Massachusetts struggles with high water
BOSTON, March 16 (UPI) -- Officials in the Boston area Tuesday struggled with the aftermath of a record-breaking slow-moving northeast storm, as flooding continued in the region.
In Boston, 10 inches of rain fell in three days, the Boston Globe reported. Gov. Deval Patrick declared a state of emergency.
"The sheer volume of water is the No. 1 problem right now,'' Patrick said at a Monday afternoon press conference. "I've never seen flooding like this.''
Some of the worst flooding occurred in Waltham, just west of Boston, where the Charles River surged to record levels. The city opened a temporary shelter as hundreds of residents were forced out of their homes.
The storm moved slowly up the coast, battering the Philadelphia and New York areas during the weekend.
In New Jersey, PSE&G reported Tuesday electricity had been restored to more than 90 percent of the homes and businesses that lost power after what it described as the worst storm in its history. But more than 40,000 were still waiting Tuesday and some might not get electricity back until Thursday.
In Boston, the incessant rain forced the Massachusetts Water Resources Authority to dump untreated sewage into the harbor for the first time in five years, the Globe said.
Scott MacLeod, a spokesman for Massachusetts Emergency Management, warned late Monday as the storm began moving out to sea that some rivers would not crest until Tuesday or Wednesday.
Turkey pushes again for EU visa exemption
ANKARA, Turkey, March 16 (UPI) -- The Turkish government has renewed its call for the European Union to remove visa requirements on its citizens within Europe.
At a meeting in Ankara with Stefan Fule, the EU's new commissioner for enlargement, Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu said existing protocols dating back to 1973 should be invoked to ease the visa requirements, Today's Zaman reported Tuesday.
Davutoglu also pointed out the EU had waived visa requirements for three non-members -- Macedonia, Serbia and Montenegro -- in December.
Turkey has been a candidate to join the 27-nation union since 1999 and accession talks began in earnest in 2005.
Among the hurdles it faces is opposition from some EU states disputing Turkey's geographical and cultural right to membership, longstanding claims of genocide against Armenians in the early 1900s and the more than 30-year-old territorial dispute with Greece over the sovereignty of Cyprus.
Police held gun used in Pentagon shootings
MEMPHIS, March 16 (UPI) -- The gun used in the Pentagon shooting this month once was in police possession in Memphis, Tenn., then traded to a private dealer, officials said.
Memphis police confiscated the Ruger 9-mm handgun during a traffic stop in 2005, then traded it to a distributor in Georgia three years later, CNN reported Tuesday. The weapon also was in the hands of a distributor in Pennsylvania and a dealer in Las Vegas before being sold at a gun show, where the paper trail ended, officials said.
Memphis Mayor A.C. Wharton said he would review the police department's practice of selling or trading guns in its possession, despite the revenue such ventures bring to the city.
"I just don't want our city having any role in getting a confiscated gun back on the streets," he said.
Authorities say John Patrick Bedell, 36, of California was armed with two 9-mm handguns when he shot and wounded two security guards outside the Pentagon March 4 before he was shot and killed. Bedell had previous dust-ups with law enforcement agencies and had been hospitalized several times for mental problems, California officials said.
Memphis police also once held the gun used in January shootings at a Las Vegas courthouse, a law enforcement official said.
Some cities destroy weapons that come into their possession while other cities either sell or trade them, CNN reported.
Larry Pratt of Gun Owners of America, a gun rights group, said if a gun is sold legally, its pedigree doesn't matter.
"It's no different for a law enforcement agency to sell its guns than it is for a private dealer to sell its guns," Pratt said. "They're both going to be going into the private market."
Mexico's attorney general leads probe
JUAREZ, Mexico, March 16 (UPI) -- Mexico's attorney general has arrived in Juarez to oversee the investigation into the killings of three people linked to the U.S. consulate, officials said.
The presence of Arturo Chavez Chavez is a sign of how seriously the Mexican government is taking the case, The Washington Post reported Tuesday.
Consulate employee Lesley Enrique, 35, and her American husband, Arthur Redelfs, were gunned down Saturday in their car in Juarez near the Santa Fe bridge into the United States. Their infant daughter was unharmed.
At nearly the same time, gunmen elsewhere in Juarez killed Jorge Alberto Salcido Ceniceros, 37, the husband of a Mexican woman who works at the consulate.
The three victims had just left a children's birthday party in Juarez.
Dozens of officials from the FBI, the Drug Enforcement Administration and other U.S. agencies have converged on Juarez to determine whether the slayings marked an escalation in the region's drug war, The Post reported.
Crashing plane cushioned by trees
KODIAK, Alaska, March 16 (UPI) -- A small plane that crashed during takeoff on an Alaska island hit a group of trees that slowed it down, helping the pilot and two passengers to survive.
The worst injury was a broken arm, the Anchorage (Alaska) Daily News reported. The two others on board suffered a sprained ankle and cuts and bruises.
The plane, identified as a Britten-Norman BN-2 Islander, was operated by Servant Air, a small airline that has been carrying passengers and freight around Kodiak Island since 1998. The pilot, Jason Lobo of Kodiak, was taking and couple, Zora and Martin Inga, back to their home in Old Harbor.
Mike McDonnell, assistant fire chief for the Coast Guard on Kodiak, said the crash could have been much worse.
"The trees that it impacted initially certainly added to a lessening of impact," he told radio station KMXT, Kodiak, Alaska. "It's in my opinion that had he not hit the trees, and landed out on the highway 50 feet away, it would have been a much grimmer situation."
The crash is being investigated by the National Transportation Safety Board.
