Roads prepared if lava crosses highway

Roads prepared if lava crosses highway

HONOLULU

Lava concerns on Hawaii’s Big Island are shifting from it reaching a sparsely populated subdivision to it crossing over a heavily used highway.

Hawaii County workers Thursday began preparing defunct roads to be used as alternate routes if lava from Kilauea volcano reaches Highway 130, which could happen within weeks. The highway is a lifeline that connects the mostly rural, isolated Puna district with the rest of the island.

Meanwhile, the lava appears to be going around the Kaohe Homesteads, a subdivision in Puna.

Canadian convicted of serial killings

PRINCE GEORGE, British Columbia

A 24-year-old man was convicted Thursday of killing three women and a teenage girl in northern British Columbia, making him one of Canada’s youngest serial killers.

Cody Legebokoff was convicted on four counts of first-degree murder after a trial that heard gruesome details about the circumstances of the victims’ deaths and testimony from Legebokoff himself.

He was convicted of killing Jill Stuchenko; 35; Cynthia Maas, 35; Natasha Montgomery, 23, and Loren Leslie, 15.

Legebokoff was just 19 years old when he killed his first victim in Prince George.

3 dead babies found in filthy Mass. house

BLACKSTONE, Mass.

The bodies of three infants were found Thursday in a filthy house where four other children were removed by authorities last month, a Massachusetts prosecutor said.

A woman who lives at the home was arrested on charges related to the living conditions at the house, according to police. Prosecutors said Erika Murray, 31, would be arraigned today on charges including intimidation of a witness.

Worcester County District Attorney Joseph Early Jr. said authorities don’t know when or how the babies died, or their ages and genders. No criminal charges have been filed in connection with the deaths.

Fugitive returned to NC, fled in 1973

IOWA CITY, Iowa

A fugitive captured in Iowa after decades on the run is returning to North Carolina, where he escaped from prison in 1973.

North Carolina officers were transporting 69-year-old Ronald Carnes from a county jail in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, to a prison in Raleigh. They were scheduled to return Thursday, said Keith Acree, a North Carolina Department of Public Safety spokesman.

Investigators arrested Carnes in Waterloo, Iowa, in April after facial-recognition technology suggested that he applied for Iowa driver’s licenses under two identities. They soon learned Carnes was wanted for escaping from prison in Huntersville, N.C., in August 1973, when he was serving time for the 1970 armed robbery of a convenience store.

EU places more sanctions on Russia

BRUSSELS

The European Union on Thursday slapped more sanctions on Russia for helping separatists destabilize Ukraine, limiting Russia’s access to its financial market, hitting the country’s vital oil industry, curbing high-tech exports and targeting more officials with travel bans and asset freezes.

Many EU members had been loath to increase the sanctions against Russia for fear of jeopardizing their close trade relationships with Moscow. But a compromise struck in a video conference call with top EU leaders broke a deadlock that had paralyzed the 28-nation bloc from taking tougher action over the past ten days.

Associated Press