3 Oregon firefighters die battling blaze

3 Oregon firefightersdie battling blaze
PORTLAND -- A fire at an auto body shop in downtown Coos Bay killed three veteran firefighters Monday and led to the evacuation of downtown businesses.
The fire blazed for about 11/2 hours, said Coos Bay Police Department Captain Eura Washburn. The blaze paralyzed downtown Coos Bay, where power was shut off, telephone lines were tied up and businesses were evacuated.
Linda Dufner, a nursing supervisor at Bay Area Hospital, said one of the firefighters, 33-year-old Robert Charles Hanners, of Coos Bay, died after he arrived at the hospital.
The two others, both Coos Bay residents, died inside the building, after the roof of the building caved in while they were on the second floor. Their names were not released Monday night.
The bodies, each covered by an American flag, were brought out around 8:30 p.m. by an honor guard of fellow firefighters and carried past a line of about 100 firefighters, The Eugene Register-Guard reported today.
Coos Bay Mayor Joe Benetti said it appeared that the fire was accidental. Police said that Kim Macfee, the owner of the body shop, smelled an unusual odor, climbed on the roof to investigate and discovered the fire.
70 children hospitalizedafter eating poison
SHANGHAI, China -- Seventy kindergarten children and two teachers have been hospitalized in southeastern China after eating a school lunch of corn porridge laced with rat poison, police said today.
At least two of the children were in critical condition after eating the tainted porridge Monday at Anle kindergarten in Huangpo, a town in Guangdong province, a town police officer said. He gave only his family name, Zhang.
The children and teachers began to vomit after eating the porridge, Zhang said. Police found a Chinese-made rat poison in the food but have not determined how it got there, Zhang said.
He said the case is under investigation.
Kindergarten officials were not available to comment, according to a staff member who answered the telephone at the school this morning.
The same type of rat poison, called Dushuqiang, was used to kill at least 38 people two months ago in the eastern city of Nanjing, when a snack shop owner used it to poison the food of a rival shop. It has been banned for sale in China since the mid-1990s but remains widely available from illegal producers.
Group distributes fundsto sniper victims
ROCKVILLE, Md. -- A charitable foundation has distributed thousands of dollars to Washington-area sniper victims, the first money distributed to survivors of the shootings and families of those killed during the spree.
Checks for $18,571.43 from the Victims' Rights Foundation were either hand-delivered or mailed over the weekend to the families of 10 people killed and the four people wounded in the region in September and October, said foundation head Gregory Wims.
The foundation raised $260,000 from 2,000 donations. Gifts ranged from a $3.50 money order to $70,000 from an affordable housing charity. Additional money will be raised through Dec. 31.
The funds will help families get through the holidays "without wondering where the mortgage payments are coming from or where the car payments will come from," said Ellen Alexander, a Montgomery County police official who has worked with the sniper victims.
About 15 funds have been established since the sniper attacks, many that specifically help children and other survivors of people who died. The Victims' Rights Foundation and an account set up by Montgomery County are among the few that benefit the victims as a group.
Finicky thief nabbed
PORT ST LUCIE, Fla. -- The finicky shoplifter known as the "Champagne Bandit" because he stole only pricey bottles of the bubbly has been arrested, officials said.
Kimani Alphonso Young is the shoplifter videotaped by supermarket security cameras along central Florida's east coast sticking bottles of Moet & amp; Chandon White Star down his pants, sheriff's deputies said.
Witnesses also saw him stuff into his jeans the $30-a-bottle champagne, described as "extra-dry with an aroma of flowers, hazelnuts and biscuits."
One Publix store security agent noted the license tag of Young's rental car and investigators tracked him down through a Miami car rental agency.
"We toasted his capture with diet soda," joked St. Lucie County Sheriff Ken J. Mascara.
Young, 37, appeared in court Thursday, a day after he was jailed. He faces up to five years in prison. A call to the public defender's office was not immediately returned.
Associated Press