In brief: Teen tells blacks to leave Walmart
WASHINGTON TOWNSHIP, N.J. – A 16-year-old boy who police said made an announcement at a Walmart ordering all black people in the southern New Jersey store to leave was charged with harassment and bias intimidation, authorities said Saturday.
The boy, whose name is not being released because he is a juvenile, grabbed one of the courtesy phones at Walmart’s Washington Township store Sunday evening and calmly announced: “Attention, Walmart customers: All black people, leave the store now,” police said.
The teen was arrested Friday and released to the custody of his parents; police did not know whether he had a lawyer.
Snow, wind mark start of spring
NORMAN, Okla. – A powerful storm began blowing through Oklahoma and the southern Plains on the first day of spring Saturday, bringing heavy snow and strong winds a day after temperatures reached into the 70s.
Forecasters said gusts of up to 40 mph could create drifts of blowing snow and blizzard conditions in what the National Weather Service called “a potentially life-threatening” storm. Authorities attributed at least three deaths in three states to the weather.
Much of Oklahoma, the Texas Panhandle and parts of Kansas, Missouri and Arkansas were under a winter storm warning that was to last into today.
Small planes collide, killing 3
WILLISTON, Fla. – A single-engine plane and a kit-built aircraft collided in clear, sunny skies Saturday over central Florida, killing three people, authorities said.
A Williston woman who thought she heard a gunshot discovered the kit-built plane upside down in a field near her house and called authorities, said Levy Sheriff’s Office Capt. Evan Sullivan. When emergency responders arrived, they found a second plane engulfed in flames in a dense wooded area several hundred yards away.
Debris from the planes was spread about a half-mile long and a quarter-mile wide, Sullivan said. Two bodies were found in the Piper 32 in the wooded area and a 73-year-old man was discovered in the other plane.