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Australia: Thousands delayed after power outage at Sydney Airport

Thousands of passengers at Sydney Airport are still waiting to be processed through customs and security to board their flights after a power failure brought baggage and security processes to a standstill.

Power at the international terminal was lost for about an hour sometime after 9:30am AEST today.

Even though it has now been restored, international flights are expected to be delayed and it could be several hours before the backlog is cleared.


Heart - Black

US: Four arrested over death of Phoenix girl locked inside box as punishment, say cops

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© KPHOFrom left to right: John Allen, Samantha Allen, Judith Deal, Cynthia Stolzmann
Police say the family of a 10-year-old Arizona girl who suffocated to death in a plastic container locked her inside as punishment for stealing a popsicle from the refrigerator.

Police arrested Ame Deal's aunt, Samantha Allen, and her uncle, John Allen, on charges of first-degree murder.

The girl's grandmother, Judith Deal, 62, and her aunt, Cynthia Stoltzmann, 44, were also arrested and charged with child abuse and kidnapping. Cynthia Stoltzmann was the girl's legal guardian. Family members originally told police that the 10-year-old's death was the tragic ending to a game of hide and seek. They claimed Ame must have climbed into the box to hide and accidentally suffocated.

Police said Thursday that Ame Deal had been abused for a long time, and had been locked in a chest as punishment, reports CBS affiliate KPHO.

Sherlock

When Nothing Else Works, Dump the Blame on the Ones Unable to Respond: Preliminary Report On 2009 Air France Crash Indicates Pilot Responsibility

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© Brazilian Air Force / ReutersBrazilian Navy sailors pick up a piece of debris from Air France flight AF447 out of the Atlantic Ocean, about 745 miles (1,200 km) northeast of Recife, June 8, 2009.
Some of the mystery behind the tragedy may be solved, but that doesn't mean fighting is over about who's to blame for the 2009 crash of Air France flight 447 from Rio de Janeiro to Paris. New findings released Friday by French investigators indicated pilots of the craft were insufficiently trained for the emergency situation that wound up claiming 228 lives. The report also said crew repeatedly ignored system alerts that their Airbus A330 had gone into the disastrous stall - and failed to recognize the craft was in the halting position that caused it to plummet into the Atlantic. As a result, France's Bureau of Investigations and Analyses (BEA) recommended new training procedures be initiated to prepare cockpit staff for such high altitude crises - even as Air France rejected suggestions its pilots were in any way to blame for the disaster.

The BEA's study certainly isn't the last word on the AF 447 crash, but it does provide official analysis of cockpit recorders found on the ocean floor in May - nearly two years after the plane went down in a stormy zone of turbulence June 1, 2009. Awaiting its complete investigation early next year, the BEA issued a preliminary finding Friday indicating trouble began a bit over two hours into the flight. Seeking to avert a zone of severe turbulence the plane had entered, co-pilots disengaged the autopilot and took manual flight control - a mode the BEA said the crew hadn't been trained in. The situation became critical when speed sensors failed - probably due to freezing - and deprived pilots of accurate velocity readings necessary to calculate flying maneuvers. The result was a series of moves that reduced the plane's speed and placed it in a nose-up position causing an aerodynamic stall. That led to the craft dropping some 38,000 feet into the sea in the space of nearly four minutes.

Heart - Black

Russia: St. Petersburg woman loses fight to keep dogs instead of parents

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© RIA Novosti. Michail MordasovSt. Petersburg woman loses fight to keep dogs instead of parents
A St. Petersburg woman barricaded herself in her apartment, throwing glassware and spraying tear gas at bailiffs who arrived to take her 11 dogs away and let her parents return home, the bailiff service said on Thursday.

The woman had kicked her 70-year-old parents out of the flat so that there was space for the dogs. It took bailiffs more than a year to resolve the problem.

"The judge decided that the St. Petersburg resident must part with her pets and let her parents return to their common flat," the bailiff service said in a statement.

Binoculars

New York, US: Cops Nab Bizarre Prospect Park Poachers

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© Community Newspaper GroupWildlife advocates Anne-Katrin Titze and Ed Bahlman discovered turtle traps last year.
Cops have busted a group of oddball poachers in Prospect Park - a band of vagrants that was trapping and eating ducks, squirrels and pigeons.

Parks officers wrote four tickets - two for killing wildlife and two for illegal fishing - totaling $2,100 in fines during a two-day period last week.

The city would not immediately release details of the incidents, which occurred on July 17 and 18 - just days after park-goers told rangers about a "Beverly Hillbillies"-like scene on the southeast side of the lake, near the ice skating rink.

