H A HUG FOR SANTA
h A hug for Santa
NEW ORLEANS -- Santa, from the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade, gets a hug from 3-year-old Diamond Cooper at the U.S. Marines Toys for Tots Foundation's Santa's Traveling Workshop in New Orleans. The event Friday featured live entertainment and toys for the children. Toys for Tots is delivering toys to 61 communities in Louisiana, Alabama, Mississippi and Texas to children affected and displaced by recent hurricanes.
Divers recover bodies ofdad, daughter from pond
CEDAR GROVE, Wis. -- An ice-skating trip at a small pond ended tragically Friday when a young girl fell through the ice and her father plunged in trying to save her. Authorities searching with divers and boats recovered their bodies. Brian Obbink, 44, of nearby Oostburg, and his two daughters, ages 9 and 6, were skating on the football-field size pond Friday morning when the older girl, Megan, fell through the ice, Sheboygan County Sheriff's Sgt. Doug Tuttle said. The father also fell in while apparently trying to rescue her, Tuttle said. The 6-year-old then ran to a nearby home and someone called 911. Rescuers chopped through the ice and searched the pond by small boat Friday afternoon, when snow was falling and the temperature was 22 degrees. The Sheboygan County Law Enforcement Dive Team found the bodies, Tuttle said.
Arnold would considerclemency for gang founder
SAN FRANCISCO -- Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger said Friday he would consider granting clemency to convicted killer Stanley Tookie Williams, the Crips gang founder who became an anti-gang activist while in prison and was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize. The governor said he would meet Dec. 8 in a private hearing with Williams' lawyers, Los Angeles County prosecutors and others involved. Schwarzenegger has the authority to commute a death sentence to life without parole, but he is not obligated to hold a hearing. In Schwarzenegger's case, he decides clemency requests on a "case-by-case basis," spokeswoman Margita Thompson said.
Ore. man accused in theftof $200,000 in Lego sets
PORTLAND, Ore. -- Agents had to use a 20-foot truck to cart away the evidence from a suspect's house -- mountains of Lego bricks. William Swanberg, 40, of Reno, Nev., was indicted by a grand jury Wednesday, accused of stealing hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of the colorful plastic building blocks from area Target stores. Target estimates Swanberg stole up to $200,000 worth of the brick sets from their stores in Oregon, Utah, Arizona, Nevada and California. The Legos were resold on the Internet, officials said.
Mass. investigates storesopening on Thanksgiving
BOSTON -- Massachusetts' attorney general is launching an investigation into several supermarkets that stayed open on Thanksgiving in defiance of the state's Puritan-era Blue Laws. The laws were passed in the 1600s to keep colonists at home or in church on Sundays. Parts of the laws, such as the ban on Sunday liquor sales, have been repealed, but a prohibition on most stores doing business on Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Year's Day has not. "If these stores want to open, there's a way to do it: Change the law," David Guano, a spokesman for Attorney General Thomas F. Reilly, told The Boston Globe. The office didn't say what sort of penalty the stores could face.
Japanese probe succeedsin landing on asteroid
TOKYO -- A Japanese spacecraft apparently succeeded in landing on an asteroid and collecting surface samples today, part of an unprecedented mission to bring the material back to Earth, Japan's space agency said. The Hayabusa probe touched down for only a few seconds on the faraway asteroid -- long enough to collect powder from its surface -- and lifted off again to transmit data to mission controllers, said Kiyotaka Yashiro, a spokesman for JAXA, Japan's space agency. "The initial movements and operations look very good," Yashiro said. "The process of sampling also seems to have gone very well."
Associated Press