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The government turned down a U.S. offer of technical help to cool overheating nuclear reactors in Fukushima Prefecture soon after last week's massive earthquake because it believed the offer was "premature," The Yomiuri Shimbun has learned. The reactors have since been hit by several explosions and radiation has leaked out. Some observers believe this could have been prevented if the government had accepted the U.S. offer.

SAN YSIDRO, Calif. -- A pedestrian struck by a car and killed just north of the international border was identified Friday as a 31-year-old Tijuana woman. Alma Luz Alfaro Gonzalez was crossing the street in a crosswalk at Paseo de las Americas at Siempre Viva Road when she was hit by a tractor-trailer rig making a right turn just after 6 p.m. Thursday, according to the San Diego County Medical Examiner's Office. San Diego police Officer David Stafford said the woman was talking on her cell phone and ignored a red light. Witnesses gave aid to the woman and called...

After breaking into an Oregon residence last night, Timothy Chapek, 24, barricaded himself in a bathroom after the owner unexpectedly arrived home. Chapek, you see, was worried that Hilary Mackenzie might be armed (or that her barking German Shepherds could prove problematic). So he called 911 seeking help. “I just broke into a house and the owner came home,” Chapek told a police operator. “You broke into a house?” the surprised operator responded. “I think she’s got guns,” Chapek added. Simultaneously, Mackenzie called police to report that there was an intruder in her Portland home (she told an operator that...

ANCHORAGE, Alaska - Authorities say an Alaska-based soldier told police a fellow soldier asked for a bullet to put in a gun's empty chamber before he fatally shot himself during a drunken game of Russian roulette. Jacob Brouch is charged with second-degree murder in the death of his 26-year-old Army friend -- Michael McCloskey of Beverly, N.J. -- following the early Sunday shooting at Brouch's home in Eagle River, an Anchorage suburb.

"The driver of the SUV, Stella Thomas, 42, of Graham, attempted to enter a curve on North Ireland Street near Virginia Avenue when the mattresses became unstable and slid off the roof, police said. Walker then fell off the roof, striking his head on the roadway, police said."

EARLIMART, Calif. — A Lamont man was killed earlier this week by a chicken. Jose Luis Ochoa, 35, was stabbed by a knife attached to the leg of a fighting rooster, the Kern County coroner's office said Friday.

Alleged Bank Robber Takes Hostage - Shot By Police After Slipping And Falling On Ice Updated: Friday, 28 Jan 2011, 10:18 AM EST Published : Friday, 28 Jan 2011, 9:53 AM EST by MYFOXDC TAKOMA PARK, Md. - Dramatic video shows an alleged bank robber being taken down by police after slipping and falling on ice. WARNING – GRAPHIC VIDEO The incident happened at the Capital One Bank in Takoma Park, Md. around 9:00 a.m. on Friday. Police had the bank surrounded when the alleged robber came out of the front door with what looked like a gun to the...

MARION COUNTY, Fla. -- A man who deputies said was breaking into a Marion County home died after a family pet scared him away. Butler suffered cuts from glass shards and collapsed in a neighbor's yard. He later died, according to deputies. "I'm very grateful to my dog for protecting my house," homeowner Angela Wilcox said. "I wish he would not have broken into my home." Wilcox said Butler lived in the neighborhood. She said Butler's girlfriend told her he was hallucinating from drugs at the time he broke in. Deputies said Butler did not steal anything from the home....

SCOTTS VALLEY -- Melissa Martinez, the 17-year-old from Scotts Valley who perished in a warehouse fire in New Orleans on Tuesday morning, could have returned home, but her soft heart led her to stay with friends instead, according to her mother Rebecca Snook. "She compassionately made a choice to join her new friends in their discomfort in the bitter cold," her mother said in a statement from New Orleans, sharing the story with her daughter's friends in Scotts Valley. "In her characteristically powerful way, she was respecting and supporting their lifestyle choice. She was enjoying their company purely for what...

A University Park man who killed a neighbor whose dog urinated on his lawn was sentenced today to four years probation. "This is not justice," said Gail Williams, the slain man's aunt. Charles Clements, 69, a great-grandfather, former Marine and retired truck driver who took great pride in his lawn's appearance, could have been sentenced to as much as 20 years. In declining to send Clements to jail, Will County Judge Daniel Rozak noted the episode was Clements' first contact with the legal system in his 69 years. He also said the slaying wasn't about a dog urinating on a...

