Military vehicles crash; two dead
San Diego - Two military vehicles carrying Marines to the Miramar air base crashed on a freeway Wednesday night, killing two Marines and injuring two others, authorities said.
The fatally injured victims were ejected 100 feet over the side the southbound Interstate 15 freeway, Officer Mark Gregg, a California Highway Patrol spokesman, said.
The two injured Marines were transported to a nearby hospital, said Maurice Luque, a San Diego Fire-Rescue Department spokesman. They were listed in fair condition at Pomerado Hospital in Poway, nursing supervisor Lorie Vermaire said.
The vehicles came to rest on the edge of the bridge and traffic was backed up for miles.
The cause of the crash remained under investigation.
Police: Dogs got sitter, but kids didn’t
Manteca, Calif. - A married couple who got a dog sitter for their puppies but left the man’s young children home alone while they vacationed in Las Vegas were arrested Wednesday, police said.
Jacob Calero, 39, and Michelle De La Vega, 32, were taken into custody as they arrived home on a flight to Oakland. They had left town Friday to celebrate the new year, authorities said.
The couple apparently told 9-year-old Joshua to look after his 5-year-brother, Jason, who is autistic. The children spent one night alone before police found them.
The grandmother, Libbey Holden, said she called police because she had suspected the couple left the children at home in San Ramon, about 35 miles east of San Francisco.
Joshua said his father and stepmother got each other puppies for Christmas, which they brought to De La Vega’s mother to care for before leaving town.
“I thought they loved them more than us,” Joshua told the Associated Press during an interview at his maternal grandmother’s apartment. The children’s mother died in 2003.
50,000-acre blaze is nearly contained
Dallas - A wildfire that scorched about 50,000 acres in western Texas was nearly contained Wednesday as firefighters across the state monitored flare-ups amid slightly lighter winds and cooler temperatures.
The blaze, which stretched across Irion and Reagan counties west of San Angelo, was the last major wildfire in Texas.
Grass fires started by as little as a spark from a car or downed power lines have burned more than 600,000 acres across a drought-stricken stretch of Oklahoma, Texas and New Mexico in the past week and a half. The fires have destroyed at least 470 homes and killed five people.
D.C. leaders approve ban on smoking
Washington, D.C. - Smoking inside most bars and restaurants in the nation’s capital would become illegal under a ban approved Wednesday by the D.C. Council.
“It’s going to ban smoking virtually everywhere,” Councilman Marion Barry said of the measure prohibiting smoking in most public and private buildings.
The new prohibitions are expected to take effect Jan. 1, 2007. The delay is designed to give the city health department time to hire and train inspectors.
It will also give some restaurant and club owners time to design and build outdoor facilities where smoking will be allowed.