42—Cleveland Daily Banner—Sunday, January 3, 2016
www.clevelandbanner.com
NATIONAL BRIEFS
Magnitude-4.5 quake shakes in
ocean off Northern California
FERNDALE, Calif. (AP) —
Another moderate earthquake in
the Pacific about 30 miles offshore of far Northern California
was felt lightly by some along the
coast but brought no reports of
damage or injuries.
A preliminary report from the
U.S. Geological Survey says the
magnitude-4.5 quak e struck at
9:11 p.m. Friday at a depth of
about five miles. It was located
about 40 miles southwest of
Eureka and about 250 miles
northwest of San Francisco.
The
National
Tsunami
Warning Center says there is no
danger of tidal problems and officials in Humboldt County say
there are no reports of damages
or injuries. Dozens of people
AP Photo reported to the USGS they had
the lA CAAdA Flintridge Tournament of Roses Association float “Up A Creek” wins the Bob felt some light shaking.
It came was in the same offHope Humor Award in the 127th Rose Parade in Pasadena, Calif., Friday.
shore area as a magnitude-4.9
quake on Monday and several
smaller ones that followed this
week.
Security concerns, temperatures
don’t take fun out of Rose Parade
PASADENA, Calif. (AP) — The
flower-drenched Rose Parade
rolled with few hitches Friday
under cloudless blue skies to the
delight of hundreds of thousands
of fans, some of whom camped out
all night on sidewalks determined
not to let security fears get in the
way of their fun.
The temperature at the start of
the annual New Year’s Day pageant
in Pasadena barely topped 40
degrees but spectators shed layers
as the sun lit up dozens of bright
floats featuring characters and settings woven with roses, carnations
and other flowers.
The theme of this year’s parade,
“Find Your Adventure,” was
inspired by the centennial of the
National Park Service in 2016. The
grand marshal was documentary
filmmaker Ken Burns, who produced the Emmy-award winning
series, “The National Parks:
America’s Best Idea.”
Burns waved to the crowd with
his family from an antique convertible. Earlier, he said he has been a
fan of the parade since he was a
child, though he had never before
attended in person.
“I don’t think I’ve ever missed
one on television since the early
‘60s,” he told parade organizers.
The 44 floats included an entry
paying homage to the City of Hope
medical center that was built by
and featured athlete cancer survivors.
A losing record didn’t stop the
Los Angeles Lakers from entering a
float titled “Every Second is an
Adventure,” ridden by team legend
Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and Paula
Abdul, a former member of the
Laker Girls dance squad.
The massive Disney entry featured a Star Wars theme complete
with stormtroopers on one end and
characters from the animated hit
“Frozen” on the other. It won the
Extraordinaire Trophy for most
spectacular float — one of several
awards given to the massive works
of art that thrilled spectators along
Colorado Boulevard.
“The Bachelor” television series
float depicting a romantic date on
an exotic beach also drew big
cheers from the crowd and won the
President’s Award for most effective
use of flowers.
The India Punjab float got people
AP Photo
trAder Joe’s “Fearless Flyer” float wins the Fantasy Award in
the 127th Rose Parade in Pasadena, Calif., Friday.
moving to its Bollywood beat. It
was followed by whooping and hollering by a mounted unit from the
U.S. Army’s 1st Cavalry Division.
Overhead, a squadron of skywriting planes scrawled antiDonald Trump messages but few
people seemed to be looking away
from the floats. A gentle Santa Ana
wind carried the aroma of sizzling
bacon-wrapped hot dogs down the
boulevard.
Enthusiastic fans began lining
the parade route Thursday. Many
sipped hot cocoa and were
equipped with portable heaters,
blankets and sleeping bags to stay
warm as overnight temperatures
dipped to the mid-30s.
AP Photo
FlAmes shoot from the dragon’s mouth on Singpoli Group’s
“Marco Polo East Meets West,” which won the Sweepstakes Trophy
in the 127th Rose Parade in Pasadena, Calif., Friday.