Montreal police Const. Anie Lemieux said the initial investigation suggests the youths may have been spray-painting graffiti. It's believed they had parked their cars near the scene before heading to the tracks. Lemieux said they were in an area where it would have been difficult to hear trains approaching.

He developed the idea in the early 1970s on expeditions to the Franconian Jura mountains, when he would paint a red “x” on each piton he could avoid using for a foot- or handhold. Once he was able to complete a route avoiding all of them, he would paint a red dot at the base of the climb so that others could have a go. Albert’s “redpoints” sparked the development of the sport climbing movement and the term “redpoint” is used as a measure of performance.... A turning point in his life came in 1973 during a trip to the...

Jerome Williams was 12 when he fought a teacher at Northview Heights Elementary School. He was 14 when police accused him of shooting out windows in the Northview Heights housing complex where he lived. At 15, four days after a juvenile detention center released him, he died in a shootout with police officers responding to a home invasion robbery on Monday. "He was always one of those kids who didn't listen," said his mother, Kisha Adams, 34, of Northview Heights. "He had a hard head."

A Berks County man paralyzed in a bicycling accident several years ago was killed Thursday when he collided with an ambulance near his home while riding an adaptive cycle recently donated to him. Stephen B. Johnson, 49, of Exeter Township, was riding the three-wheel cycle modified for people with leg paralysis west on Rugby Road in Exeter Township when he veered into the path of the ambulance, according to police. The ambulance was returning to its station from a call and was not carrying any patients, police said.

POMPANO BEACH — When an angry motorist came rushing up to the window of his pickup truck Wednesday, Cleveland Murdock had a gun and Florida law to back him. The Broward Sheriff's Office said Thursday their case is closed in the road rage incident that left Patrick Lavoie, 33, dead in the middle of a residential street. Murdock acted in self-defense by shooting in the heart the man who approached him, investigators determined. Witnesses told investigators Lavoie jumped out of the Honda Civic his girlfriend was driving, upset that Murdock seemed to be tailgating the couple. Lavoie angrily charged toward...

Handheld laser pointers are commonly used in lecture halls and are considered to be harmless and safe.1 However, laser pointers can cause severe eye injury, as demonstrated by the case of a 15-year-old boy. The boy had ordered a handheld laser pointer with green light on the Internet to use as a toy for popping balloons from a distance and burning holes into paper cards and his sister's sneakers. The boy's life changed when he was playing with his laser pointer in front of a mirror to create a “laser show,” during which the laser beam hit his eyes several...

STATESVILLE, NC (WBTV) - A man who was with about a dozen people who were looking for a legendary "ghost train" in Iredell County was hit by a locomotive and killed early Friday morning. The incident happened on a train trestle at 2:45 a.m. near the 900 block of Buffalo Shoals Road. Robin Chapman, a spokesperson for Norfolk-Southern Railroad, said the eastbound train consisted of three locomotives and no freight cars. The train was rounding a curve and approaching a trestle over Boston Creek just prior to Buffalo Shoals Road when it struck a man on the trestle, Chapman said.

BRUSSELS – The lead singer of a British pop trio climbed a telecommunications mast behind the main stage at a Belgian rock festival and leaped to his death in the parking lot below, police said Saturday. Twenty-two-year-old Charles Haddon of Ou Est Le Swimming Pool died late Friday during the Pukkelpop festival in Hasselt, a town in eastern Belgium. District attorney Marc Rubens said police were treating the death as a suicide.

KIRKLAND, Wash. - Homemade fireworks caused an explosion inside a vehicle on Interstate 405 in Kirkland on Saturday. The Washington State Patrol says a man filled some balloons with welding gas - a combination of oxygen and acetylene gas - which is normally stored in steel cylinders. They rubbed together, causing static electricity, and exploded. Troopers say the blast blew out the back window of the pickup truck. They say the man, woman and 3-year-old girl in the vehicle are lucky they were not injured or even killed in the blast.

Antoine Boutte used to keep a loaded gun at the bottom of his gas stove. That is, until he forgot it was there early Saturday and he and another man decided to cook some food, Fulton County police said Boutte fired up the stove at his College Park home around 3:30 a.m. Saturday -- heating up the .40 caliber Smith & Wesson along with it, a police report said. While the food was cooking, the weapon’s magazine started to melt in the gun well, the police report said. This caused the spring – and bullets – to come out of...