On Thursday afternoon a plane crashed near Felts Field, into the Spokane River during a test flight. The two men onboard were fatally injured and died.

The people who witnessed the incident said that the plane seemed to have problems with the engine because it started losing power as it was flying east over Millwood at around 4 PM. According to Andy Hail, Fire Deputy Chief of Spokane Valley, the men remained under water for almost 30 minute until 4:45 PM, when the sheriff’s drivers managed to pull them from the cold water.

Jim Uttke, deputy medical investigator identified the two men as Richard Runyon and Lyndon Amestoy. According to the spokesman it was not known who the pilot was and he did not have the authority to disclose their hometowns or ages.

David Dexter witnessed the plane as it flew overhead from the east of Felts Field. He said that he saw that something was not right and the plane gave out a strange sound, as if it was struggling.  According to him the plane pulled out of the dip and afterwards banked to one side. That’s when he lost sight of it. There was not any crash sound, but Dexter explained that after a short time he heard many emergency vehicle sirens.

Allen Kenitzer, a spokesman for the Federal Aviation Administration, said that the plane was a Piper PA46 Piper Malibu.  Flying Colors Aviation LLC owned the plane. The company is based in Woodland Hills, California.

Richard La Belle, another witness who came at the Minnehaha rocks as a rock climber, explained that the plane did not pierce the water, but it slapped it. He said that he and other witnesses ran to the river, but they only stood there helpless because they were not able to rescue the two men without special equipment. The water was very cold, the current was heavy and the plane was over 100 feet from the shore.

The emergency crews were delayed for almost ten minutes by a Union Pacific freight train. Assistant Spokane Fire Chief Brian Schaefer confessed that such a delay is frustrating when every second matters. You feel completely helpless.

Racheal Hale, a person who lives nearby, explained how one of the men was brought to the surface and put on a raft. As he was taken to the shore the firefighters began chest compression. By the time the man on the raft was brought to the site the other man was pulled from the plane.

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Many of us have been angry and shouted at our computers, sometimes even kicked it or thrown it on the floor. A man from Colorado took his frustration against his computer to the next level – he shot it to death and left its parts in the middle of an alley in Colorado Springs, which is about 60 miles south of Denver.

Lucas Hinch, 37 was given a ticket after shooting his 2012 Dell XPS 410 eight times. The summons was issued by Colorado Springs Office. The penalty he will have to face is for a judge to decide.

The man did what most people have only dreamed about. However, his misfortune was that it is currently illegal to fire a gun within city limits.

According to Hinch, he had bought a gun (a 9 mm) quite recently and was in legal possession of it. He didn’t realize he was breaking the law when he put bullets inside his PC. He stated that he did so because he grew increasingly frustrated with it and had had enough of it on Monday. It was then when he decided to take it outside and teach it a lesson forever. His intention was not to break the law as well, but just to kill his computer. According to police spokeswoman, Liutenant Catherine Buckley, he was unaware of the fact that he was overstepping the law. The Liutenant also pointed out that he was cooperative and accepted his citation without objecting to it.

In a statement to Los Angeles Times, Lucas Hinch said he had been fighting his computer for more than half a year. When asked if he had any regrets regarding his deed and the ticket it got him, his answer was a definite no. “It was glorious. Angels sung on high,” he declared to the LA Times. He also said that it was premeditated and that the PC had it coming for a while. When asked how he feels about his penalty, he said that it is not a big enough price to pay for justice.

He is likely to face a fine but it is highly improbable that he is looking at jail time. The police did, however, take his gun away from him, thus preventing him from hurting other computers.

