The Daily Blog

Yellowstone Grizzly Bear Kills Hiker; National Park’s First Fatal Mauling Since 1986.

A grizzly bear killed a 57-year-old man hiking in Yellowstone National Park with his wife Wednesday. It’s the first fatal bear mauling in the park since 1986, the AP reports.

Remote campgrounds and trails near the scene of the attack, close to Canyon village in the middle of Yellowstone National Park, have been closed following the tragic incident.

The mauling comes a week after Yellowstone’s peak tourism weekend.

From the AP:

“This is a wild and natural park,” said Diane Shober, director of the state Wyoming Travel and Tourism agency. “At the same time, the likelihood of this happening again is small.”

Reuters reports that a group of nearby hikers used a cell phone to call a park ranger for assistance after they heard the victim’s wife crying out for help.

A National Park Service statement said the couple surprised the mother grizzly while with her cubs, and that the grizzly fatally mauled the man in “an attempt to defend a perceived threat to her cubs.”

From Reuters:

The bears involved in Wednesday’s encounter have not been captured, and park officials said they did not immediately have enough information to determine what measures, if any, they might take in the aftermath of the attack. Story continues below

Initial information indicated the mother bear behaved normally in defending her cubs and would not be killed as a result of her actions, park spokeswoman Linda Miller said.

According to the AP, Yellowstone National Park is home to at least 600 grizzly bears, though some say the population is over 1,000. While the attack is the first fatal mauling in the park since 1986, it’s the third in the region in little over a year.

2 Shot Dead, 3 Injured in Surburban Philly Home.

GILBERTSVILLE, Pa. — A shooting at a rural home in suburban Philadelphia killed a 2-year-old boy and a man from Massachusetts and critically injured three other people, authorities said Sunday.

Police were called late Saturday to the residence in Douglass Township in Montgomery County, about 30 miles northwest of Philadelphia.

First Assistant District Attorney Kevin R. Steele identified the dead as 43-year-old Joseph Shay, of Yarmouth, Mass., and New York City, and 2-year-old Gregory Erdmann, of Fall River, Mass. Both were shot in the head.

The boy’s mother, 37-year-old Kathryn Erdmann, also was shot in the head and was hospitalized in critical condition.

Also critically injured were the homeowners, 64-year-old Paul Shay and 58-year-old Monica Shay, of New York City.

The couple live in the East Village of Manhattan, where Paul Shay owns a plumbing company, and his wife is the director of the arts and cultural management program at Pratt Institute.

A neighbor, Dan Hoyt, 48, told The New York Daily News that Joseph Shay, their nephew, moved in about a year ago and did construction work for his uncle. “He was trying to help Joseph out,” Hoyt said of the uncle.

He said the nephew recently had an argument with a man outside the apartment building.

No suspect was in custody, and police didn’t have a description of the shooter, Steele said. The survivors were unable to speak to investigators, he said.

The Montgomery County district attorney and Douglass Township police chief have launched a murder investigation.

Authorities combed the area by helicopter and with the help of police dogs and the SWAT team. Township police said the officials had also been searching for more evidence and any additional victims, but none was found.

Steele earlier urged residents to assist in the search.

“If anyone in the area sees anything unusual, sees any people or person that is unfamiliar to them in the area, we’re asking for them to call the police department right away,” Steele said.

Ex-Wolfpack star Lorenzo Charles killed in bus accident.

RALEIGH, N.C. — Lorenzo Charles, the muscular forward whose last-second dunk gave underdog North Carolina State a stunning win in the 1983 national college championship game, was killed Monday when a bus he was driving crashed along a highway, a company official said.

Elite Coach general manager Brad Jackson said Charles, 47, worked for the company and was driving one of its buses on Interstate 40. No passengers were aboard.

He grabbed Dereck Whittenburg’s 30-foot shot and dunked it at the buzzer to give the Wolfpack a 54-52 win over heavy favorite Houston and its second national title, sending coach Jim Valvano spilling onto the court, scrambling for someone to hug in what has become one of the lasting images of the NCAA tournament.

Whittenburg was despondent when discussing his teammate and friend with The Associated Press.

“It’s just an awful day,” Whittenburg said. “An awful, awful day.”

