Small earthquake shakes Virginia

Small earthquake shakes Virginia

RICHMOND, Va.

The U.S. Geological Survey says a small earthquake shook the capital of Virginia and surrounding areas. There were no immediate reports of damage or injuries.

The USGS reported on its website that the quake happened at 9:47 p.m. Wednesday and had a preliminary magnitude of 3.2. It was centered 32 miles west of the capital of Richmond.

Local television stations reported that numerous residents called in saying they had felt the tremors.

Explosives used in attack in China

BEIJING

Attackers crashed a pair of vehicles and tossed explosives in an attack today near an open-air market in the capital of China’s volatile northwestern region of Xinjiang, leaving an unknown number of people dead and injured, state media reported.

The official Xinhua News Agency said several people were rushed to the hospital ,and flames and heavy smoke were seen at the scene, which was cordoned off.

No other details were given, and it wasn’t clear if anyone had been killed in the early morning blast in the city of Urumqi. A spokeswoman for the Xinjiang regional police department would say only that more information would be forthcoming.

Kidnapped woman found after 10 years

SANTA ANA, Calif.

A woman who disappeared as a teenager a decade ago was reunited with her family after she went to police and told them her mother’s ex-boyfriend drugged and kidnapped her in 2004, forced her to marry him and fathered her child.

Isidro Garcia, 41, of Bell Gardens, was arrested on suspicion of kidnapping for rape, lewd acts with a minor and false imprisonment, the Santa Ana Police Department said.

Police described a decade during which the woman — abused mentally, physically and sexually by her captor — was moved at least four times and given multiple fake identities to hide her from family and authorities.

According to police, Garcia told her that her family had stopped trying to find her, and that if she tried to contact them they would be deported to Mexico. At first she was locked up, but she eventually began to lead what appeared from the outside to be a normal life.

Senate backs judicial nominee

WASHINGTON

A former Justice Department official who helped craft the Obama administration’s legal rationale for using drones to kill suspected American terrorists abroad won preliminary Senate approval Wednesday to become a federal appeals court judge.

The largely party-line 52-43 vote cleared the way for a final confirmation vote Thursday for David Barron, a Harvard Law School professor. Obama nominated him last September to join the 1st U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, based in Boston.

Bus strikes pipes on interstate; 4 die

BLYTHE, Calif.

A bus rolling through a remote stretch of desert struck a load of metal pipes scattered across a dark California highway Wednesday, then slid down an embankment and overturned in an accident that killed four passengers and seriously injured at least seven others.

Only a minute or two before the collision, the pipes had tumbled from a flatbed truck that jackknifed after drifting into the dirt median on Interstate 10, the main road linking Southern California and Arizona, the California Highway Patrol said.

Associated Press