QUOTE OF THE DAY
“It’s New England. It’s the wintertime. I think we’re pretty well ready for whatever is headed our way.” John Wallace, a spokesman at Bradley International Airport in Windsor Locks, Conn., on preparedness for a storm that is moving through the Northeast and is expected to leave a foot of snow or more in some areas Article, this pageU.S., Chinese ships barely avoid crash
WASHINGTON - U.S. military officials said Saturday that a Chinese warship nearly collided with an American Navy guided-missile cruiser operating in international waters.
U.S. Pacific Fleet said it happened Dec. 5 in the South China Sea. The USS Cowpens maneuvered to avoid the collision.
The State Department has raised the matter at a high level with the Chinese government, officials said.
It happened amid heightened tension over China’s growing assertiveness in the region. Despite objections from Washington, Beijing recently declared a new air-defense zone over parts of the East China Sea.
The Pacific Fleet said it’s not uncommon for navies to operate in close proximity, and that’s why it is paramount they all follow international standards for maritime “rules of the road.”Sheriff: School shooter armed heavily
CENTENNIAL, Colo. - An 18-year-old who wounded a fellow student before killing himself at a suburban Denver school had entered the building with a shotgun, a machete and three incendiary devices in his backpack and had ammunition strapped to his body, authorities said Saturday.
Arapahoe County Sheriff Grayson Robinson said Karl Pierson likely was motivated by retaliation against a faculty member when he opened fire Friday at Arapahoe High School. Robinson said it appeared the school librarian was the initial target but that Pierson planned to hurt multiple people.
Robinson said the librarian is leader of the school’s speech team and Pierson was a member. He said the librarian disciplined Pierson in September.
Robinson said at a news conference that the teen bought the pump-action shotgun legally Dec. 6. Anyone older than 18 is allowed to buy a shotgun in Colorado. Only those older than 21 can legally buy a handgun.
Also Saturday, Robinson identified the wounded student as 17-year-old Claire Esther Davis. Robinson said Davis was seated with a friend near the door Pierson used to enter the school when Pierson shot her at point-blank range.
Davis wasn’t a specific target, the sheriff said.
Airplane crash run-over spurs training
SAN FRANCISCO - Firefighters who work at San Francisco International Airport are receiving additional training on how to respond to airplane crashes after the Asiana Airlines accident in which a teenage girl died after she was run over by two emergency vehicles while lying wounded on the runway.
Commanding officers from the San Francisco Fire Department’s airport division will receive 40-80 hours of advanced instruction next year at the Fire Training Research Center at Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport, the San Francisco Chronicle reported Saturday. Instructors from the center already have provided basic disaster-response training in San Francisco to 80 of the department’s firefighters and paramedics.
Federal rules require all rank-and-file firefighters assigned to U.S. airports to have disaster-response training. Before the July 6 crash, the San Francisco Fire Department had its own in-house training program, but the three commanders in charge of the Asiana crash had never undergone it, according to the Chronicle.
Court lifts ban on slaughtering horses
ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. - Companies in New Mexico, Missouri and Iowa can slaughter horses again after a federal appeals court removed a temporary ban that was preventing domestic horse slaughter from resuming for the first time since 2007.
The 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Denver lifted an emergency injunction Friday night that it had issued in November after animal-protection groups appealed the ruling of a federal judge in Albuquerque. The judge said the U.S.
Agriculture Department followed proper procedure in issuing permits to Valley Meat Co. in Roswell, N.M., Rains Natural Meats of Gallatin, Mo., and Responsible Transportation in Sigourney, Iowa.
Front Section, Pages 6 on 12/15/2013