied interfering with the officer's gun.

Supreme Court won't hear NY anti-abortionist case

Tue, 18 Jun 2013 15:25:26 -0500

BUFFALO, N.Y. (AP) — The U.S. Supreme Court has decided not to take up a petition from an anti-abortion extremist -- who is serving a life sentence in prison for the sniper-style shooting of an abortion doctor in upstate New York.

The justices on Monday denied James Charles Kopp's petition to review the lower court proceedings. The Supreme Court gets approximately 8,000 such requests every year, but accepts less than 150.

Kopp was convicted in state and federal courts for the fatal shooting of Dr. Barnett Slepian, who was in the kitchen of his Buffalo home when he was shot from afar. Authorities said Kopp shot him

In his petition, Kopp argued that his constitutional rights were denied because he was represented by a lawyer who also represented a couple who had helped him avoid arrest.

Secret NSA programs critical in foiled terror plots, officials say

Tue, 18 Jun 2013 15:16:43 -0500

WASHINGTON (AP) — Intelligence officials are offering a few more details of what they claim were averted terror plots, in which authorities used information gathered through a pair of recently discovered government surveillance programs.

Officials told a House panel on Tuesday that one of the plots involved an attempt to bomb the New York Stock Exchange on Wall Street. In all, they said, roughly 50 terror plots were disrupted with the help of the surveillance programs.

Tuesday's hearing by the U.S. House Intelligence Committee provided a venue for officials to defend the program, which are at the center of a debate over national security and personal privacy.

President Obama has previously defended the programs, emphasizing that they were used to gather intelligence on suspected terror figures -- not listen in on ordinary citizens' phone calls.

San Jose sues MLB over team's proposed move

Tue, 18 Jun 2013 15:10:08 -0500

SAN JOSE, Calif. (AP) — A San Francisco Bay Area city has filed a lawsuit against Major League Baseball, over the Oakland Athletics' plans of building a new ballpark there.

In a lawsuit filed on Tuesday in federal court, the City of San Jose claims that the league has intentionally been dragging its feet in conducting a vote among team owners to approve the Athletics' proposed move to San Jose.

The lawsuit said MLB has controlled the location of teams under the "guise" of an exemption to federal antitrust law. The lawsuit is disputing that exemption.

The San Francisco Giants have objected to the Athletics' potential move, on grounds that they relied on territorial rights to the San Jose-area market when they built their ballpark -- which is located in the China Basin section of San Francisco.

MLB Commissioner Bud Selig appointed a committee to study the matter. He has previously said additional litigation over the Athletics' move would be unproductive.

Cockpit passenger gets deported, but no further jail time

Tue, 18 Jun 2013 15:05:07 -0500

PHILADELPHIA (AP) — A man accused of entering the cockpit of a plane at Philadelphia International Airport -- by impersonating an airline employee -- has been sentenced to time already served, and will be deported to France.

Philippe Jeannard, 61, was sentenced on Tuesday in federal court after pleading guilty to a fraud charge.

Jeannard, from La Rochelle, France, has been in custody since March 21 -- one day after authorities said he unsuccessfully sought a seat upgrade on a Florida-bound flight, and then used a fraudulent Air France ID card to gain access to the cockpit. He was found sitting in the jump seat behind the pilot.

His attorney has said he never meant to cause any problems.

A judge said Jeannard won't be permitted back into the United States without written permission from the U.S. attorney general.