Nation in brief: Thieves rob church of money for poor

Two thieves spoiled Christmas Day for a church, robbing the safe of more than $20,000 in donations for needy children, police said.

The pastor at St. Mel’s Roman Catholic Church in Queens said he believed the two men knew where they were going when they broke in through the back door and stole between $20,000 and $30,000 after morning Mass.

“It was done while the people were in the building,” the Rev. Christopher J. Turczany said.

When church employees left the back area where the safe was located, the money box was removed from the safe, he said.

A parishioner saw the crooks flee with the cash in a sport utility vehicle. No arrests had been made as of Monday evening.

PORTLAND, Maine

Ominous note delays flight

A New York-to-Portland, Maine, flight carrying former Maine Gov. Angus King was delayed for more than two hours on Christmas Eve after a passenger passed along a note about blood and death.

The man, whose name was not released, gave the note to another passenger, Tammy Budek, who gave it to a flight attendant as the plane rolled toward the runway at New York’s LaGuardia Airport.

“He said he had AIDS, and the shedding of his blood and all our blood would cure all sickness,” Budek, of Sharpsville, Pa., told the Portland Press Herald at Portland International Jetport on Sunday. She said the note suggested “he was Jesus and it was time for everybody to die.”

The note writer, who appeared to be about 35 years old, was taken into custody and hospitalized. Alan Hicks, spokesman for the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, said it was unlikely that the man would be charged with a crime.

DALLAS

Numerous visits made to home

Caseworkers had investigated a family home eight times before a toddler was stabbed to death, allegedly by a 9-year-old boy, but conditions were never bad enough to warrant state intervention, officials say.

“It never rose to the level of imminent danger,” said Marissa Gonzales, a spokeswoman for the Texas Department of Child Protective Services.

More than a dozen children were at the home of Detress Richmond without an adult Friday when 2-year-old Damya Jefferson was stabbed twice in the chest, authorities said. The children had been left in the care of a 15-year-old baby sitter, who was in the house’s downstairs while the children were upstairs.

Damya and her 2-month-old sister had been left with Richmond by their mother, Tiara Jefferson, 17, while she went to earn extra Christmas money Friday by braiding hair, police said.

No charges had been filed as of Monday.

The boy who is thought to have stabbed Damya cannot be prosecuted because of his age, and was placed in a hospital, authorities said.