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From Hurricane Irma to the Northern California wildfires, this year has seen its fair share of natural disasters. These disasters may have you thinking about what you should do in the eventuality one hits your city - how do you prepare and should you think about leaving? According to an expert, a lot of what drives large-scale evacuations is mass hysteria and fear, and most natural disasters don't require an immediate evacuation because they can be predicted, for example hurricanes. However, there are certain things city dwellers can do in preparation for a sudden disaster. John Renne, the Director of...

Jennifer Randa didn't need to see the official numbers released this month by the Duluth Police Department: crime up nearly 20 percent from 2004 to 2005, with drug crime more than doubling and violent crimes up by 32 percent. From the Union Gospel Mission, where she helps provide meals and clothing to the homeless, Randa monitors the daily fistfights and street prostitution, the bustling drug trade and random vandalism sapping life in the city's Central Hillside neighborhood.

by Mark Finkelstein October 1, 2006 - 15:28 To save you the trouble, let me sum up Joan Vennochi's Boston Globe column of today, Carnage on the streets falling on deaf ears: - Violent crime is increasing. - It's Bush's fault because he's not sending enough money to local governments. - He doesn't care about the uptick because the victims tend to be young black men. - Oh, and to heck with the Constitution. There. That wraps it up nutshell. My favorite bit is Venocchi approving citation of L.A. police chief William Bratton: ``The federal government has stepped back significantly...

NEW YORK -- New York City police said a 28-year-old Queens man was stabbed in the stomach Friday after he came on to a lesbian in the West Village. Police said Dwayne Buckle was in critical condition Saturday at Saint Vincent's Hospital, where he underwent surgery on his liver. Investigators said Buckle was stabbed after he stopped a 19-year-old woman and told her she was pretty. The Daily News reported in its Saturday editions that Buckle, who the paper described as a “DVD bootlegger in the West Village,” spat on the 4-foot-11 woman after she rebuffed him. According to police,...

(AP) HOUSTON -- A letter to inmate No. 1352951 and a cell phone bill for $76.63, both found in a soggy New Orleans duplex ruined by Hurricane Katrina, led Louisiana bounty hunter James Martin to Texas. Again. It marked the seventh time since Katrina that Martin, whose pursuit of bail jumpers often begins with clues salvaged from abandoned New Orleans homes, has followed a trail to Texas. "I don't think Texas really knows what they got," Martin said. Katrina sent a lot of bad guys to Texas, as Houston is finding out. Houston took in 150,000 evacuees -- the most...

A rap song sparked a nightclub shooting between rival gangs that had declared a truce to celebrate a birthday, leaving two men dead and four injured, police said. The song — Put Yo Hood Up by Lil' Jon & The East Side Boyz — urges listeners to flash hand signs for their neighborhood and confront rivals. It was played before Sunday's shooting, said Deputy Chief Alfredo Saldaña

A riot broke out in Orlando overnight. Police were making what seemed to be a routine arrest, but they wound up outnumbered 200 to 10. "I don't remember something escalating to this level of violence for the last 10 to 15 years." It looked like a simple drug bust at the Palms Apartments on Mercy Drive. However, Lieutenant Laura Houston says things started getting wild when Orlando police tried to take the suspects into custody. "Another guy came up and started interfering with that arrest." That man said he wouldn't let police arrest the two suspects; one of the suspects...

PENSACOLA, Fla. -- Escambia County officials have charged a jail inmate with inciting a fight between two women he had dated, one of whom died during the dispute. Authorities say 19-year-old Lavon Mars was recorded telling his girlfriend to beat an ex-girlfriend, who was pregnant with his child. According to investigators, Mars' former girlfriend had accused him of domestic violence. While on the phone with Mars, 19-year-old Latodra Dees attacked 18-year-old Tia Richardson in Richardson's living room. Richardson killed Dees while defending herself with a seven-inch steak knife.

¶ ST. LOUIS (AP) _ Twelve boys in the first and second grade at a St. Louis elementary school are accused of sexually assaulting a second-grade girl during recess, authorities said Tuesday. ¶ One teacher who was supposed to be supervising the recess has been fired, and another suspended with pay, St. Louis schools superintendent Creg Williams said. Ten of the boys, ages 6 to 8, were suspended for the rest of the school year, and the other two received five-day in-school suspensions. Names of the teachers and students were not released. ¶ The girl, who is 8, is physically...

NEW ORLEANS -- Jane Anderson misses the old days _ the days right after Hurricane Katrina when National Guardsmen with rifles roamed the street outside the New Orleans shop where she works. The days when there weren't many people around and crime was down sharply. "I know it's still pretty safe," Anderson says. "But it doesn't feel that way. We're hearing about more things happening, more murders, more bad guys returning." Murder is making a comeback in New Orleans. The city had 30 murders this year through April. That is less than half of the 81 recorded during the first...

NEW ORLEANS - Jane Anderson misses the old days — the days right after Hurricane Katrina when National Guardsmen with rifles roamed the street outside the New Orleans shop where she works. The days when there weren't many people around and crime was down sharply. "I know it's still pretty safe," Anderson says. "But it doesn't feel that way. We're hearing about more things happening, more murders, more bad guys returning." Murder is making a comeback in New Orleans.

Police made two more arrests Friday in the MGM Grand group beating case, after a massive late-night SWAT raid at the home of the first teen charged in the attack. Demarcus Smith, 18, and a teenager whose name was not released because he is a juvenile were taken into custody shortly after midnight, Las Vegas police said. Smith remained jailed at the Clark County Detention Center late Friday.

LAS VEGAS (AP) - Police released a videotape showing a casino employee being mauled by a group of youths near an entrance to a Las Vegas Strip resort parking garage, and issued a plea for help identifying the assailants. A surveillance video of the 2:20 a.m. Saturday attack, released Monday, shows the man leaving a golf cart and being punched, hit with a belt or chain, beaten and kicked after he falls to the ground in a driveway at the MGM Grand hotel-casino. The victim, whose name and age were not released, suffered a broken jaw and a broken collarbone,...