Saturday, December 27, 2014
Texas probes claim that Mexican cartel kidnapped agent
A threat called into a Texas town claiming that a Mexican drug cartel member has kidnapped an officer has federal officials scrambling to account for more than 3,000 U.S. Border Patrol agents in the Rio Grande Valley.
La Joya police dispatchers received a call about 7 p.m. Thursday from a man claiming to have kidnapped a Border Patrol agent and threatening to kill him, according to Police Chief Geovani Hernandez.
Hernandez says police believe the individual first called 911 Thursday morning to report illegal movement of people near the border. During that call, Hernandez says, the man seemed to believe he had hung up the phone and upon realizing the dispatcher was still on the line, became enraged.
The man called back eight more times on Christmas, Hernandez said, repeatedly cursing at and threatening dispatchers in Spanish.
The man mentioned a Border Patrol agent on the ninth and final call.
Police officers help deliver baby on subway train
PHILADELPHIA
The transit police officers who helped deliver a Christmas baby on a subway train reunited with the newborn boy and his parents Friday morning, trading the chaos of the dingy rail car where they first met for the comfort of a hospital room.
Sgt. Daniel Caban and Officer Darrell James — who joined the delivery-in-progress shortly before 6 p.m. Thursday — came bearing souvenir gifts, including a Southeastern Pennsylvania Transportation Authority stuffed train and scarf.
Passengers on the eastbound Market-Frankford train said the officers helped coach the woman, identified Friday as Yanjin Li, through the delivery, removed the umbilical cord from the boy’s neck and placed him in her arms. The baby’s father wrapped him in a shirt to keep warm.
Russian military doctrine: NATO is top threat
MOSCOW
Russia identified NATO as the nation’s No. 1 military threat and raised the possibility of a broader use of precision conventional weapons to deter foreign aggression under a new military doctrine signed by President Vladimir Putin on Friday.
NATO flatly denied it is a threat to Russia, and accused Moscow of undermining European security.
The new doctrine, which comes amid tensions over Ukraine, reflected the Kremlin’s readiness to take a stronger posture in response to what it sees as U.S.-led efforts to isolate and weaken Russia.
Police: Baby Jesus taken, replaced with pig’s head
HAVERHILL, Mass.
A mayor in Massachusetts is outraged that someone stole a baby Jesus statue from a church’s Nativity scene and replaced it with a pig’s head.
Haverhill Mayor James Fiorentini says the desecration has “all the elements of a hate crime.”
The parish priest noticed the statue had been taken from the creche at Sacred Hearts Roman Catholic Church on Christmas morning.
Police say the pig’s head left in its place appears to have been recently severed, and investigators are seeking help from butcher shops and pig farms. Police say the perpetrator could face animal-cruelty charges.
Meanwhile, a neighbor replaced the baby Jesus with one from her own creche.
The baby Jesus figurine also was stolen from the Nativity scene on Greenfield Town Common, likely before dawn on Christmas Eve.
Combined dispatches