Their numbers were expected to
swell to more than 700,000 for the
annual parade that served as a
kick-off to the 102nd Rose Bowl
football game between Iowa and
Stanford.
It was the final parade broadcast for longtime TV hosts Bob
Eubanks and Stephanie Edwards,
who have described the colorful
floats and parade participants for
more than 30 years. Eubanks, 77,
and Edwards, 72, thanked fans
and their broadcast crews as they
signed off for the last time and
passed the torch to Leeza Gibbons
and Mark Steines, who will take
over next year.
Authorities said the event was
held under unprecedented security, although there were no known
threats.
Geoffrey Hayton, an attorney
from Redlands, near the site of the
recent San Bernardino attack,
said his father began attending the
parade in the 1950s and his family
has attended ever since. For the
first time this year though, he had
a conversation with his wife about
the potential dangers of going to
the parade.
Ultimately, they decided fear
wouldn’t stop them. “Statistically, I
feel like we’re pretty safe,” Hayton
said.
The massive influx of people into
the city, the length of the parade
route, and numerous venues ranging from float decorating pavilions
to Tournament of Roses headquarters and the Rose Bowl stadium have always required a huge
deployment of law enforcement,
but officials said the 2016 security
effort was bigger than ever.
Mark Selby, deputy special
agent in charge of Homeland
Security Investigations in Los
Angeles and the federal coordinator for the Rose Parade and security, said the plan involved unprecedented resources and technologies.
Federal authorities intended to
use a variety of explosives-detection methods ranging from bombsniffing dogs to devices that register even minute amounts of radiation, Selby said.
Humpback whales slow
to arrive in Hawaii
HONOLULU (AP) — December
usually marks the start of humpback whale season in Hawaii, but
experts say the animals have
been slow to return this year.
The giant whales are an iconic
part of winter on the islands and
a source of income for tour operators. But officials at the
Humpback
Whale
Marine
Sanctuary said they’ve been getting reports that the whales have
been difficult to spot so far.
“This isn’t a concern, but it’s of
interest. One theory was that
something like this happened as
whales increased. It’s a product
of their success,” said Ed Lyman,
a Maui-based resource protection manager and r esponse coordinator for the sanctuary.
“What I’m seeing out there
right now I would have expected
a month ago,” said Lyman, who
was surprised by how few of the
animals he saw while responding
to a call about a distressed calf
on Christmas Eve. “We’ve just
seen a handful of whales.”
It will be a while before officials
have hard numbers because the
annual whale counts don’t take
place until the last Saturday of
January, February and March,
according to former sanctuary
co-manager Jeff Walters.
“They don’t necessarily show
up in the same place at the same
time every year,” Walters said.
More than 10,000 humpback
whales make the winter journey
from Alaska to the warm waters
off Hawaii to mate and give birth.
Lyman said the whales’
absence could just mean they’re
spending more time feeding in
northern
waters,
possibly
because of El Nino disruptions or
because their population has
gone up.
“With more animals, they’re
competing against each other for
that food resource, and it takes
an energy of reserve to make that
long migration over 2,000 miles,”
he explained.
Family spokeswoman: Alaska
plane crash was a suicide
ANCHORAGE, Alaska (AP) —
The death of a man whose plane
clipped one building before
smashing into another in the
heart of downtown Anchorage
was a suicide, a spokeswoman
for his family said.
There’s no reason to think that
Doug Demarest was trying to
harm anyone but himself, Jahna
Lindemuth said on Friday.
Lindemuth is a managing partner at the law firm where
Demarest’s wife, Katherine
Demarest, works. Lindemuth
declined to say how the family
knew it was a suicide and asked
that the family’s privacy be
respected.
Clint Johnson, the Alaska
region chief for the National
Transportation Safety Board, did
not immediately return a New
Year’s Day call Friday.
