World Nation Briefs January 31, 2013
<p>Will Carter, 15, surveys the damage to his house upon arriving home from school following a tornado, Wednesday in Adairsville, Ga. Two people died as storms swept across the southeast region of the U.S.</p>
Powerful storms flip cars, levels homes; 2 dead
ADAIRSVILLE, Ga. - A massive storm system raked the Southeast on Wednesday, generating tornadoes and dangerous winds that flipped cars on a major Georgia interstate, demolished homes and businesses and killed at least two people.
WSB-TV in Atlanta aired footage of an enormous funnel cloud bearing down on Adairsville where the storm ripped through the city's downtown. Winds flattened homes and wiped out parts of a large manufacturing plant in the city about 60 miles northwest of Atlanta. Pieces of insulation hung from trees and power poles, and a bank was missing a big chunk of its roof.
A 51-year-old man was killed when a tree crashed through the mobile home roof, and nine were hospitalized for minor injuries, emergency management officials said. Residents said no traces remained of some roadside produce stands - a common sight on rural Georgia's back roads. One other death was reported in Tennessee when an uprooted tree fell onto a storage shed where a man had taken shelter.
The storms tossed vehicles on Interstate 75 onto their roofs, closing the highway for a time.
In Adairsville, the debris in one yard showed just how dangerous the storm had been: a bathtub, table, rolls of toilet paper and lumber lay in the grass next to what appeared to be a roof. Sheets of metal dangled from a large tree like ornaments.
Suspect remains at large after Arizona shooting
PHOENIX - A gunman opened fire at a Phoenix office complex on Wednesday, killing one person, wounding two others and setting off a manhunt. Police warned the public that he was "armed and dangerous."
Authorities identified the suspect as 70-year-old Arthur Douglas Harmon, who they said opened fire at the end of a mediation session. They identified a man who died hours after the late morning shooting as Steve Singer, 48.
Police said a 43-year-old man was listed in critical condition and a 32-year-old woman suffered non-life threatening injuries.
Israel jets launch rare airstrike inside Syria
BEIRUT - Israel launched a rare airstrike inside Syria, U.S. officials said Wednesday, targeting a convoy believed to contain anti-aircraft weapons bound for Hezbollah militants in Lebanon. The attack adds a potentially flammable new element to tensions already heightened by Syria's civil war.
It was the latest salvo in Israel's long-running effort to disrupt the Shiite militia's quest to build an arsenal capable of defending against Israel's air force and spreading destruction inside the Jewish state.
Regional security officials said the strike, which occurred overnight Tuesday, targeted a site near the Lebanese border, while a Syrian army statement said it destroyed a military research center northwest of the capital, Damascus. They appeared to be referring to the same incident.
U.S. officials said the target was a truck convoy that Israel believed was carrying sophisticated anti-aircraft weapons bound for Hezbollah in Lebanon. They spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak about the operation.
Regional officials said the shipment included sophisticated Russian-made SA-17 anti-aircraft missiles, which if acquired by Hezbollah would be "game-changing," enabling the militants to shoot down Israeli jets, helicopters and surveillance drones.
Police: Alabama gunman kills school bus driver
MIDLAND CITY, Ala. - A gunman holed up in a bunker with a 6-year-old hostage kept law officers at bay Wednesday in an all-night, all-day standoff that began when he killed a school bus driver and dragged the boy away, authorities said.
SWAT teams took up positions around the gunman's rural property and police negotiators tried to win the kindergartener's safe release.
The gunman, identified by neighbors as Jimmy Lee Dykes, a 65-year-old retired truck driver, was known around the neighborhood as a menacing figure who once beat a dog to death with a lead pipe, threatened to shoot children for setting foot on his property and patrolled his yard at night with a flashlight and a shotgun.
He had been scheduled to appear in court Wednesday morning to answer charges he shot at his neighbors in a dispute last month over a speed bump.
The standoff along a red dirt road began on Tuesday afternoon, after a gunman boarded a stopped school bus filled with children in the town of Midland City, population 2,300. Sheriff Wally Olson said the man shot the bus driver when he refused to hand over a 6-year-old child. The gunman then took the boy away.
- The Associated Press