"This is a dodgy group," said park-goer Peter Colon, who spotted one of the men catching a pigeon while his friend started a fire. "They are the most threatening people in the park."

Heart - Black

US: Woman Crying About Father's Heart Attack Removed From Southwest Flight

Southwest
© StuSeeger/Flickr

Two sisters flying to visit their father who recently suffered a heart attack were allegedly kicked off a Southwest flight after one began to cry.

Ricci Wheatley and Robin Opperman were on a Dallas-bound flight from Oakland Wednesday, when Wheatley became anxious because she is afraid of flying.

"I broke down and started to cry and I'm a little bit afraid to fly, so I said to the stewardess as she was passing, 'When you're going to be serving, I'll have a glass of wine,' Wheatley told ABC 7 San Francisco.

Sheriff

US: Former New York State Police Major Accused of GPS Theft

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© Tomas E. GastonRobert Kreppein
New York State Police have arrested the former head of the agency's Aviation Unit, accusing him of grand larceny for taking a navigation device.

According to police, 47-year-old Robert Kreppein (KREP'-in) of Walden is charged with fourth-degree grand larceny, fourth-degree possession of stolen property and official misconduct.

Kreppein, who joined the State Police in 1987, retired last month as a major. That followed a New York Post report that he allowed family and friends of troopers to ride in police helicopters on routine traffic patrol.

Police say he took the Garmin GPS the agency bought for about $2,400 in 2008. He was released Wednesday with a ticket to appear in Colonie Town Court on Aug. 3.

A message left for Kreppein's lawyer was not returned Wednesday afternoon.

Info

US: Park Service to Thin Out Yosemite's Growing Crowds of Trees

Thousands of younger pines and cedars will be cut down this fall to restore many of the park's original scenic vistas that in previous decades were managed by natural and controlled fires.
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© Mark Boster / Los Angeles TimesThe granite walls of the Yosemite Valley are illuminated by stars and the moon on a clear winter night. The stand of evergreens at the base of the cliff would obscure such a view for most drivers and visitors.

Reporting from Yosemite National Park -- National parks tend to be a tree hugger's paradise. Layers of federal laws, strict park service rules and even the disapproving scowls from some visitors prohibit so much as driving a nail into a tree, much less cutting one down.

But it's getting a bit crowded in Yosemite, where more than a hundred years of prompt firefighting have allowed towering pines and cedars to clog the park's meadows and valleys. These days, you can barely see the granite for the trees.

That's about to change. Yosemite National Park officials say thousands of trees will be felled to preserve the iconic views of the park's waterfalls and the craggy faces of El Capitan and Half Dome.

Heart - Black

US, Seattle: Scrap Metal Thieves Strike Charity for Kids with Cancer


The scrap metal thieves who hit Gilda's Club probably didn't realize that they were stealing from kids, some of whom are battling cancer.

"We work so hard in our community. We've touched thousands and thousands of lives of people touched by cancer, and now we have to find $10,000 to fix this," said Anna Gottlieb, the club's executive director. "It's going to be a real struggle to get everything fixed and up and running again."

The non-profit discovered the missing copper early this week. Someone called police after seeing two men running from the back of the building late last week, according to a police report. When an officer investigated, he found the copper wiring and pipes missing from two large heating and cooling units behind the club, at 1400 Broadway on Capitol Hill.

"It's very inappropriate and very wrong to do something like that," said Jake Sears, a 17 year old who survived brain cancer as a child. "It just kills the mood of what's going on."

Eagle

US: Boston Scientific to Lay off 1,200-Plus

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© unknownDespite some setbacks and the resignation of CEO J. Raymond Elliott, quarterly profit was better than expected.
Boston Scientific Corp. said yesterday that it plans to eliminate 1,200 to 1,400 jobs worldwide during the next 2 1/2 years to free money for new investments, the Natick medical device maker's second major round of cuts since last year.

The company would not say how many jobs will be lost in Massachusetts, where fewer than 2,000 of its 25,000 employees are based. In February 2010, Boston Scientific said it would pare 1,300 jobs worldwide, but similarly did not say where.

Yesterday's move, a day after Boston Scientific disclosed it was investing $150 million and hiring 1,000 people in China, raised fears that the company will gradually shift more work to foreign sites with less government oversight and lower costs than the United States.

"I've asked for information on where they are cutting jobs,'' said state Senator James B. Eldridge, an Acton Democrat. He has proposed so-called clawback legislation that would allow the state to recover money from businesses that receive tax breaks here - including Boston Scientific - and then reduce their workforces.