Ill. boy in critical condition after rampage by 3 pit bulls
Cary, Ill. – A 10-year-old boy was in critical condition Sunday after three pit bulls escaped from a home and went on a rampage, attacking several people before police shot and killed the dogs, authorities said.
Neighbors said the attacks started late Saturday afternoon when two children going door-to-door for a fundraiser arrived at the home of Scott Sword, 41, who owned the dogs.
Debby Rivera, who lives three houses away, saw the attack.
“I looked out the window, and I saw a young boy. The dogs were just jumping on him. The screams were horrible,” she said. The dogs were “relentless, like they were possessed.”
The pit bulls attacked the children, and when the dogs’ owner tried to stop them, the dogs turned on him and bit off his thumb, police said. One boy’s father also tried to protect his son and was attacked. The dogs went after another neighbor as well.
Residents threw rocks at the dogs and honked car horns to try to distract them from attacking before police arrived and shot the animals.
The boy who was attacked, Nick Foley, was hospitalized in critical condition Sunday. His friend Jordan Lamarre, also 10, was in serious condition. Nick’s father was listed in good condition. Sword and two others were treated for injuries and released.
CAMARILLO, Calif.
Gasoline prices drop to pre-Katrina levels
Retail gas prices plunged by an average of 23 cents nationwide in the past two weeks, marking a return to pre-Hurricane Katrina levels, according to a survey.
The weighted average price for all three grades declined to $2.45 a gallon Friday, said Trilby Lundberg, who publishes the semimonthly Lundberg Survey of 7,000 gas stations around the country.
Self-serve regular averaged $2.43 a gallon nationwide. The price for midgrade was $2.53, while premium hit $2.63.
The average pump price for all three grades on Aug. 29, the day Katrina made landfall on the Gulf Coast, was $2.65, according to the survey.
The lowest average price in the nation for regular unleaded among the stations surveyed was $2.06 a gallon in Tulsa, Okla. The highest was $2.74 in Miami.
SPRING, Texas
2 die when small plane tries to land, hits cars
A small plane struck power lines and crashed into two cars as it tried to land Sunday, killing two aboard the aircraft and injuring one person in a car, authorities said.
The plane was headed to David Wayne Hooks Airport, just northeast of Houston, said a spokesman for the Federal Aviation Administration.
A Texas Department of Public Safety spokesman said the two people on the plane were a man and a boy. Their names and ages were not immediately available.
A woman in the car was treated for minor injuries.
The pilot was practicing landings.
LUCKNOW, India
Hindus kill Muslims over sacred-cow tale
A Hindu mob attacked a Muslim village in northern India, torching homes and killing three people, after hearing rumors that cows, considered holy by Hindus, were slaughtered for Islamic celebrations.
Hindus from neighboring areas attacked Mehndipur village in the northern Uttar Pradesh state Saturday night and set fire to dozens of houses after being told villagers had killed cows for a feast to end the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, local police said.
A police investigation revealed no cows had been slaughtered in the village.
BEIJING
China asks for help, suspects bird flu
China said Sunday it had asked for outside help to test three possible cases of bird flu in people, while countries prepared for a strategy session in Geneva amid fears of a possible worldwide flu pandemic among humans.
China said it asked the World Health Organization to help determine whether the virus caused the death of a 12-year-old girl and infected her 9-year-old brother and a 36-year-old middle-school teacher in Wantang, a village in central Hunan province.
Chinese experts “cannot rule out the possibility of human transmission of H5N1 bird flu” in the cases of the three, who came down with pneumonia after a bird-flu outbreak among poultry.
MANILA, Philippines
Militant leader sought by U.S. is captured
Security forces on Saturday captured a Philippine Muslim extremist group’s leader, who also was wanted by the United States for attacks against Americans, President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo announced.
She described Radulan Sahiron as “a very notorious leader” of the Abu Sayyaf militant group.
The one-armed Sahiron, Abu Sayyaf’s chief of staff, was on a U.S. list of wanted terrorists.
Authorities have linked him to several kidnappings, including the April 2000 abduction of 21 Western tourists and Asian workers, and the deaths of two Americans who had been kidnapped in 2001.
BEIJING
Explosion kills miners, leaves more missing
An explosion at a coal mine in northern China killed 13 miners and left three missing Sunday.
Twenty-five miners were working underground when the explosion occurred at the Tai ping Colliery in Shanxi province, the official Xinhua News Agency reported.
Nine miners managed to escape, but 13 were confirmed dead, Xinhua said.
Rescuers were searching for the three missing miners, and an investigation was under way.
