Nation in brief: Five-story fall claims girl, 7
Police say a 7-year-old handicapped girl has died after falling out of the fifth-floor window of her family’s apartment in New York City.
Police say Chelsea Maldonado died Thursday from injuries suffered when she fell from the window of her apartment in the Bronx. She was taken to a hospital in critical condition Wednesday evening.
Chelsea was blind in one eye, autistic and used a wheelchair.
Police told the Daily News of New York that the lower half of the window had a child-protection guard.
New York
‘Sopranos’ actor commits suicide
The actor who portrayed the gay lover of a closeted mobster on “The Sopranos” has died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound in New York, police said.
Police spokesman Lt. John Grimpel said John Costelloe was found dead in an apparent suicide at his Brooklyn home on Dec. 18.
Police were called to his residence after family members were unable to reach him.
The 47-year-old former New York City firefighter gained fame in 2006 when he was cast as short-order cook Jim “Johnny Cakes” Witowski opposite Joseph Gannascoli, who played gay mobster Vito Spatafore on the hit HBO show.
Trenton, N.J.
Bottlenose dolphin found dead
Another member of a group of bottlenose dolphins that took up residence in two rivers near the New Jersey shore has died.
The co-director of the Marine Mammal Stranding Center said the dolphin was discovered Thursday near the Route 36 bridge connecting Sea Bright and Highlands.
Robert Schoelkopf said the dolphin was about 8 feet long and weighed 400 to 500 pounds. The cause of death hasn’t been determined.
The dolphin is the third among the original 15 to die. They spent the summer and fall in the Shrewsbury and Navesink rivers.
Murray, Utah
Store has bone to pick with pooch
A thief remains at large after pulling off a daring heist – in the pet food aisle.
Surveillance video at a supermarket in this Salt Lake City suburb caught a dog shoplifting, KSL-TV reported Wednesday.
The video showed the dog walking into Smith’s Food & Drug and heading straight to Aisle 16, the pet food aisle, where it grabbed a bone worth $2.79.
The thief wasn’t even perturbed by a face-to-face confrontation with store manager Roger Adamson.
“I looked at him. I said ‘Drop it!’ ” Adamson said. “He looked at me, and I looked at him, and he ran for the door and away he went, right out the front door.”