News of the day from across the nation, Dec. 30
The pilot of a small plane that smashed into a building in downtown Anchorage, Alaska, on Tuesday was not authorized to fly the aircraft used in volunteer search-and-rescue missions, authorities said.
First Lt. Doug Demarest, 42, of Anchorage died when the Cessna 172 clipped an office building and slammed into a commercial building, according to the FBI.
The plane belongs to the Civil Air Patrol, a civilian auxiliary of the U.S. Air Force that is made up of volunteers who help with search and rescue, disaster relief and homeland security across the country.
Oklahoma quake: A strong, 4.3-magnitude earthquake woke many people in the Oklahoma City area Tuesday and knocked out power to thousands of homes, the latest in a series of temblors that’s prompted state regulators to call for more restrictions on oil and gas operators.
No injuries were immediately reported, but the quake knocked out power to about 4,400 homes and businesses.
Authorities say a fugitive from North Carolina who had been on the run for nearly 30 years has been arrested in Surfside Beach, S.C. James Edward Coe, 71, was arrested by Horry County police Sunday morning for shoplifting.
Records from the North Carolina Department of Corrections show Coe had escaped a North Carolina prison on June 23, 1986.
Coe was arrested on Sunday for stealing jewelry from a flea market.
New York Police Commissioner William Bratton on Tuesday issued a stern rebuke to his predecessor, Raymond Kelly, challenging him to substantiate his assertion that the New York Police Department’s official tally of major crime was unreliable, particularly shootings.
The comments by Bratton were a sudden and steep escalation in what has been, for the past two years, a tense if cordial relationship between the city’s most significant police leaders of the past quarter-century.
Washoe County (Nev.) Family Court Judge Frances Doherty says a Reno hospital can conduct brain wave tests, but she won’t rule until Jan. 22 whether life-support can be removed from 20-year-old woman.
Lawyers for Saint Mary’s Regional Medical Center won their bid Tuesday to conduct tests that doctors think will show Aden Hailu is legally dead and that a ventilator should be removed.