Tunnel reopens after bomb threat

Tunnel reopens after bomb threat

DETROIT

An international commuter tunnel connecting Detroit to Windsor, Ontario, was closed for nearly four hours Thursday after a bomb threat was phoned in on the Canadian side. No explosives were found.

The Detroit Windsor Tunnel, a busy border crossing beneath the Detroit River, was shut down after a duty-free shop employee on the tunnel’s Canadian plaza reported receiving a call about a bomb threat shortly after 12:30 p.m.

The tunnel eventually was closed, and traffic on both sides of the river was directed to the nearby Ambassador Bridge, which spans the river, tunnel executive vice president Carolyn Brown said.

Cars and buses were allowed back through the tunnel shortly after 4:30 p.m.

9 die in avalanche

CHAMONIX, France

They set out before dawn, hoping to conquer a mountaineering classic: Mont Blanc, Western Europe’s highest peak. But below the prized summit, a climber is believed to have accidentally caused a slab of ice to snap off, triggering an avalanche Thursday that swept nine climbers to their deaths and injured a dozen others.

As the sheet of snow and ice thundered down the steep slope, several other climbers managed to turn away from the slide in time, regional authorities in Haute-Savoie said.

Three Britons, three Germans, two Spaniards and one Swiss climber were among the dead.

2 chimps escape Las Vegas backyard

LAS VEGAS

Two chimpanzees escaped a Las Vegas backyard and rampaged through a neighborhood Thursday, pounding on cars and jumping into at least one vehicle before police killed one primate and tranquilized the other, authorities said.

No people were hurt, but police said they had no choice but to kill after the agitated animals escaped their enclosure about 10 a.m. and started running through yards and opening car doors in the neighborhood.

2 drug-smuggling tunnels discovered

PHOENIX

Two drug-smuggling tunnels outfitted with lighting and ventilation systems were discovered along the U.S.-Mexico border, the latest signs that cartels are building sophisticated passages to escape heightened surveillance on land.

Both tunnels were at least 150 yards long. One began under a bathroom sink inside a warehouse in Tijuana but was unfinished and didn’t cross the border into San Diego. The Mexican army found the tunnel Wednesday.

The other was completed and discovered Saturday in a vacant strip-mall storefront in the southwestern Arizona city of San Luis. It showed a level of sophistication not typically associated with other crude smuggling passageways that tie into storm drains in the state.

Bank to pay $175M to settle bias case

WASHINGTON

Wells Fargo Bank will pay at least $175 million to settle accusations that it discriminated against African- American and Hispanic borrowers in violation of fair-lending laws, the Justice Department announced Thursday.

Wells Fargo, the nation’s largest residential home mortgage originator, reportedly engaged in a pattern or practice of discrimination against qualified African-American and Hispanic borrowers from 2004 through 2009.

At a news conference, Deputy Attorney General James Cole said the bank’s discriminatory lending practices resulted in more than 34,000 African-American and Hispanic borrowers in 36 states and the District of Columbia paying higher rates for loans solely because of the color of their skin.

Associated Press