Arrest made in ‘Grim Sleeper’ case

Arrest made in ‘Grim Sleeper’ case

los angeles

Police charged a man Wednesday in the city’s “Grim Sleeper” serial killings after decades of frustrated investigations into at least 11 slayings dating back 25 years, authorities said.

Lonnie Franklin Jr., 57, was charged with 10 counts of murder, one count of attempted murder and special circumstance allegations of multiple murders that could make him eligible for the death penalty if convicted, District Attorney Steve Cooley said.

Detectives have spent years probing slayings between 1985 and 2007 in which the killer targeted young black women and one man. The attacker was dubbed the “Grim Sleeper” because he apparently took a 14-year hiatus from his crimes.

More than 50 killed

baghdad

Militants struck across the Iraqi capital Wednesday, killing more than 50 people, including 32 in a suicide bombing that targeted pilgrims commemorating a revered Shiite saint, Iraqi police said.

The attacks — the deadliest of which occurred in northern Baghdad’s predominantly Sunni neighborhood of Azamiyah — offered a clear indication of the push by insurgents to exploit Iraq’s political vacuum and destabilize the country as U.S. troops head home.

Police said the bloody suicide bombing that killed 32 and wounded more than 90 people, split the hot Wednesday evening air as Shiite pilgrims were about to cross a bridge leading to the a shrine in the Shiite Kazimiyah neighborhood where a revered imam is buried.

8 hurt in boat crash

philadelphia

A spokeswoman says all eight people taken to a Philadelphia hospital after a duck boat capsized have been treated and released.

Hahnemann University Hospital spokeswoman Coleen Cannon says 10 people were taken there after Wednesday afternoon’s collision between the tourist boat and a barge.

Cannon says two declined treatment and eight others — three teenagers, three younger children and two adults — were treated for minor injuries. Cannon says that by 8 p.m., all of them had been treated and released.

Near-collisions raise air-safety alarms

Washington

Alarmed by a spate of near-collisions involving airliners, the government is trying to find out why air traffic controllers and pilots are making so many dangerous errors.

In recent months, there have been at least a half-dozen incidents in which airliners came close to colliding with other planes or helicopters — including in Chicago, Houston, San Francisco, Burbank, Calif., and Anchorage, Alaska. In some cases, pilots made last-second changes in direction after cockpit alarms went off warning of an impending crash.

Coast Guard: 3 dead after copter crash

seattle

A U.S. Coast Guard helicopter crashed a few hundred yards off the coast of Washington state on Wednesday, killing three of four crew members on board.

Rear Adm. Gary Blore, commander of the 13th Coast Guard district, said the cause of the crash is not known but that there were downed power lines on the beach near the helicopter’s wreckage.

Witnesses told local media that the helicopter was flying at a low altitude when it approached La Push, Wash., a small outpost on the Quileute Nation reservation. It is about 100 miles west of Seattle, on Washington’s Olympic Peninsula.

Associated Press