*Is lazy today.* Missed the last day of AX because I'd rather stay home and sleep in to catch up on what I missed. XD! Had a pretty sweet dream so it makes up for it and I shall be writing it down when I feel like it.

Happy 4th America!
^The fireworks are FREAKING out my animals! Especially Sammy.

North Korea launches missiles
^THAT'S SKETCHY! 0_o;;;

Downtown LA street closure, evacuation may be related to oil operation

LOS ANGELES - A "black tarry substance" that caused a section of downtown Los Angeles to be shut down and apartment tenants to be evacuated may be the result of a nearby oil operation, according to city fire officials.

Los Angeles City firefighters were first called to 1220 S. Olive St. at 3 a.m. Monday to investigate a smell of "sewer-type gases" emanating in the area, but found nothing, said city fire officials.

They returned at 1 p.m. to find the substance oozing through the ground, manhole covers and sidewalks, fire officials said.

A 120-foot stretch of Olive Street buckled about one-and-a-half feet high, officials said. Residents in an adjacent older apartment building were evacuated due to potential structural problems.

The growth of the sinkhole seemed to subside after the Department of Water and Power contacted an oil company conducting a nearby oil removal operation under permit.

Hazmat crews are investigating further.

The American Red Cross was called to help the evacuees.

SOURCE

darko crumbles: OMG, so weird... There is black ooze coming out of the sewers in LA. They think it's gasoline...
spintherevolver: Maybe it's hell.... you know.
darko crumbles: Haha In LA. So ironic.

---

Girl dies while cheerleading

darko crumbles: Oh crap
spintherevolver: ??
darko crumbles: Cheerleading killed her!
spintherevolver: Oh the irony. you would have think the excessive bleaching of her roots would have done her in but there you go
darko crumbles: Oh, that's both horrible and amusing.

There is a fire about ten miles away from where I work. It's in the Anaheim Hills Forest, and outside you can see the reddened, smoggy sky, and ash falling. This morning it was extremely foggy, and all the way up to where I worked too, which is something that I never see.

I want to be home right now and by the sea! Water is my friend!

wildfire threatens 241 Toll Road

At 9 a.m., 800 acres had been consumed and fire raged out of control, with 35 mph winds whipping flames. The fire started in the Cleveland National Forest around 4:30 a.m.


By JOHN McDONALD
The Orange County Register

Smoke rolls over the 241 tollroad between the 91 freeway and Santiago Canyon Road about 8:30 this morning. A wind-driven brush fire started just before dawn in the mountains of east Orange County and western Riverside County.

BRUCE CHAMBERS, THE ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER

ORANGE – A wildfire migrated from Corona into Orange County early today and was threatening the Foothill (241) Toll Road at about 9 a.m., officials said.

There were no injuries and no homes were threatened but officials said the fire had already consumed more than 800 acres and it was raging out of control with winds whipping up to 35 mph.

Youngsters from the Anaheim Hills Elementary School were evacuated and taken to Canyon High School, officials said. There were no other evacuations reported.

There were at least 10 strike teams from the Orange County Fire Authority and three strike teams from the U.S. Forest Service battling the blaze, said Joan Wynn of the U.S. Forest Service.

The fire started in the Cleveland National Forest in Corona at about 4:30 a.m. and it had crossed into Orange County at about 6 a.m.

The California Highway Patrol closed the Foothill (241) Toll Road from the Riverside (91) Freeway to Santiago Canyon Road until further notice.

SOURCE

policepenguin, I know you love airplanes... So here's a story for you.

Man Jumps From Plane At Fort Lauderdale Airport

FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. -- A passenger on a commercial flight jumped out of the airplane as it prepared to take off Monday from Fort Lauderdale, authorities said.

Troy Rigby, 28, of Pompano Beach, was detained on the tarmac by officers who used a stun gun to subdue him, said the Broward County Sheriff's Office said in a statement.

The Boeing 737 had been delayed for about 30 minutes and as it began to move toward the runway Rigby started yelling to get off. He ran to the front of the plane, and banged on windows and the cockpit door. As passengers and crew tried to restrain him Rigby bit a passenger, the sheriff's office said.

Paul Sigler said he and four other passengers wrestled with Rigby as he tried to escape.

"It was so chaotic. It happened really, really fast. He ran at the door and body slammed it," Sigler said. "I had the guy's head and I was holding his neck. The flight attendant was on the ground trying to hold him back. I didn't think he bit me, but then he snapped around and then he got me. He banged my hand between the wall and his head a few times."