Charles secured his spot in N.C. State lore in the final moments of that game in Albuquerque, N.M., to cap off an improbable run to the championship. N.C. State entered the NCAA tournament with a 17-10 record, having beaten Virginia to win the Atlantic Coast Conference tournament and an automatic berth into the national field. No one expected much.

“It’s still kind of amazing to me that … people are still talking about it,” Charles said in an excerpt from his comments about the championship game on his N.C. State Web page. “I remember when (it) first happened, I figured I would have my 15 minutes of fame and that would be it. Here we are and it is still a conversational piece. I don’t really think that was the only great Final Four finish that has been played since then, but for some reason people just single out that game and talk about it. Maybe because it was such a David and Goliath thing.”

Police released little about the one-vehicle crash that took Charles’ life. Video shows the windshield broken out with tree limbs sticking through the window frame. The rear wheels of the bus were on an embankment, leaving the right front tire elevated from the road.

Charles finished his college career two years after the championship win with 1,535 total points — 15th on the school’s scoring list — and his .575 shooting percentage in 1985 remains a school record for seniors.

In the 1983 run, Charles hit two free throws with 23 seconds left in the West Regional finals against the Cavaliers to give the Wolfpack a 63-62 win and the spot in the Final Four.

Their semifinal win over Georgia sent them to the matchup with the Cougars, known as Phi Slamma Jamma in those years and led by stars Clyde Drexler and Hakeem Olajuwon.

Michael Young, director of basketball operations at Houston, was a member of the team that let a national championship slip away. He told KRIV-TV in Houston that he’s never quite gotten over Charles’ heroics.

“For him to dunk the ball at that moment to win the game, it was one of the most heartbreaking moments I have ever felt in my whole career,” Young said. “Twenty-eight years later, it’s still with me. Every day somebody asks me about it. I thought I was going to get away with it today and then you called me. I’m very sorry to hear what happened.”

Valvano also became famous for his emotional burst onto the court afterward, running around almost in disbelief. Valvano died in 1993 after his public fight with cancer.

NC State retired Charles’ No. 43 jersey in 2008, the 25th anniversary of the championship.

Thurl Bailey, one of Charles’ teammates on the championship team, said it’s tough to accept that the player who made the game-winning dunk is gone.

“But I heard someone say, I was talking to them on the phone about this, that Jimmy V finally found somebody to hug,” Bailey told WRAL-TV.

Current coach Mark Gottfried said his staff had just gotten acquainted with Charles and was saddened to hear the news.

“He holds a special place in Wolfpack history and in the hearts of generations of fans,” Gottfried said in a statement. “We just reconnected with him last week and our staff was stunned to hear this terrible news.”

ACC Commissioner John Swofford said Charles’ play had an uplifting impact.

“As a former player, he made us believe in the amazing and all of us in the ACC send out our thoughts and prayers to his entire family,” Swofford said in a statement.

Charles played one season in the NBA, averaging 3.4 points in 36 games with the Atlanta Hawks in 1985-86, and played internationally and in the Continental Basketball Association until 1999.

A message left on a phone listed to Lorenzo Charles wasn’t immediately returned Monday night.

Police Reportedly ID Suspect in N.Y. Pharmacy Shooting Massacre.

Police have identified the man they say shot and killed four people inside a New York pharmacy over the weekend, the New York Post reports.

Investigators made the identification after reviewing surveillance video from inside a family-owned pharmacy in Medford, N.Y., where four people were fatally shot Sunday in what looked like a robbery gone wrong. The suspect, who police have not named publicly, remains at large, a source told the newspaper.

Newsday reported on Monday that the camera captured images of the suspect: a man in his late 20s or early 30s, about 5-foot-8 with a thin build. He has dark hair, was unshaven or has a dark beard and mustache.

The man was armed with a handgun, stole prescription drugs and killed everyone in the shop — including a 17-year-old girl who was to graduate from high school this week — before fleeing with a black backpack.

The shootings happened at about 10:20 a.m. inside the pharmacy in a small cluster of medical offices in Medford, a middle-class hamlet on Long Island about 60 miles east of New York City.

Police rushed to the scene after getting a 911 call from someone in the pharmacy’s parking lot. When they arrived, they found two employees and two customers dead, said Suffolk County Police Department’s Chief of Detectives Dominick Varrone.

