Agency to probe 911 call in Powell fire

Agency to probe 911 call in Powell fire

tacoma, wash.

A social worker pleaded with a 911 dispatcher throughout a nearly seven-minute call to quickly get police to Josh Powell’s house after he locked himself inside with his two sons.

It took almost two minutes from the start of the call for the dispatcher to learn Powell’s address and more than three minutes to understand that she was there to supervise a child-custody visit. Near the end of the call, she asked how long before officers could get there.

“I don’t know, ma’am,” he said. “We have to respond to emergency life-threatening situations first.”

She responded: “This could be life-threatening ... I’m afraid for their lives!”

The recordings raised questions about an emergency response to a custody visit that ended with Powell killing himself and his boys.

Child-tax break targeted by GOP

washington

Republicans are looking to deny child-tax credits to illegal immigrants — refund checks averaging $1,800 a family — in an effort that has roused anger among Hispanics and some Democratic lawmakers.

The proposal, which would require people who claim the federal credit to have Social Security numbers to prove they’re legal workers, is being offered as a way to help pay for extending the Social Security tax cut for most American wage-earners. It would trim federal spending by about $10 billion over a decade.

Bomb attack kills 8

mogadishu, somalia

A car bomb killed eight people and wounded two members of parliament in Somalia’s capital Wednesday, officials said, in an attack claimed by a spokesman for Somalia’s Islamist insurgency.

A car bomb parked near a hotel in Mogadishu exploded, police commander Ahmed Hassan Maalin said. Eight people were killed and 11 were seriously injured, Somali parliamentarian Mohamud Abdullahi Wehelie said.

The Somali militant group al-Shabab claimed the attack in a Twitter message.

Mo. teen gets life sentence for murder

jefferson city, mo.

A Missouri teenager who had described the slaying of a young neighbor girl as an “ahmazing” thrill made an emotional apology Wednesday to the girl’s family and was sentenced to a potential lifetime in prison.

Moments before her sentence was imposed, 18-year-old Alyssa Bustamante rose from her chair — with shackles linking her ankles and holding her hands to her waist — and turned to face the family of 9-year-old Elizabeth Olten, whom she confessed killing in October 2009.

Cole County Circuit Judge Pat Joyce sentenced Bustamante to the maximum possible sentence for second-degree murder — life in prison with the possibility of parole.

EU threatens new sanctions on Syria

beirut

The European Union will impose harsher sanctions on Syria, a senior EU official said Wednesday, as Russia tried to broker talks between the vice president and the opposition to calm violence. Activists reported at least 50 killed in the regime’s siege of the restive city of Homs.

Russia, a close ally to Syria, and the West are pushing down starkly different paths in trying to deal with Syria’s nearly 11 months of bloodshed. After blocking a Western and Arab attempt to bring U.N. pressure on President Bashar Assad to step down, Russia has launched a bid to show it can resolve the turmoil.

Associated Press