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Defence sources said the “surgical” operation showed the “precision, skill and courage” of British special forces after they stormed the cave where Helen Johnston, 28, was held, and killed her kidnappers. David Cameron spoke individually to the soldiers to thank them for an “extraordinarily brave” mission. He warned that anyone who took British citizens hostage faced “a swift and brutal end”. Miss Johnston, a committed Christian, along with Moragwa Oirere, a Kenyan colleague, and two Afghan women who worked for the same aid agency, were said to be physically well after their ordeal. Miss Johnston’s parents expressed their gratitude to...

A 72-year-old California deer hunter was recovering Monday after surviving on squirrels and packing leaves around him for warmth for nearly three weeks while he was lost and alone in the snowy wilderness, authorities said. Gene Penaflor was discovered by hunters on Saturday after 19 days in the Mendocino National Forest in the Coastal Mountain Range of northwestern California, according to a report by the Mendocino County Sheriff's Office.

It’s made for Hollywood: the story of an average American family man, captain of a cargo ship in dangerous waters, his vessel overtaken by armed Somali pirates demanding ransom, saving his crew by allowing himself to be removed from the boat and taken hostage. All of this is the basis for “Captain Phillips,” starring Tom Hanks as the titular, real-life hero. The only problem, say some members of the real Capt. Phillips’ crew, is none of it is true. Capt. Richard Phillips, they say, is no hero, and the film is one big lie. “Phillips wasn’t the big leader like...

A legit hero walked across a not-totally-stable ladder four stories above the sidewalk to save a man clinging to the windowsill of an apartment billowing with smoke in Washington Heights yesterday. This guy, the guy who walked across the ladder, is way better than you. Like, it's not even close.

TMZ is reporting that 87-year-old actor Dick Van Dyke was pulled from his jaguar on the side of a Los Angeles freeway after it burst into flames. Jason Pennington, the man who saved Van Dyke, told TMZ that he was driving on the 101 freeway when he saw the flaming car on the side of the road with an elderly man hunched over at the wheel. He pulled over and pulled the actor to safety before the engine exploded and flames engulfed the car.....

The identity of a priest, who appeared at an accident scene, is a mystery. Illinois rescue crews spent the first 45 minutes after the accident trying to get a 19-year-year old girl out of a car. They were running out of options when a priest came out of nowhere, even though the road was blocked for miles, WEWS-TV reported. "I went back and talked to the priest and told him we were worried she would think we'd given up hope. He said 'I just want to anoint her' and so we just let him come up to the scene," New...

CENTER, MO. -- Rescue workers want to thank a higher power for coming to the rescue early Sunday morning. Emergency crews spent an hour and a half trying to extricate a 19-year-old Quincy woman trapped in her in crushed car on Missouri 19 near Center, Mo. The Missouri Highway Patrol said Aaron Smith, 26, crossed the center line and struck Katie Lentz head-on. Now, friends, family and those who rescued Lentz would love to find and thank a mysterious priest who they say helped make the rescue possible. New London Fire Chief Raymond Reed said rescue crews spent the first...

CENTER, MO. -- Rescue workers want to thank a higher power for coming to the rescue early Sunday morning. Emergency crews spent an hour and a half trying to extricate a 19-year-old Quincy woman trapped in her in crushed car on Missouri 19 near Center, Mo. The Missouri Highway Patrol said Aaron Smith, 26, crossed the center line and struck Katie Lentz head-on. Now, friends, family and those who rescued Lentz would love to find and thank a mysterious priest who they say helped make the rescue possible. New London Fire Chief Raymond Reed said rescue crews spent the first...

The night-vision image in the rescue helicopter showed a downed pilot in a life raft bobbing 35 miles from the Atlantic shoreline, but when Brian Fogle got ready to plunge down to him, the midnight sky and sea melded into inky blackness. “The hard part was not being able to see anything,” Fogle said. And then he stepped out that door and slid down a line into the rolling dark ocean. The signal had come to the Coast Guard 20 to 30 minutes before 11 p.m. Thursday: A D.C. Air National Guard F-16C was down in the Atlantic after touching...