Suffolk County Police identified the dead employees as Raymond Ferguson, 45, of Centereach, and Jennifer Mejia, 17, of East Patchogue. Bryon Sheffield, 71, of Medford, and Jamie Taccetta, a 33-year-old woman from Farmingville, were identified as the two customers.

Jennifer Mejia worked part-time at the pharmacy while attending Bellport High School, where she was finishing her senior year, said her father, Rene Mejia.

“I don’t know what happened,” he said. “She was supposed to graduate Thursday.”

Two teens, who said they were classmates of Mejia, came to the scene after hearing about the shooting from friends on Facebook.

“She was a walking angel on earth,” said Kimberly Jimenez, 18, of Brookhaven.

“She gave me a bracelet and said God would watch out for me,” Jimenez said.

“Why couldn’t God watch out for her?”

News of the shootings stunned neighbors, who said they heard the commotion after police arrived, but saw nothing of the crime.

“It’s absolutely crazy. There are no words,” said Scott Radice, who lives four houses up the street from Haven Drugs and said he has been a customer for 15 years. “I’m hoping they had cameras in the pharmacy so they can catch this guy.”

“This is a family business. Everyone goes there. It is our neighborhood pharmacy,” said neighbor Kathy Culhane. “If you had a problem with prescriptions, he’d go to bat for you,” she said of the owner, who wasn’t at the pharmacy when the shooting happened.

A call left for the man listed in state records as the pharmacy’s owner and chief pharmacist, Vinoda Kudchadkar, wasn’t returned.

Anyone with information on the crime is being urged to contact the Suffolk County Police Department at 631-852-6392 or Crime Stoppers at 1-800-220-TIPS.

5 U.S. Soldiers Killed In Iraq, Officials Say.

BAGHDAD — Five American troops serving as advisers to Iraqi security police in eastern Baghdad were killed Monday when rockets slammed into the compound where they lived. The deaths were the largest single-day loss of life for American forces in two years.

The U.S. military announced the deaths in a brief statement, excluding details. Two Iraqi security officials later said the troops died when three rockets hit near the U.S. forces’ living quarters at a joint U.S.-Iraqi base in the Baladiyat neighborhood where American troops were partnering with Ministry of Interior police. The Iraqi officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak to reporters.

American forces said the incident is under investigation. Names of the dead were withheld pending notification of family. The deaths raised to 4,459 the number of American service members who have died in Iraq, according to an Associated Press count.

With the 46,000 U.S. forces still in Iraq scheduled to depart by year’s end, American troops and their bases in Baghdad and southern Iraq have increasingly come under attack and threats from Shiite Muslim militias, hoping to construct a narrative that they were responsible for driving out the Americans.

At the height of the surge of U.S. forces four years ago to combat sectarian violence that nearly tore Iraq apart, there were about 170,000 American troops in the country. The number then was gradually drawn down to below 50,000 when Washington announced it had ended its combat operations ten months ago.

U.S. troops still in the country focus on training and assisting Iraqi security personnel, but are to shun combat. Nevertheless, the American forces still come under almost daily attack by rockets and mortars in their bases and gunfire and roadside bombs when moving around the country.

The Baladiyat neighborhood where the five Americans were killed is a predominantly Shiite district near Sadr City, a Shiite slum that was the heart of Muslim sect’s opposition to U.S. forces in Iraq.

Less than two weeks ago, tens of thousands of supporters of anti-American cleric Muqtada al-Sadr marched through the streets of Sadr City, demanding an end to the American military presence in Iraq.

The show of force was accompanied by a threat from al-Sadr himself. During an interview with the BBC he said he would unleash his militia, called the Mahdi Army, on American forces if they do not withdraw. He said his supporters were already targeting U.S. bases and vehicles in Iraq.

U.S. officials have been pushing Iraq to decide whether it wants some American forces to remain beyond December 31, and Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki has said he’ll discuss it with the country’s main political blocs. But so far there has been no request from the Iraqi side on the extremely sensitive topic.

The five fatalities Monday were the largest on a single day since May 11, 2009, when five forces died in a noncombat incident. On April 10, 2009, six U.S. troops died – five in combat in the northern city of Mosul and one north of Baghdad in a noncombat related incident.

