In brief: Bomb threats target Southwest, Delta flights

ATLANTA – Law enforcement officials found no bombs on two planes Saturday at Atlanta’s main airport after authorities received what they considered credible threats, FBI spokesman Stephen Emmett said.

The threats targeted Southwest Airlines Flight 2492, which arrived at Atlanta from Milwaukee, and Delta Air Lines Flight 1156, which arrived from Portland, Oregon, said Reese McCranie, a spokesman for Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport. Both planes landed safely.

The passengers were taken off the aircraft, and police bomb and K-9 teams examined both planes, authorities said.

The threats were posted on Twitter, said Preston Schlachter, a spokesman for the North American Aerospace Defense Command. After being alerted, military officials sent two F-16 fighter jets from a base in South Carolina to escort the commercial aircraft to Atlanta.

Upon landing, the Southwest Airlines flight taxied to a remote area where the passengers and the aircraft were rescreened, company officials said in a statement.

Santa Ana winds cut power to thousands

LOS ANGELES – Powerful Santa Ana winds with gusts topping 89 mph toppled trees and power poles in Southern California on Saturday, leaving several thousand people without electricity.

The Los Angeles Department of Water and Power said about 23,000 customers were without electricity in the San Fernando Valley area of Los Angeles. The winds downed a large billboard in Burbank and knocked a large tree into the kitchen of a house in Van Nuys.

The National Weather Service says a gauge in the mountains near Julian in San Diego County registered a gust of 89 mph at 7:30 a.m.

The winds kicked up Friday night.

A high-pressure ridge also caused record-breaking highs in several cities. Newport Beach had a high of 80 – one degree hotter than the 1990 record.

Murder suspect flees, caught after kidnap

COLUMBUS, Ohio – A teenage murder suspect who escaped from police custody at a western Ohio hospital kidnapped a 70-year-old woman and forced her to give him a ride before he was caught, authorities said Saturday.

In a dramatic escape Friday night, 17-year-old Raymond Matthew Zimmerman was seen running away from the Springfield Regional Medical Center wearing an orange jail jumpsuit and no shoes, police said. Authorities immediately notified area homes to be on the lookout.

At 8:30 a.m. Saturday, police received a call from a man in Springfield, who found the woman’s car missing and signs of a struggle inside her home, and the woman was gone.

While police were processing the scene, she returned home apparently having been assaulted. She said Zimmerman had taken her hostage and forced her to drive him in her car to an unknown address at the Fairborn Apartments, authorities said. Her injuries were not considered life-threatening.

Police descended on Zimmerman at the Fairborn Apartments, where he was apprehended about 10:15 a.m. Saturday.

Zimmerman and 18-year-old Robert V. Winbush, of Fairborn, were arrested last week in connection with the shooting death of William Henson, Zimmerman’s uncle. Besides the earlier murder charge, Zimmerman now faces felony charges of escape, aggravated burglary, kidnapping and auto theft.

Snowplow driver survives garage collapse

SECAUCUS, N.J. – The top deck of a New Jersey parking garage being cleared by a snowplow collapsed Saturday morning, but the snowplow operator escaped serious injury.

Authorities said he was “shaken up” by the collapse in Secaucus, a short drive west of New York City.

A sport utility vehicle parked in the garage was destroyed, but no one was in it at the time. Other people who had parked there were able to safely remove their vehicles later.

The garage mostly serves guests and staff at a nearby hotel and workers at a multistory office building.

Out of Blue, woman gets dog back

GALVESTON, Texas – A dog that vanished from a Texas yard last year has been returned home after turning up some 1,100 miles away.

Sixty-nine-year-old JoeAnn Navarro, of Galveston, said her two pit bulls apparently were stolen from her backyard in May.

Navarro thought she’d never see either dog again, but the Kokomo (Indiana) Humane Society called her a week ago to say a stranger had dropped her year-old pit bull Blue off at its shelter about 40 miles north of Indianapolis.

A microchip implanted in Blue led to Navarro.