When the pilot depressurized the cabin Rigby he opened a door and jumped out onto the tarmac, the sheriff's office said.

"He was saying that he was claustrophobic," Sigler said.

Deputies found him running toward Terminal 3 and zapped with a Taser gun after he resisted arrest. He was then taken to the Broward General Medical Center, but it was unclear if he was injured, the sheriff's office said.

Continental Flight 408 was headed from the Fort Lauderdale/Hollywood International Airport to a Newark, N.J. airport. The flight had been delayed after passengers boarded because of weather conditions in its flight path, airport spokesman Jim Reynolds said.

The plane was carrying 116 passengers and a crew of five.

With a broken right hand and teeth marks on his wrist, Sigler said he does not regret fighting to try to keep the man on the plane.

"People aren't going to put up with that when they fly," Sigler said.

"If this had been a terrorist attack, these folks, they saw community, albeit a small plane, and they reacted to protect that community," Broward County Sheriff Ken Jenne said.

It is not clear if Rigby suffers from a mental condition, NBC 6's Amara Sohn reported. In December, Rigoberto Alpizar, who was bipolar, allegedly claimed he had a bomb on an American Airlines flight at Miami International Airport. A federal air marshal shot and killed Alpizar after he reached into his backpack.

"It's absolutely bizarre, because it's the second time in South Florida," Jenne said.

Most of the passengers on Flight 408 departed at 9:15 p.m. Monday on a different Continental flight to Newark.

Rigby will be charged with criminal mischief, criminal trespass, battery, resisting arrest with violence and battery on a law enforcement officer, in addition to an outstanding warrant for marijuana possession, the sheriff's office said.

SOURCE

Captain-less Boat Plows Into Catalina
Officials find the Heather aground with no one on board. Hours later, the skipper is found clinging to a buoy -- 26 miles away.

By Hector Becerra, Times Staff Writer

When county fire Capt. Steve Escoto and the other rescuers hopped aboard the 50-foot vessel that had run aground on the rocky shores of Santa Catalina Island on Thursday, they expected to find a wayward sailor.

The engine was running and steam was streaming out. But when rescuers searched the Heather, they found no one on board.

"You start thinking about the driver. Did he have a heart attack?" Escoto said. "The boat was running, so somebody had to start it. Where were they?"

So began an hours-long mystery in the Catalina Channel.

Five boats, four from the county's Baywatch and one from the Coast Guard, searched a vast area between Catalina and the mainland, and along the coast between Marina del Rey and Palos Verdes Peninsula, Coast Guard Lt. Tony Migliorini said. A Coast Guard C-130 aircraft and three helicopters crisscrossed the channel.

Three hours later, the skipper of the Heather was found.

Craig McCabe, 59, — wearing shorts and a T-shirt — was clinging to a buoy about a mile from the Port of Los Angeles.

Authorities believe McCabe fell overboard and that the boat somehow made it 26 miles across the channel unmanned.

Lance McCabe told Coast Guard officials that his brother was doing some work near the back of the boat off Palos Verdes Peninsula when a swell rocked it, knocking him overboard.

McCabe was able to grab onto some driftwood, paddle to a buoy and hold on, Migliorini said.

He was found around 2:15 p.m. by people in a pleasure craft. Moments later, Lance McCabe — who mounted his own search after the empty boat was found — arrived and plucked him out of the water.

Migliorini said it appears McCabe fell off the vessel around 9 a.m., meaning he was in the water for about five hours.

He was suffering from hypothermia and was taken to St. Mary Medical Center in Long Beach in stable condition.

"He's in pretty good condition all things considered, because that was a considerable amount of time to be in the water," Migliorini said. "It's cold out there."

Avalon Baywatch Capt. Steve Kirkland said it was fortunate that McCabe's vessel, by seeming chance, ran aground on Catalina rather than traveling even farther out into the ocean — or worse, crashing into another vessel in the busy channel.

But Kirkland said he could see how some boaters would prefer for the boat to have simply run out of gas in the middle of the ocean.
That way it would remain undamaged, Kirkland said, and "someone could pick it up and have it brought back to me."

This is not the first missing-boater mystery on the shores of Catalina.

Escoto said about a year ago, rescuers searched for a survivor after a vessel was found grounded on the island.

When rescuers shut down their search, "the guy came out from behind some rocks," Escoto said.

It turned out the man had accumulated a number of tickets and knew that if he had been found after wrecking his boat, he would probably lose his marine license, and worse.

"He was trying not to get caught," Escoto said.

http://www.yourcounty.co.uk/news/strange.html <-This site is cool!