A gas-like odor reported by dozens of people in northwest Richmond Tuesday afternoon has dissipated, and no source has been found, fire and hazardous materials officials said.

"As far as we know, the odor was just here for a brief period of time, but eventually it dissipated into the atmosphere," Richmond fire Chief Michael Banks said. "Unfortunately, we couldn't find the source."

Fire crews responded to an influx of calls around 2 p.m. about a strong gas odor throughout northwest Richmond Tuesday afternoon, fire officials said.

Banks said some callers complained of headaches and breathing issues after smelling the odor, and a couple of people went to the hospital to be evaluated as a precaution.

Police in New York investigating the cold case of an unidentified dead child dubbed "Baby Hope" have said that they have identified the girl's mother through an anonymous tip and DNA testing.

The mother is not a suspect in the child's death and police are looking for the little girl's father, police said.

The body of the girl was found inside a cooler in a wooded area near the Henry Hudson Parkway in Manhattan's Washington Heights neighborhood in 1991. Police said that the girl, who was between 3 and 5 years old, had been malnourished and was sexually abused.

"We have been able to identify the mother of Baby Hope," NYPD Commissioner Ray Kelly said today. "A DNA match was made with the mother and the mother is cooperating."

The NYPD began a new push this summer after they reopened the case that has haunted detectives for over two decades. After canvassing Manhattan's Washington Heights neighborhood and distributing fliers, detectives were able to identify the girl's mother.

Police say a 17-year-old girl died Saturday after leaping from a minivan being driven by her stepfather. Her mother was also a passenger in the vehicle. Laikyn Field, a sophomore at Jennings County High School, reportedly hit the pavement so hard that she later died from head injuries.

It's been reported that the teen jumped from the van's rear passenger side after becoming upset, although Police are trying to verify what was going on inside the vehicle that may have contributed to her decision.

An off-duty undercover cop who claimed he took no active role as fellow bikers pulled a Manhattan dad from his SUV and beat him to a pulp actually furiously slapped the car's back window so hard that it shattered at the height of the bloody road-rage attack, sources told The Post.

The cop, a seven-year veteran, had told investigators he didn't help the injured man because he rode up to the scene as the beating was nearly over, sources said.

The development came as another biker who helped in driver Alexian Lien's beat-down was arraigned in Manhattan Court on Tuesday.

Craig Wright, 29, of Brooklyn can allegedly be seen on video throwing punches through the shattered driver's-side window of the 33-year-old victim's Range Rover in front of Lien's terrified wife and 2-year-old daughter. Wright is also seen allegedly kicking Lien outside the SUV. He was held on $100,000 bail Tuesday.

Americans trail adults in other countries in math, literacy, problem-solving.

Americans have been hearing for years that their kids are lagging behind the rest of the developed world in skills. Now it's the adults' turn for a reality check.

A first-ever international comparison of the labor force in 23 industrialized nations shows that Americans ages 16 to 65 fall below international averages in basic problem-solving, reading and math skills, with gaps between the more- and less-educated in the USA larger than those of many other countries.

The findings, out Tuesday from the U.S. Department of Education, could add new urgency to U.S. schools' efforts to help students compete globally.

The new test was given to about 5,000 Americans between August 2011 and April 2012. The results show that the typical American's literacy score falls below the international average, with adults in 12 countries scoring higher and only five (Poland, Ireland, France, Spain and Italy) scoring lower. In math, 18 countries scored higher, with only two (Italy and Spain) scoring lower. In both cases, several countries' scores were statistically even with the USA.

Jack Lamar Roberson, 43, was gunned down by Waycross, Georgia police on October 4 after his family called 911 for an ambulance due to issues with his diabetes, First Coast News reports.

Waycross police officers claim they responded to a report of attempted suicide and were told that Roberson was combative.

Upon arrival, Roberson allegedly "lunged" at the officers with two "weapons" and refused to drop them. That's when they fired, claims Police Chief Tony Tanner.

Roberson's family tells a different story.

An Ohio school district has agreed to keep a portrait of Jesus Christ off school property and pay a $95,000 fine in the face of legal pressure from the American Civil Liberties Union.

The Jackson City School District, located in Jackson, reached a deal on Friday after the ACLU, along with the Wisconsin-based Freedom from Religion Foundation, sued the district in February, citing "unconstitutional" actions and charging that students and visitors to the school "will continue to suffer permanent, severe and irreparable harm and injury," according to the lawsuit.

The picture had been hanging in Jackson's high school since 1947 as part of a "Hall of Honor" display meant to highlight famous historical figures.