Demarest, 42, was flying a
plane owned by the Civil Air
Patrol Tuesday when he clipped
the building that houses the law
firm, Dorsey & Whitney, and
crashed into an unoccupied commercial building. He died at the
scene. No one else was hurt. The
crash occurred in the morning,
before most businesses opened
for the day, in a part of the city
surrounded by offices, hotels and
restaurants.
Authorities have said that
Demarest, who joined the Civil
Air Patrol five years ago, was not
authorized to fly the aircraft but
they’ve released few other details.
The FBI released a statement
Wednesday noting that agency
policy prevents it from commenting on an active investigation,
including “confirming or denying
reports surrounding this case
other than to reiterate there is no
indication this was a terrorist
act.”
Searchers find body
of Seattle philanthropist
SEATTLE (AP) — Search and
rescue officials near Seattle
found the body of a snowshoer
on Friday who was identified as a
locally well-known philanthropic
leader and software entrepreneur.
A statement from the King
County Sheriff’s Office said
friends
called
authorities
Thursday evening after 64-yearold Doug Walker didn’t return to
a trailhead near Granite
Mountain, 45 miles east of
Seattle.
About 60 search and rescue
members searched for Walker
through the night and found his
body just before 10:30 Friday
morning. A snow debris field
indicated that he was caught in
an avalanche, the sheriff’s office
said.
Walker served on the board of
REI, was a founding member of
the Seattle Parks Foundation
and had also served on the
Wilderness Society’s governing
council, The Seattle Times
reported. He also helped launch
and fund summer outdoor programs for city kids.
Interior Secretary Sally Jewell,
Gov. Jay Inslee and Sen. Patty
Murray issued statements of
remembrance.
“Seattle has lost one of its most
passionate and inspirational
civic leaders in business, philanthropy
and
conservation,”
Murray said in a statement.
“Doug’s seemingly endless
amount of energy and dedication
to our region was infectious and
inspired everyone around him to
engage and help make a difference.”
Man is crushed to death by
falling elevator in New York City
NEW YORK (AP) — A falling
elevator trapped and crushed a
man to death on New Year’s Eve,
and witnesses said he helped a
woman to safety before losing his
own life.
The man, identified as Stephen
Hewett-Brown, 25, was riding the
lower Manhattan elevator around
midnight when it malfunctioned.
He was able to push a woman
out of the lift and onto one of the
building’s floors before getting
pinned between the elevator car
and the shaft as he tried to
escape himself, witnesses said.
They said he wished onlookers
a happy new year before he died
from his injuries. Witness
Manuel Coronado said he tried to
help Hewett-Brown but couldn’t
lift him out.
“He was saying, ‘I can’t
breathe.’ I tried to pull him up,
but he said, ‘Leave me here, leave
me here,’” Coronado told the
Daily News of New York.
The
New
York
Police
Department said the victim was
unconscious, suffering from
severe body trauma, when officers arrived shortly after midnight. A police spokesman said
he had no information on the
exact circumstances of HewettBrown’s death, but the department says no criminality is suspected.
The city Buildings Department
was investigating the accident. It
came after a string of complaints
and violation notices over the
years about the Broome Street
high-rise’s three elevators,
Buildings Department records
show. They indicate it was
inspected as recently as
September and that a violation
notice concerning the up-anddown lights was unresolved as of
Thursday.
“The elevators were a problem
and needed to be fixed,” former
Tenants Association President
Dashia Imperiale told WABC-TV,
saying the lifts sometimes lurch
up and down. But another resident, Zin Halcomb, told the station he felt the building was wellmaintained.
Bar owner: Suspect in Rochester
attack plot is a panhandler
ROCHESTER, N.Y. (AP) — An
ex-convict arrested in a plot to
carry out an attack at a bar on
New Year’s Eve is a panhandler
who’d been asked to leave the
tavern in the past, its owner said,
while the man’s family said he
had a long history of mental
problems.
Feder al authorities have said
Emanuel Lutchman, 25, sought
to prove he was worthy of joining
the Islamic State group by leading an attack in Rochester with a
machete and knives provided by
an FBI informant.
