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Groggy, but rarin’ to go Sleepy snow leopard cub Yukichi, 2 month old, toddles during his first public appearance at the Tama Zoological Park in Tokyo, Japan, on Friday.
AP PHOTO
LOS ANGELES
Wildfires ‘pretty quiet’
Fire bosses declared progress early Friday in taming the 232-square-mile arson fire north of Los Angeles that has led to a homicide investigation into the deaths of two firefighters.
Flames had died down early Friday and the blaze, which was 42 percent surrounded, was “pretty quiet,” fire spokesman John Huschke said.
Firefighters were using bulldozers to clear a containment line around the fire, which destroyed 64 homes and burned three people.
The fire has charred 148,258 acres of the Angeles National Forest, where many city residents escape to nature during the summer.
Investigators determined the 11-day-old blaze was arson, and Los Angeles County sheriff’s homicide detectives were investigating.
Two firefighters were killed Sunday when their truck plunged 800 feet down a steep mountain road.
RENO, Nev.
Police searching cold cases
Police are scouring old records of major unsolved cases in northern Nevada to determine if any match the profile of the man charged in the abduction and assault of a California girl 18 years ago.
The cold cases include the 1989 murders of two Reno children who vanished near their school bus stop.
Investigators are looking for similarities between numerous cases and Phillip Garrido’s method of operation in the case of Jaycee Dugard, Reno police Lt. Mike Whan said. Dugard resurfaced last week in California after being snatched near her school bus stop in South Lake Tahoe, Calif., in 1991 at the age of 11.
“There might not be any link between the cases and him, but we’d be crazy not to look at the possibility,” he said.
PHILADELPHIA
Candidate testing bracelet
Voters in Philadelphia will have an easy time telling where one candidate for district attorney stands — with the help of a GPS ankle bracelet.
Republican district attorney candidate Michael Untermeyer is wearing an electronic monitoring bracelet for the next month. Visitors to Untermeyer’s Web site, www.untermeyerforda.com, can track his movements minute-by-minute for the next 30 days.
Untermeyer said Thursday the city could save millions of dollars by moving nonviolent defendants out of the prison system and keeping tabs on them electronically instead.
Democratic opponent Seth Williams says the ankle bracelet is just a gimmick and the prison overcrowding issue has no quick fix.
URUMQI, China
China blames separatists
China’s security chief blamed Muslim separatists Friday for a string of bizarre needle attacks that drew thousands of angry protesters into the streets as officials disclosed five people were killed and 14 injured during demonstrations in this restive city.
Police fired tear gas to break up continuing protests by thousands of Han Chinese, the country’s majority ethnic group, underscoring how unsettled Urumqi remains despite a massive security crackdown following ethnic rioting in July that left 197 people dead.
The Xinjiang region, of which Urumqi is the capital, has for decades faced a simmering separatist movement by Uighurs, a largely Muslim ethnic group.
Deputy Mayor Zhang Hong said the most recent deaths all came Thursday.