Elsewhere, a total of 11 people were killed in the northern city of Tikrit, the capital and near the western city of Ramadi Monday.

Four of them died when a bomb exploded at a checkpoint outside a government compound in Tikrit, the hometown of Saddam Hussein. It was the second attack in four days against the compound and the government employees who live and work there.

The deaths were announced by a media adviser to the provincial governor, Mohammed al-Asi. A military official in the Salahuddin Operations Command, which oversees security operations in the province, said a suicide car bomber blew himself up near the entrance to the compound. It had been a palace and support buildings constructed by Saddam, but now serves as a hub for government offices in the city.

Monday morning’s attack is the second in Tikrit in recent days. On Friday, a suicide bomber blew himself up in a mosque inside the government compound, killing 16 people. Hours later, another suicide bomber walked into the Tikrit hospital and blew himself up near the emergency room, where family members had gathered. Five people were killed and 16 were injured in that incident.

Four others died in Baghdad, where officials said gunmen in speeding cars opened fire on two security checkpoints. The early morning attack took place in the Azamiyah district, a Sunni Muslim enclave, according to military and medical officials. They spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to talk to the media.

Attackers bombed the house of a police colonel near Ramadi, the capital of the mostly Sunni Anbar province. The colonel survived the attack and was taken to the hospital. His wife, mother and son were all killed, Iraqi police said on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak to the media.

Violent Thunderstorms Kill At Least 7 In Oklahoma, Kansas.

EL RENO, Okla. — Violent storms that swept through a chunk of the central U.S. killed at least nine people in three states, toppling trees, crushing cars and tearing through a rural Arkansas fire station.

The high-powered storms arrived as forecast Tuesday night and early Wednesday, just days after a massive tornado tore through the southwest Missouri town of Joplin and killed 122 people. After killing two people in Kansas and five in Oklahoma, they continued their trek east into Arkansas before petering out.

At least two people died as the storms ripped through Arkansas’ Franklin and Johnson counties, the state’s Department of Emergency Management spokesman Tommy Jackson said. One person died after a tornado ripped the tiny western Arkansas community of Denning shortly after midnight Wednesday. Another person died in an area called Bethlehem, in Johnson County.

Emergency officials had accounted for everyone else in Bethlehem, said county emergency management director Josh Johnston. Crews were working through the night in the hopes of saying the same thing for other communities.

Just outside Denning, winery owner Eugene Post listened to the tornado from his porch. He saw the lights flicker, as the storms yanked power from the community.

“I didn’t see anything,” Post, 83, said early Wednesday. “I could hear it real loud though. … It sounded like a train – or two or three – going by.”

A number of people were injured in both Franklin and Johnson counties, though officials weren’t sure exactly how many. A rural fire station in Franklin County was left without a roof as emergency workers rushed to the wounded. Downed trees and power lines tossed across roadways also slowed search-and-rescue crews’ efforts.

Hours earlier, several tornadoes struck Oklahoma City and its suburbs during the Tuesday night rush hour, killing at least five people and injuring at least 60 others, including three children who were in critical condition, authorities said.

Some residents said they had been warned about the impending weather for days and were watching television or listening to the radio so they would know when to take cover.

“We live in Oklahoma and we don’t mess around,” Lori Jenkins said. “We kept an eye on the weather and knew it was getting close.”

She took refuge with her husband and two children in a neighbor’s storm shelter in the Oklahoma City suburb of Guthrie. When they emerged, they discovered their carport had been destroyed and the back of their home was damaged.

Chris Pyle was stunned as he pulled into the suburban neighborhood near Piedmont where he lived as a teenager. His parents’ home was destroyed, but the house next door had only a few damaged shingles.

“That’s when it started sinking in,” he said. “You don’t know what to think. There are lots of memories, going through the trash tonight, finding old trophies and pictures.”

His parents, Fred and Snow Pyle, rode out the storm in a shelter at a nearby school.

Cherokee Ballard, a spokeswoman for the state medical examiner, said four people died west of Oklahoma City in Canadian County, where a weather-monitoring site in El Reno recorded 151 mph winds.

