Man in custody after NYC subway scare
NEW YORK -- A man suspected of placing two devices that looked like pressure cookers in a New York City subway station on Friday, causing an evacuation and snarling the morning commute, has been apprehended, police said.
Chief of Detectives Dermot Shea tweeted Saturday morning that a man seen in surveillance video holding one of the objects was taken into custody. Police identified the objects as rice cookers and determined they were not explosives.
Police said the man was found about 12:45 a.m. Saturday in the Bronx and was taken to a hospital for treatment and observation. Police did not specify what, if any, injuries or conditions he was being treated for.
A West Virginia sheriff's office identified the man as Larry Kenton Griffin II of Bruno, W.Va., and said he had a criminal history in the state.
The Logan County sheriff's office said it has arrested Griffin, 26, at least three times in the past eight years, including a 2017 arrest on charges alleging he sent obscene material to a minor.
Griffin's cousin Tara Brumfield told a Huntington, W.Va., television station that he is a good person who has been dealing with mental health issues.
Bid to halt abortion rules rejected again
SAN FRANCISCO -- A U.S. appeals court declined once again to immediately halt new rules that bar taxpayer-funded clinics from referring patients for abortions.
The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals late Friday rejected a request from more than 20 states, Planned Parenthood and the American Medical Association to block the rules from taking effect while the case proceeds.
A three-judge panel and an 11-judge panel have already said the rules can take effect while President Donald Trump's administration appeals lower-court rulings that blocked them. Oral arguments are next month.
Planned Parenthood has said it will leave the federal Title X program by Monday if the rules aren't blocked.
About 4 million women are served nationwide under the program, which is designed to improve access to family planning for low-income women.
Tourists leave rain-sodden Denali park
DENALI NATIONAL PARK, Alaska -- Crews have cleared one lane of the road in Alaska's Denali National Park and Preserve, and buses returned about 300 stranded tourists to the park entrance safely.
The tourists became stranded Friday after heavy rains triggered mudslides and caused excess water from a culvert to damage the only road inside the vast park.
Park spokesman Paul Ollig said all the stranded passengers were back at the park entrance by midnight Friday.
"Our team did an outstanding job responding to multiple debris slides along a pretty remote section of road," said Erika Jostad, Denali's chief ranger. "The geohazard team monitored conditions while the road crew was clearing debris. It was a great example of teamwork."
Earlier Friday, Denali's superintendent closed Denali Park Road to all traffic at Mile 30.
Similar debris flows led to daylong traffic restrictions earlier this month. Continued heavy rains have since kept the road and surrounding tundra saturated with water.
Also on Friday, the Alaska Railroad said in a news release that it has halted service north of the park because heavy rainfall had caused erosion below a retaining wall.
Illinois sues company over lead in water
UNIVERSITY PARK, Ill. -- Illinois alleges that a company that provides water to a Chicago suburb made changes without permission from state regulators, causing lead to contaminate the village's drinking water.
Attorney General Kwame Raoul filed a lawsuit Friday against Aqua Illinois, the company that supplies water to residents of University Park, a village about 40 miles south of Chicago.
The lawsuit says Aqua Illinois switched the source of the village's water from groundwater wells to the Kankakee River in 2017. The filing alleges that a chemical added to the water system to address residents' complaints about the taste removed a protective layer in residential plumbing, causing lead to leach into the water.
Raoul said the company didn't obtain required permits from the Illinois Environmental Protection Agency before it switched the water source or before it added the blended phosphate mix to the water system.
Aqua Illinois notified the state in May that testing the company is required to conduct every six months had detected elevated lead levels. Raoul said Aqua Illinois later warned residents not to drink the water and that the company also is providing affected residents with bottled water and filters.
The lawsuit says additional testing in July and August continued to show elevated levels of lead, which can cause brain damage and emotional and behavioral effects in children. The testing this month found that 27 out of 60 samples collected from Aqua Illinois customers had lead levels above the regulatory action level, Raoul said.
-- Compiled by Democrat-Gazette staff from wire reports
A Section on 08/18/2019