NY boys buried in snow pile heard rescuers calling

NY boys buried in snow pile heard rescuers calling

NEWBURGH, N.Y.

Two boys trapped in a snow pile for about seven hours after a plow buried them could hear their worried family’s cries but couldn’t respond loudly enough to be heard, they said Friday. Police credited an air pocket with saving their lives.

The two cousins, 11-year-old Elijah Martinez and 9-year-old Jason Rivera, were building a snow fort Wednesday night across the street from Elijah’s apartment in Newburgh when a plow operator clearing a parking lot unknowingly pushed snow over them.

Buried in about 5 feet of snow, they could barely move and couldn’t breathe very well, so they could do nothing as they heard the anguished cries nearby. Jason lost his gloves. His hat flew off. They relied on each other to stay alive, they said, sharing Elijah’s face mask to try and keep their hands warm and talking to each other so they wouldn’t fall asleep.

“I felt so tired. It didn’t feel real that they were coming to get us,” Elijah said at a news conference at the hospital where the boys were recovering.

Boy charged with making terroristic threats

MINNEAPOLIS

A seventh-grader at Minnetonka Middle School West in Chanhassen has been charged with making terroristic threats after he showed a fellow classmate a list of “people I want to kill,” authorities said.

The 13-year-old suspect, whose name was withheld because of his age, was arrested Tuesday evening. The suspect deleted the list, but the iPad on which he wrote it has been turned over to authorities for forensic examination, according to officials.

The suspect appeared in court Thursday on charges of making terroristic threats, a felony, and fifth-degree assault, officials said.

In an email to parents, Principal Paula Hoff said school officials were notified of the incident by the mother of another student, whose name appeared on the kill list. The incident reportedly occurred Nov. 21.

NYC panel nears decision on police choke-hold death

NEW YORK

Amid the fallout from a grand jury’s decision in the fatal police shooting of 18-year-old Michael Brown in Missouri, a panel in New York City is quietly nearing its own conclusion about another combustible case involving the death of an unarmed man at the hands of police.

The grand jury that began investigating the choke-hold death of Eric Garner in September heard last week from what was believed to be its final witness — the New York Police Department officer seen on a widely watched amateur video showing him wrapping his arm around Garner’s neck. Before the end of the year, authorities are expected to announce whether the officer will face criminal charges in a case that sparked outrage and grabbed headlines before it was overshadowed by the killing of Brown in the St. Louis suburb of Ferguson.

Blasts at mosque in Nigeria kill 35

KANO, Nigeria

Multiple explosions tore through the central mosque in Nigeria’s second-largest city Friday, killing 35 people, police said.

One hundred and fifty others sustained various degrees of injury in the blasts in the city of Kano, State Deputy Police Commissioner Sanusi Lemu said.

Witnesses said heavy smoke could be seen billowing in the sky from a long distance away. Immediately after the blasts, hundreds of angry youths took to the streets in riots, throwing stones, brandishing sticks and shouting at security officials.

Combined dispatches