After authorities announced
his arrest Thursday, his father
and mother described a man
who’d had psychiatric troubles
since childhood, had recently
stabbed himself in a suicide
attempt and, they said, wouldn’t
have conducted the attack on his
own.
“The boy is impressionable,”
his father, Omar Lutchman, told
NBC News. “First he was a Blood,
then he was a Crip, then he
became a Muslim. He’s easily
manipulated.”
The father and the suspect’s
grandmother, Beverley CarridiceHenry, told the network
Lutchman is married and has a
2-year-old son but had been having marital and money problems.
He was frustrated over being
unable to find work and care for
his family, they said.
“He got very emotional and
sick about that,” Carridice-Henry
told the Democrat and Chronicle
of Rochester.
Authorities said in court
papers that Lutchman said he
received direction from an overseas Islamic State group member
and planned to carry out the
attack Thursday.
“I will take a life, I don’t have a
problem with that,” the court
papers quoted Lutchman as saying.
Nevada Supreme Court orders
new trial in biker club killing
CARSON CITY, Nev. (AP) — The
Nevada Supreme Court has
ordered a new trial for a man
convicted of assassinating a Hells
Angel leader in a 2011 shootout
between rival motorcycle clubs at
a Reno-area casino.
The high court issued its ruling Thursday overturning the
conviction of Ernesto Gonzalez,
57, saying the district court
abused its discretion by not
answering a jury question about
a conspiracy charge.
Justices also said the lower
court failed to split up decisions
about guilt and whether
Gonzalez should get a harsher
penalty for gang involvement.
“The cumulative effect of these
errors deprived appellant of his
right to a fair trial,” Justice
Nancy Saitta wrote in the unanimous opinion.
Gonzalez is an ex-president of
the Vagos chapter in Nicaragua.
He was convicted in 2013 of firstdegree murder and other felonies
in the killing of Jeffrey “Jethro”
Pettigrew, 51, who was known as
the “godfather” of the Hells
Angels in San Jose, California.
Pettigrew’s mother called
Gonzalez a coward for shooting
her son in the back before
Washoe District Judge Connie
Steinheimer sentenced the San
Francisco man to life with the
possibility of parole after 20
years.
But the judge added a gang
enhancement to the penalty, so
Gonzalez was unlikely to get out
of prison until he was at least 83.
He’s currently serving time in
High Desert State Prison outside
of Las Vegas
Gonzalez claimed he was acting in self-defense and defense of
others after a brawl broke out on
a crowded casino floor in Sparks
in September 2011. He said he
fired his gun because Pettigrew
and another Hells Angel were
kicking a fellow Vagos member so
hard in the head he thought they
would kill him.
Alec Baldwin, Richard Linklater
join polar bear plunges
EAST HAMPTON, N.Y. (AP) —
Actor Alec Baldwin and director
Richard Linklater have braved
the chilly waters off New York’s
Long Island at separate polar
bear plunges on New Year’s Day.
Newsday reports that Baldwin
dived into the Atlantic Ocean on
Friday to benefit an East
Hampton rehabilitation facility.
Linklater took part in a nearby
plunge benefiting the East
Hampton Food Pantry.
Baldwin is a Long Island native
and a regular at glitzy charity
events on the island’s East End.
The Texas-based Linklater was
vacationing in the area and
decided to join the plunge. He
said it was “really cool, so many
people coming out for a good reason.”
Virginia Beach police
investigating illegal hog farm
VIRGINIA BEACH, Va. (AP) —
Virginia Beach police are investigating after more than 100
hogs were discovered at an illegal farm in the city.
The Virginian-Pilot reports
that authorities described the
farm’s condition as deplorable
but declined to be more specific. The pigs, discovered
Tuesday behind a soybean field
in the southern part of the city,
were relocated to another farm.
Officer Tonya Pierce, a police
spokeswoman,
said
she
couldn’t disclose who owns the
livestock because it’s part of
the investigation. She said the
hogs were found on city property, but they don’t belong to
the city.