Those who cut themselves - many as young as 10 - are often dismissed as attention-seekers. But their distress is real, and their numbers are increasing, reports Kate Hilpern
Chloe was just 12 when she started self-harming. "I was very quiet and an easy target for bullies. My brother was unwell, so I didn't want to bother my parents, and I had very few friends. One day in class, I dug my nails into my arm to stop me crying, and I was surprised by how much the physical pain distracted me from the emotional pain. Before long, I was regularly scratching myself, deeper each time."

The following year, on another particularly bad day, Chloe came home to find a knife on the kitchen side. "It felt almost instinctive to cut myself and afterwards, I felt so much better. By the time I was 15, I was using scissors or blades several times a day and never left home without something sharp."

Chloe hid her scars, but one day a friend saw her diary. This led to Chloe's mum, Jo, finding out. "It was a big shock," says Jo. "Chloe, who is now 17, has always been a very sensible, studious young lady. I didn't even know she was unhappy. Making matters worse was the fact that I got such bad advice. I was told not to discuss anything with Chloe, just to march her into treatment. It didn't work."

Last week, official statistics revealed an alarming rise in children who self-harm. These figures show that in the past year, NHS hospitals treated more than 18,000 girls and 4,600 boys between 10 and 19 after they had deliberately harmed themselves - a rise of 11 per cent. During the same period, cases involving children between 10 and 14 rose from 4,008 to 5,192 - a rise of 30 per cent.

According to Sarah Brennan, chief executive of YoungMinds, "An equally striking finding, which reflects Jo's experience, was the lack of confidence among parents and professionals about how to deal with it."

So what's going on? Why are so many young people - children, for goodness sake - self-harming? And where did the phenomenon, one that many people hadn't even heard of until recently, come from anyway?

Rachel Welch, project manager at selfharm.co.uk, isn't convinced self-harming is on the rise. It's just we are more aware of it, says the 35-year-old. Indeed, even the Bible includes stories about self-harming and the World Health Organisation has long recognised it as a problem, not just in the West but in developing countries.

A Defense Department program transfers military-grade weapons and vehicles to local law enforcement. It's the last thing we need

America's streets are looking more and more like a war zone. Last week, in a small county in upstate New York with a population of roughly 120,000 people, county legislators approved the receipt of a 20-ton Mine Resistant Ambush Protected (MRAP) vehicle, donated by the US Defense Department to the county sheriff.

Between the Armored Personnel Carriers locking down main streets in major American cities - mimicking our MRAPs in Afghanistan - or Special Weapons and Tactics (Swat) and Special Forces units canvassing our country, if we're not careful, this militarization of our domestic policing will make-over America, and fast.

Here's how it all happened. A little-known Pentagon program has been quietly militarizing American police forces for years. A total of $4.2bn worth of equipment has been distributed by the Defense Department to municipal law enforcement agencies, with a record $546m in 2012 alone.

In the fine print of the National Defense Authorization Act for fiscal year 1997, the "1033 program" was born. It allows the Defense Department to donate surplus military equipment to local police forces.

Though the program's existed since the 1990s, it has expanded greatly in recent years, due, in part, to post-9/11 fears and sequestration budget cuts. The expanse, however, seems unnecessary given that the Department of Homeland Security has already handed out $34bn in "terrorism grants" to local polices forces - without oversight mind you - to fund counter-terrorism efforts.

Additional militarization, then, deserves congressional attention as the program is harmful and must be scaled back for a number of reasons.

First, the program is transforming our police into a military. The results of such over-militarized law enforcement are apparent from the dispersion of Occupy protesters in Oakland to the city-wide lockdown in Boston. As retired police chief Norm Stamper stated to the Associated Press:

We make a serious mistake, I'm convinced, in equipping domestic law enforcement, particularly in smaller, rural communities, with this much military equipment.

Just before the weekend, the National Park Service informed charter boat captains in Florida that the Florida Bay was "closed" due to the shutdown. Until government funding is restored, the fishing boats are prohibited from taking anglers into 1,100 square-miles of open ocean. Fishing is also prohibited at Biscayne National Park during the shutdown.

The Park Service will also have rangers on duty to police the ban... of access to an ocean. The government will probably use more personnel and spend more resources to attempt to close the ocean, than it would in its normal course of business.

This is governing by temper-tantrum. It is on par with the government's ham-fisted attempts to close the DC WWII Memorial, an open-air public monument that is normally accessible 24 hours a day. By accessible I mean, you walk up to it. When you have finished reflecting, you then walk away from it.