QUOTE OF THE DAY
“As soon as we get that go-live date, we are ready to go. We’re going to marry anyone who wants to get married that day.”
San Francisco City Administrator Naomi Kelly, after the U.S. Supreme Court in a procedural ruling cleared the way for same-sex marriages to resume in California Article, 1A
Old mine in water off N.J. detonated
BAY HEAD, N.J. - A plume of water shot about 125 feet in the air and a boom echoed through town Wednesday as a military explosives team detonated a suspected mine that a diver had discovered partially buried in sand in the Atlantic Ocean.
Police evacuated about 15 homes in a quarter-mile radius before the operation, Bay Head Police Sgt. Todd LaRue said. The Coast Guard kept boats clear of the area.
An ordnance-disposal team assigned to a naval station in Colts Neck examined the device after it was discovered Tuesday night about 100 feet from the shoreline in 12 feet of water and decided that the only safe thing to do was to detonate it in place at high tide the next day.
The device was believed to be a moored contact mine from either World War I or World War II, base public-affairs officer Michael Brady said. The round mines contain spikes designed to detonate upon contact.
Brady said the team suspects that only the 10-pound C-4 charge of explosives used to detonate the device exploded. The team was taking a piece of metal that survived the blast back to the base to determine what the device was and where it came from.
The explosives team has responded a half-dozen times to similar incidents since a storm hit the New Jersey shore Oct. 29, but mainly to the north near Sea Bright and Sandy Hook, which was used as a military proving ground for explosives between 1874 and 1919.
Kidnapping suspect to get mental exam
CLEVELAND - A man accused of holding three women captive in his Cleveland home for more than a decade will undergo an evaluation to determine if he is mentally competent to stand trial, a judge ordered Wednesday.
Although the defense and prosecution agree that Ariel Castro is competent, Cuyahoga County Common Pleas Judge Michael Russo said he wants to make sure the 52-year-old is able to understand the charges against him and assist attorneys in his defense.
The examination by a court-appointed doctor likely will be today, the judge said.
Castro has pleaded innocent to 329 counts in an indictment that covers August 2002, when the first woman disappeared, to February 2007. More charges could be filed in the case that was cracked May 6 when one woman escaped from Castro’s house, leading to the rescue of the other two women.
Prosecutor Tim McGinty told the judge that he would be going back to the grand jury soon to seek the additional charges. Attorney General Mike DeWine said this month that a state crime laboratory is checking new evidence to determine if there were additional victims.
McGinty said he believes that Castro understood what he was doing when the crimes were committed and that he is competent now.
Castro’s attorney, Craig Weintraub, told reporters afterward that he believes his client is competent for trial.
Front Section, Pages 3 on 06/27/2013