World / Nation Briefs December 18, 2011

Some lanes of scorched freeway now open

LOS ANGELES - Half of a Southern California freeway damaged in a tanker truck explosion was open again Saturday, three days after its closure was forced by a tanker truck fire beneath an overpass.

The westbound lanes of the Pomona Freeway east of Los Angeles were reopened Saturday morning. It was not clear when both sides of the 10-mile section of freeway in suburban Montebello would be open again, with estimates ranging from later Saturday to late Sunday.

All eastbound lanes remain closed. Workers have demolished the fire-damaged section of the overpass that spanned those lanes, and were working on repairing the freeway concrete Saturday.

Tests showed that the bridge over the westbound lanes was safe and would not need to be demolished, which would have taken even longer, delaying the reopening of the busy artery.

Neighbor describes mom shooting child

PONTIAC, Ill. - A burst of gunfire sent Annelise Fiedler running out of her home to see what the noise was. In the yard next door, she saw 30-year-old Sara McMeen hovering over her baby as if she had dropped her. Fiedler asked McMeen if everything was all right.

"She looked at me and said, 'No, everything is not all right,'" Fiedler said.

Then, Fiedler said, McMeen shot the baby. Fiedler fled for her life.

While authorities in the small Illinois farming community remained tight-lipped Saturday about the details of what they said was a murder-suicide that left five people dead, neighbors described shocking violence that took place outside, in full view of their homes. Some could see two of the children's bodies from their windows.

The dead included McMeen, her 29-year-old live-in boyfriend, Daniel Warren, and her three children, 8-year-old Skyler Lemke, 7-year-old Ian Lemke and 10-month-old Maggie Warren, authorities said.

Flash floods kill more than 400 in Philippines

MANILA, Philippines - Flash floods devastated a southern Philippines region unaccustomed to serious storms, killing more than 400 people while they slept, rousting hundreds of others to their rooftops and turning two coastal cities into muddy, debris-filled waterways that were strewn Saturday with overturned vehicles and toppled trees.

Most of the victims were asleep Friday night when raging floodwaters cascaded from the mountains after 12 hours of rain from a late-season tropical storm in the southern Mindanao region. The region is unaccustomed to the typhoons that are common elsewhere in the nation of islands.

At least 436 were dead, based on a body count in funeral parlors.

Remains are missing prostitute

OAK BEACH, N.Y. - Bones found in a coastal wetland on New York's Long Island this week are the remains of missing prostitute Shannan Gilbert, investigators confirmed Saturday.

The New Jersey woman disappeared in the spring of 2010 after fleeing from a client's home in Oak Beach, a small community on one of the barrier islands that line Long Island's Atlantic coast.

She was last seen racing into the night toward the marsh where her remains were discovered Tuesday.

Suffolk County Police had announced at the time that they were all but certain they had found Gilbert's body. On Saturday the department said the county's medical examiner had confirmed its suspicion.

Historic visit to Libya by Pentagon chief

TRIPOLI, Libya - U.S. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta said "the torch of freedom" has passed to the Libyan people and he pledged during a historic visit Saturday to Tripoli that the United States will do all it can to help the country move toward democracy.

But he and his Libyan hosts acknowledged the threat of Islamic militants gaining ground in this period of political uncertainty following the ouster and death of longtime dictator Moammar Gadhafi.

Panetta and Libyan leaders identified challenges for the government now forming, including how to gain control of the militias that overthrew Gadhafi during an eight-month civil war.

- The Associated Press