Tapes show 911 efforts during school shooting
HARTFORD, Conn. – As gunfire boomed over and over in the background, a janitor begged a 911 dispatcher to send help, saying, “There’s still shooting going on! Please!” A woman breathlessly reported seeing a gunman run down a hall. And a teacher said she was holed up in her classroom with her children but hadn’t yet locked the door.
Recordings of 911 calls from last year’s Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting were released Wednesday, and they not only paint a picture of anguish and tension inside the building, they also show Newtown dispatchers mobilizing help, reassuring callers and urging them to take cover.
The calls were made public under a court order after a lengthy effort by The Associated Press. Prosecutors had argued that releasing the recordings would cause more anguish for the victims’ families.
The gunman, 20-year-old Adam Lanza, shot his way through a plate-glass window at the front of the school on Dec. 14.
Workers trying to save stranded whales
EVERGLADES NATIONAL PARK, Fla. – Wildlife workers in boats struggled Wednesday to coax nearly four dozen pilot whales out of dangerous shallow waters in Florida’s Everglades National Park, hoping to spare them the fate of 10 others that already have died.
Six of the whales were found dead, and four of the whales had to be euthanized Wednesday, said Blair Mase, coordinator for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s marine mammal stranding network. At least three could be seen on the beach, out of the water.
The whales are stranded in a remote area near Highland Beach, the western boundary of Everglades National Park and about 20 miles east of where they normally live. It takes more than an hour to reach the spot from the nearest boat ramp and there is no cellphone service, complicating rescue efforts.
Biden, Chinese leader discuss new air zone
BEIJING – In candid, face-to-face talks, Vice President Joe Biden and Chinese President Xi Jinping traded arguments Wednesday over China’s contentious new air defense zone, with no consensus about how to defuse an issue that’s raising anxieties across Asia and beyond.
The U.S. will now wait to see whether China, despite international pressure, will enforce the zone – a strip of airspace more than 600 miles long above disputed islands in the East China Sea.
Neither Biden nor Xi mentioned the dispute as they appeared briefly before reporters at the end of their first round of talks. But in private, the issue came up at length during the long-planned meeting, senior Obama administration officials said. In all, Biden and Xi met for more than five hours.
Associated Press
