Vet, 92, gets Purple Heart from WWII

Vet, 92, gets Purple Heart from WWII

FAYETTEVILLE, N.C.

A 92-year-old North Carolina man has finally received the Purple Heart he earned more than 70 years ago while fighting in Belgium during World War II.

Oscar Davis Jr. was a private assigned as a radio telephone operator when he was knocked down by a large piece of shrapnel during the Battle of the Bulge, according to a Fayetteville Observer report. The radio on Davis’ back protected him, but the German artillery barrage knocked down a tree that fell on Davis, injuring his spine. He was paralyzed from the waist down for three weeks and ultimately rejoined his unit in Germany.

Friends, family and more than two dozen soldiers with the 3rd Brigade Combat Team, 82nd Airborne Division attended Saturday’s ceremony.

Cops: ‘No apparent reason’ for shooting on Vegas Strip bus

LAS VEGAS

A man sitting at the back of a public bus on the Las Vegas Strip opened fire “for no apparent reason” as passengers got off at a stop in the heart of the tourism corridor, police said Sunday.

Gary Breitling, 57, of Sidney, Mont., was shot and killed Saturday before the gunman barricaded himself in the vehicle, shutting down the Strip for hours, the Clark County coroner’s office said. He died at a hospital.

Rolando Cardenas, 55, has been accused in the shooting, and he surrendered peacefully after a standoff inside the double-decker bus that lasted more than four hours, police said.

He was booked into jail on suspicion of murder, attempted murder, burglary and opening fire on the bus. An attorney for him could not immediately be found.

Plant failure dumps tons of raw sewage

seattle

Millions of gallons of raw sewage and untreated runoff have poured into the United States’ second-largest estuary since a massive sewage-treatment plant experienced equipment failures that forced it to stop fully treating Seattle’s waste.

The county-run facility has been hobbling along at about half-capacity since the Feb. 9 electrical failure resulted in catastrophic flooding that damaged an underground network of pumps, motors, electric panels and other gear.

The sewage treatment plant – Washington state’s largest – is only partially treating dirty water that goes down Seattle toilets and washes off roofs and roads before discharging it into Puget Sound. It’s likely to face fines for violating federal clean-water laws.

Thousands protest in Russia’s streets

MOSCOW

Russia’s opposition, often written off by critics as a small and irrelevant coterie of privileged urbanites, put on an impressive nationwide show of strength Sunday with scores of protest rallies spanning the vast country. Hundreds were arrested, including Alexei Navalny, the anti-corruption campaigner who is President Vladimir Putin’s most prominent critic.

It was the biggest show of defiance since the 2011-12 wave of demonstrations that rattled the Kremlin and led to harsh new laws aimed at suppressing dissent. Almost all of Sunday’s rallies were unsanctioned.

An organization that monitors Russian political repression, OVD-Info, said it counted more than 800 people arrested in the Moscow demonstrations alone.

Navalny, who was arrested while walking from a nearby subway station to the demonstration at Moscow’s iconic Pushkin Square, was the driving force of the demonstrations. He called for them after his Foundation for Fighting Corruption released a report contending that Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev has amassed a collection of mansions, yachts and vineyards.

Associated Press