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The State Attorney’s office is now working with the Baltimore Police Department and the Department of Justice to investigate the death of Freddie Gray, 27 years old, who passed away a few days after he was arrested by the police. The arrest left him in a coma for several days due to spinal and voice box injuries.
His death prompted many protests on Sunday and Monday. His family is also looking for answers. Six police officers have been suspended but according to their reports, they don’t know what exactly led to the man’s death and they claim they hadn’t used force during the arrest.
He was arrested on the 12th of April 2015, in Baltimore for fleeing without motive from police officers as soon as he saw them. He was in the possession of a knife at the moment of the arrest, which was recovered from his pocket pants by one of the officers. One of the witnesses caught the whole scene on camera and released it on the internet. The clip shows how the police are dragging Freddie Gray to a police vehicle while he is screaming and is not able to walk by himself due to a limp leg. After he was taken to the emergency unit, he had to undergo surgery on three vertebrae and on his voice box. Unfortunately, his spine was too severed and he couldn’t make it out of the coma.
The Grays’ lawyer, Billy Murphy said hospital reports show that 80% of his spine was severed. The autopsy revealed that this is what caused his death.
The police issued a detailed report that reveals the details of his arrest. According to it, he was placed in leg irons and the police van picked up another prisoner while taking Gray to the police station. It was also reported that the injured man constantly asked for medical care. The officers in charge of his arrest noticed that he had troubles breathing because he kept asking for an inhaler.
Officials are investigating the time lapse between his filmed arrest and the moment he got out of the van. While Gray was able to move and talk before being taken to the police car, he was in very much distress when he was taken out of it, as he was unable to communicate and his motion was visibly affected. The reason for his arrest also remains an enigma and the police are looking into that as well.
Even if police representatives stated that they are doing everything in their power to clarify the situation and give the family the answers they are looking for, many people don’t trust that the case will be handled with the objectivity required. There are still many ambiguities and questions following Gray’s death but one thing is for sure – activists who are hungry for explanation will continue to protest against the excessive use of force police that officers sometimes employ while making arrests until all this becomes clearer.

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Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio, from Arizona is due to begin a four-day hearing starting today. He risks getting fines for violating a judge’s orders in a racial profiling case.

Arpaio, the chief of Metro Phoenix, has been defying the outcomes of his actions for a long time, ignoring the predictions that his daring approach will one day get him into trouble. That day seems to have finally arrived, as the hearings starting on Tuesday, the 21^st of April 2015 represent the most ambitious attempt to make him pay for his deeds. Throughout his 22-year career he has faced many accusations, but this one is not the same. U.S. District Judge Murray Snow wants Arpaio to pay a significant fine himself. This situation is different from past situations, when his settlements used to be paid from taxpayers’ money.

About two years ago he was accused of racial practices, especially against Latinos, irrespective of their status as residents. Thus, Arpaio’s traffic and immigration patrols constantly targeted people belonging to this group. The judge immediately prompted him to change the situation but, at failing to comply with the requests, Arpaio was ordered to face a contempt hearing.

There are 20 witnesses involved, including members of the immigrant squad, Arpaio and other three people targeted in the case and an agency spokesman.

Four other people will also appear in court to deal with the same charges of disobeying judge orders to stop conducting immigration patrols. The other members of the division were not aware of the ban and continued to disregard the order for a year and a half.

According to Brian Sands – one of the people that were aware of the court order – the Sheriff was suggested to inform the other members of the squad, but he constantly refused.  Arpaio and one of his aides, Jerry Sheridan admitted to having violated the judge’s orders and offered to pay $ 100.000 to a civil rights organization, but the other two accused did not. Arpaio also admitted to having refused to hand in to traffic-stop videos in the profiling case. The legal costs for the profiling case, along with settlements and fees for Arpaio’s office have reached more than $70 million, money that was paid from the county’s funds.

For now, the sheriff is not at risk of overlooking jail time, although it is rumored that the judge intents on exposing Arpaio to this later on.

Whether or not these accusations will affect the Sheriff’s prospects for winning the seventh term is yet unclear. He currently doesn’t have a new opponent and he is still very strong from the political point of view, with an impressive base of supporters by his side.