At Chickasha, 25 miles southwest of Oklahoma City, a 26-year-old woman died when a tornado hit a mobile home park where residents had been asked to evacuate their trailers, Assistant Police Chief Elip Moore said. He said a dozen people were injured and that hundreds were displaced when the storm splintered their homes.

In Kansas, police said two people died when high winds threw a tree into their van around 6 p.m. near the small town of St. John, about 100 miles west of Wichita. The highway was shut down because of storm damage.

The path of the storms included Joplin, which is cleaning up from a Sunday storm that was the nation’s eighth-deadliest twister among records dating to 1840. Late-night tornado sirens had Joplin’s residents ducking for cover again before the storm brushed past without serious problems.

The storms also blew through North Texas, but the damage seemed to be confined to roofs and trees and lawn furniture and play equipment.

“The hail was probably more destructive,” said Steve Fano, National Weather Service meteorologist in Fort Worth.

Guatemala Killings: Massacre In Caserio La Bomba Leaves 29 Dead, Many Beheaded.

GUATEMALA CITY — Assailants killed at least 29 people – decapitating most of the victims – on a ranch in a part of northern Guatemala plagued by drug cartels, national police said Sunday.

The massacre took place early Sunday in the town of Caserio La Bomba in Peten province near the Mexico border, according to National Civil Police spokesman Donald Gonzalez. Among the 29 dead were two children and two women.

It is one of the worst massacres since the end of Guatemala’s 36-year civil war in 1996.

Gonzalez said police are investigating whether the attack is related to Saturday’s killing in Peten of Haroldo Leon, the brother of alleged Guatemalan drug boss Juan Jose “Juancho” Leon.

“Juancho” Leon was killed in 2008 in an ambush that Guatemalan authorities blame on Mexico’s Zetas drug cartel, which has increasingly wrested control of the drug trade outside Mexico, at times by eliminating their competition.

Guatemalan police said the victims of Sunday’s massacre were bound and their bodies showed signs of torture. They were believed to have worked on the farm. Police found a message written in blood at the scene saying: “Salguero, we’re coming for you.” Police did not say who Salguero was.

Authorities said soldiers were searching the area for the unidentified assailants and didn’t offer a motive for the attack.

“This is a terrible event that we must clarify and investigate regardless of the consequences, whoever is the author of this massacre,” said Guatemala Prosecutor General Claudia Paz y Paz.

Late Sunday, authorities said they had found a wounded survivor of the massacre, who stayed alive by pretending to be dead. But officials did not release any details of what the survivor said.

Guatemala is a major transshipment point for drugs, the U.S. State Department said in its latest narcotics report. Its weak law enforcement, rampant corruption and proximity to Mexico have drawn Mexican drug cartels into its border regions.

In February, the government lifted a two-month-long state of siege that it had declared in Alta Verapaz province, which neighbors Peten province, during which security forces were sent to quell drug-related violence.

The state of siege gave the army emergency powers – including permission to detain suspects without warrants – and resulted in the arrest of at least 20 suspected members of the Zetas.

The Zetas are a group of ex-soldiers who began as hit men for Mexico’s Gulf drug cartel before breaking off on their own, quickly becoming one of Mexico’s most violent organized crime groups and spreading a reign of terror into Central America. They are notorious for their brutality, including beheading rivals and officials. Authorities have linked them to a series of massacres and mass graves in northern Mexico.

The Zetas began controlling cocaine trafficking in the Alta Verapaz region in 2008 after killing “Juancho” Leon.

Osama Bin Laden’s Wife Not Killed In Raid: U.S. Official.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – A woman killed during the raid of Osama bin Laden’s compound in Pakistan was not his wife and was not used as a human shield by the al Qaeda leader before his death, a U.S. official said on Monday, correcting an earlier description.

John Brennan, President Barack Obama’s top counter- terrorism adviser, told reporters earlier that the slain woman had been one of bin Laden’s wives and had been used — perhaps voluntarily — as a shield during the firefight.

However, a different White House official said that account had turned out not to be the case. Bin Laden’s wife was injured but not killed in the assault.

U.S. officials have said a small U.S. strike team, dropped by helicopter to bin Laden’s hide-out near the Pakistani capital of Islamabad under cover of night, shot the al Qaeda leader dead with bullets to the chest and head. He did not return fire.