Police copter crashes

Police copter crashes

LAS VEGAS

A Las Vegas police helicopter crashed on a residential street Wednesday, and two police officers were taken to a hospital for treatment of moderate injuries, authorities said.

It wasn’t immediately clear what caused the four-seat MD-500 helicopter to go down just before 1:30 p.m. northeast of downtown Las Vegas.

Police Sgt. John Sheahan said the crash occurred just seven minutes after the aircraft took off from its base at North Las Vegas Airport, about 5 miles from the crash site.

Search for plane

PANGKALAN BUN, Indonesia

A much needed break in the weather gave searchers a window today to “fight with full force” to find the victims of AirAsia Flight 8501, with officials also hustling to locate the fuselage of the plane that crashed in the sea four days ago.

Only seven of the 162 bodies have been recovered so far, with four of them found over the past two days arriving this morning in Pangkalan Bun on Borneo island.

98 still missing

BRINDISI, Italy

Stormy weather in the Adriatic Sea thwarted efforts Wednesday to tow a fire-ravaged ferry to Italy so authorities can investigate the blaze that killed at least 11 people and search the ship for more possible dead.

Ninety-eight people still were unaccounted for Wednesday after a pre-dawn fire raced through the Norman Atlantic ferry on Sunday, Bari prosecutor Giuseppe Volpe was quoted as saying by the ANSA news agency.

Relative: Mom kept gun in special pocket

SPOKANE, Wash.

Concealed weapons are part of everyday life in Idaho, and that’s unlikely to change in the Mountain West state despite a shocking accident in which a 2-year-old boy reached into his mother’s purse, got hold of her gun and shot her in the head inside a Walmart.

Veronica J. Rutledge, 29, was shopping Tuesday morning with her son and three nieces in Hayden, Idaho, when the small-caliber handgun discharged one time, killing her.

Terry Rutledge, Veronica’s father-in-law, told The Spokesman-Review that the boy unzipped the special gun compartment in the woman’s purse where the weapon was kept while she was looking at clothing.

Boy’s body found

COLUMBUS

The body of a missing 14-month-old Maryland boy was found in an Ohio creek Wednesday after his mother purportedly lied to police that she had left him on a stranger’s porch.

Officers mounted on horseback found the body of Cameron Beckford in a bag in Big Walnut Creek on Wednesday morning, said Sgt. Rich Weiner, a Columbus police spokesman.

Dainesha Stevens has not been charged in the boy’s death, but Wednesday she was ordered held on $150,000 bond on related charges of endangering children and tampering with evidence.

Cancer deaths down

Heart disease and cancer, which cause of the deaths of half of Americans who die each year, continued to loosen their deadly grip in 2013, while rates of deaths attributed to flu and pneumonia surged, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said this week.

Posting its year-end “data brief” on mortality in the United States in 2013, the CDC reported no change in expected life spans for Americans: On average, an American woman can expect to live to 81.2 years of age — 85.5 if she makes it to age 65. A man can expect, on average, to live to 76.4 years of age. A man still alive at age 65 is likely to live, on average, to almost 83.

Combined dispatches