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Six men from Minneapolis, Minnesota were arrested on Sunday, the 19^th, accusing them of trying to go to Syria to join an Islamic Group. They were charged with conspiracy to support terrorism, particularly within the group called the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant.

The men are of Somali-American origin and lived in Minneapolis. Their names are Mohamed Farah, Adnan Farah, Abdirahman Daud, Guled Omar, Hanad Musse and Zacharia Abdurahman and their ages varied from 18 to24. However, they were reported to be in touch with another man from Minnesota, Abdi Nur, who has been recruiting other fighters for the terrorist organization.  FBI agents arrested two of them (Mohamed Abdihamid Farah and Abdurahman Yasin Daud) in San Diego, where they were caught trying to get passports, go to Mexico and fly to the Middle East. The other ones (Adnan Abdihamid Farah, Zacharia Yusuf Abdurahman, Hanad Mustafe Musse and Guled Ali Oma) were taken from Minneapolis. Reports claim that they were in contact with another conspirator that managed to flee the USA last May. He was also from Minnesota.

The investigation preceding the arrests lasted for ten months. According to officials, what triggered it was the declaration of one of the original conspirators who changed his mind and decided to come forward to the authorities and give away very important information regarding the recruitment and the conspiracy. Many Somali men are called up to fight and provide secret data to terrorist groups by social media campaign issued by members of the ISIL, according to investigators. These six conspirators expressed their deep dissatisfaction and disgust with the American culture. Andy Luger, U.S. Attorney for Minnesota, declared that this is generally a problem in Minnesota and it has nothing to do with the fact that these people are immigrants. However, Abdi Nur continues to recruit fighters for the Middle East and this problem is not likely to stop soon.

This is not the first time residents of Minnesota are trying to flee the country to join such organizations. At least 20 other Somali- Americans have tried to leave the country to fight for groups in Syria and one died.

Three months ago, a group of officials met in Washington for a three-day summit at the White House to discuss the problem of these problematic terrorist recruitments.

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A terrible accident happened at  that killed almost all the fish in two large tanks. A spokesperson from the entertainment center talked to The Los Angeles Times, giving details about the hazard.

On Tuesday, it was reported that the mishap at the aquatic museum in Corpus Christi was caused by a new and stronger chemical inserted into the tanks’ water.

Richard E. Glover Jr., the spokesman, explained that this procedure was part of a sustained effort of getting rid of a nasty parasite that developed resistance to other treatments. The aquarium experienced significant damage as many fish died in this truly tragic event.

Just as Rob Vernon, press mediator at the Associations of Zoos and Aquariums had said in a statement, there are very extremely rare cases when such calamities bestow upon and kill so many specimens.

Glover stated that previous tests on a smaller number of fish were performed prior to introducing the medication in the larger tanks. Because no side effects could be observed, the caretakers agreed it was safer to introduce it in the bigger exhibit tanks.

Four tanks were affected and the number of fish that died was around 100. In accordance with the aquarium’s official web page, the most massive tank was home to “Islands of Steel”, a large display of exotic fish that usually form around oil platforms, creating a fascinating habitat resembling the ones found in the Gulf of Mexico.

Glover said the organisms that needed getting rid of were the trematoda parasite, and internal parasite that includes two categories of parasitic flatworms, also known as flukes.

Even though the aquarium’s spokesperson did not mention the nature of the chemical that caused the accident, there was another official statement that clarified that many other aquariums had used it as medicine in the past for similar problems, and without such adverse reactions.

Glover added that all hands were on deck the entire night with staffers trying to save as many specimens as possible. When they figured out what was wrong, water samples were collected and sent to labs for further testing.

According to a sympathizer of the Texas aquarium accident, this kind of complications still happen sometimes, even when all precautions are taken. Perry Hampton, second in command of the animal husbandry at the Aquarium of the Pacific in Long Beach, explained that parasite infections in fish tanks are rather common, and treating them rarely presents a risk to the fish.

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