The nation in brief

QUOTE OF THE DAY

“I, and I think all of the law enforcement officials, are hoping for a host of reasons the suspect survives. We have a million questions, and those questions need to be answered.”

Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick on wounded Boston Marathon bombing suspect Dzhokhar Tsarnaev Article, 1A

2 wounded in gunfire at Denver ‘pot’ fest

DENVER - Gunfire broke out at a Denver “pot” celebration Saturday, injuring two people and scattering thousands at a downtown park after they had just marked the first 4/20 counterculture holiday since the state legalized marijuana.

The two wounded, a man and a woman, were expected to survive, and police were looking for one or two suspects, said Denver Police spokesman Sonny Jackson.

Witnesses described a scene in which a jovial atmosphere quickly turned to one of panic just before 5 p.m. Several thought firecrackers were being set off, then a man fell bleeding, his dog also shot.

The annual pot celebration this year was expected to draw as many as 80,000 people after recent laws in Colorado and Washington state made marijuana legal for recreational use.

A sizable police force on motorcycles and horses had been watching the celebration since its start earlier Saturday. But authorities, who generally look the other way at public pot smoking on April 20, didn’t arrest people for smoking in public, which is still illegal.

5 snowboarders killed in avalanche

GEORGETOWN, Colo. - Five snowboarders were killed Saturday afternoon after apparently triggering a back country avalanche on Colorado’s Loveland Pass, authorities said.

Search-and-rescue crews recovered the bodies several hours after the avalanche, which was 600 feet wide and 8 feet deep, Clear Creek County Sheriff Don Krueger said.

A sixth snowboarder caught in the avalanche was able to dig himself out and call for help, Krueger said. That person’s condition wasn’t immediately known.

The victims all had avalanche beacons, Krueger added.

Searchers from Clear Creek County, Summit County, an alpine search-and-rescue team, and the Loveland and Arapahoe Basin ski resorts located the bodies, Krueger said.

The Colorado Department of Transportation closed U.S. 6, which crosses the Continental Divide near the scene of the avalanche, to facilitate the search. The pass is heavily traveled by skiers visiting the nearby Arapahoe Basin ski resort.

The bodies were taken to the Clear Creek coroner’s office.

The victims’ identities weren’t immediately known.

Illinois teen held on terrorism charge

CHICAGO - A suburban Chicago teenager has been arrested on terrorism-related charges and accused of seeking to join an al-Qaida-affiliated group in war-torn Syria, the FBI announced Saturday.

Abdella Ahmad Tounisi, 18, was arrested Friday night as he attempted to board a flight from Chicago’s O’Hare International Airport to Turkey, which borders Syria, the FBI said.

Tounisi, a U.S. citizen from Aurora, is charged with one count of attempting to provide material support to a foreign terrorist organization. If convicted, he faces a maximum 15-year prison term.

Tounisi carried out research online about Jabhat al-Nusrah, or Nusra Front, which is fighting Syrian President Bashar Assad’s regime in a bloody civil war, the complaint says. The U.S. government has designated the group a foreign terrorist organization.

The complaint also says Tounisi is a friend of Adel Daoud, a Chicago-area man who was arrested last year on charges he sought to detonate a device he thought was a bomb outside a downtown bar. Daoud has pleaded innocent and is in jail awaiting trial.

Coast Guard looks for lost fishermen

HOUSTON - The U.S. Coast Guard used boats, a helicopter and airplanes Saturday to search for four fishermen who disappeared off the Texas Gulf Coast after their boat sank.

The Coast Guard received a distress signal from the 50-foot vessel at 3:30 a.m. Friday, Petty Officer Richard Brahm said. The boat began sinking about 115 miles southeast of Galveston, not far from the Texas-Louisiana border.

About five hours later, at 8:30 a.m., a search team found crew member John Robinson on a life raft. Robinson was returned to Galveston later Friday, and told the Coast Guard he was unsure what had happened to the other four fishermen that were on board, Brahm said.

Overnight, the Coast Guard used one cutter and one aircraft to search an area slightly smaller than the state of Delaware.

They added two more aircraft to the hunt at daybreak Saturday, Brahm said.

“We’re going to keep searching until someone tells us to stop,” he said, noting that the Coast Guard uses a variety of factors to determine whether there is a possibility the men could still be alive.

Front Section, Pages 4 on 04/21/2013

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