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The Spokesman-Review Newspaper
Spokane, Washington  Est. May 19, 1883

In brief: Fuel transfer begins at iced-in Nome

ANCHORAGE, Alaska – Crews began transferring 1.3 million gallons of fuel Monday from a Russian fuel tanker to the iced-in western Alaska city of Nome.

The offloading began near sundown, said Stacey Smith of Vitus Marine, the fuel supplier that arranged to have the Russian tanker Renda and its crew deliver the gasoline and diesel fuel. Earlier, crews laid the hoses along a stretch of Bering Sea ice. On Monday, they hooked the hoses to a pipeline that begins on a rock causeway 550 yards from the tanker, which is moored about half a mile offshore, said Jason Evans, board chairman of the Sitnasuak Native Corp.

Murder suspect recorded her meth use

FRESNO, Calif. – Police say a woman who shot her two children, their father and a cousin in California’s Central Valley and then committed suicide took video of herself on her iPad as she smoked methamphetamine several hours earlier.

The apparent murder-suicide by 23-year-old Aide Mendez began Sunday morning when she argued with the father of her two children, 33-year-old Eduardo Lopez.

Lt. Mark Salazar, homicide commander for the Fresno Police Department, said police arrived on the scene to find Lopez outside the Silver Lakes Apartment with knife and gunshot wounds.

Officers heard a shot from inside the apartment and discovered Mendez had fatally shot herself and her two children, 17-month-old Aliyah Echeverria and 3-year-old Isaiah Echeverria. She also shot and killed a cousin, 27-year-old Paul Medina. Lopez was hospitalized in critical condition.

Nationally known climber dies after fall

GRAND JUNCTION, Colo. – A Colorado sheriff said a nationally known climber who wrote books and numerous articles on the subject has died after falling 60 feet during a climb.

San Miguel Sheriff Bill Masters told the Grand Junction Daily Sentinel that 58-year-old Jack Roberts suffered a broken hip in Sunday’s fall and went into cardiac arrest during the rescue.

Roberts had been climbing on the Bridal Veil Ice Falls east of Telluride in San Miguel County. Members of the San Miguel County Search and Rescue Team spent 40 minutes trying to resuscitate him.

Roberts had been a climber for more than 40 years and was well known in the climbing community as a guide and instructor.