Thirty-one migrants, including nine women, drowned off the coast of Libya during an attempted crossing to Italy on a dinghy according to survivors who managed to complete the journey. A dinghy carrying 53 migrants capsized on Friday evening, and witnesses said 31 of those who had been thrown off it drowned in the accident. The twenty-two survivors, who come from Nigeria, Gambia, Benin and Senegal, said the dinghy had capsized after three days at sea. They were rescued by a passing merchant ship and taken to Lampedusa island, the reports said.

A cop guarding Gracie Mansion and firefighters teamed up to save a woman who fell into the East River early Saturday while trying to retrieve a dropped cellphone, sources said. A bystander flagged down a nearby officer after seeing the unidentified woman splash into the water on the upper East Side about 5:40 a.m., authorities said.

A woman in a wheelchair and a 10-year-old were the unlikely heroes at a Decatur apartment fire Thursday. A mother's desperate action to save her babies turned neighbors into rescuers. "I caught the newborn baby from falling. Before it had hit the ground I caught it," said Zna Gresham, 10. Gresham said she just did what was asked after she ran out of her burning apartment to safety outside. "Then when I was getting out, the lady from upstairs, she was dropping her babies and she asked me and my sister can she get the babies for her," Zna told...

Between 11 and 13 people were rescued from the water off Wasque Point Wednesday afternoon, police said.

ROQUE BLUFFS, Maine (AP) — A pregnant Maine woman and her friend visiting from Pennsylvania got lost hiking and were rescued but died later that evening, authorities said, when they accidentally drove their car into the ocean in the nighttime fog.

George Zimmerman, who has been in hiding since he was acquitted of murder in the death of Trayvon Martin, emerged to help rescue a family who was trapped in an overturned vehicle, police said today. Zimmerman was one of two men who came to the aid of Dana and Mark Gerstle and their two children, who were trapped inside a blue Ford Explorer SUV that had rolled over after traveling off the highway in Sanford, Fla. at approximately 5:45 p.m. Thursday, the Seminole County Sheriff's Office said in a statement. The crash occurred at the intersection of I-4 and route...

George Zimmerman, who has been in hiding since he was acquitted of murder in the death of Trayvon Martin, emerged to help rescue someone who was trapped in an overturned truck, police said today. Sanford Police Department Capt. Jim McAuliffe told ABC News that Zimmerman "pulled an individual from a truck that had rolled over" at the intersection of a Florida highway last week. Florida Highway Patrol is now handling the case, McAuliffe said. The crash occurred at the intersection of I-4 and route 417, police said. It's the first known sighting of Zimmerman since he left the courtroom following...

George Zimmerman, the man recently acquitted in the shooting death of 17-year-old Trayvon Martin, helped rescue a family from an overturned SUV last week, the Seminole County Sheriff's Office confirmed today. According to sheriff's spokeswoman Heather Smith, deputies were called to the crash about 5:45 p.m. Wednesday. A Ford Explorer sport utility vehicle had gone off the road and rolled over in the area of Interstate 4 and State Road 46, Smith said, with two children and their parents inside. By the time a deputy arrived, Zimmerman and another man "had already helped assist the family by getting them out...

Boggs, a McCaskey freshman who lives in Gable Park Woods, had been hanging out with a friend at nearby Lancaster Arms apartments and helping move a couch when a man came by asking if they'd seen a missing girl. They hadn't, Boggs said, so they went to watch TV. A short time later, his friend went outside and saw lots of police officers and people from the neighborhood looking for the girl. Police said that the girl had been taken that afternoon from the 100 block of Jennings Drive. Boggs and about six friends joined the search. That’s when, Boggs...

A mother fought to keep her family alive as they clung to their capsized boat in cold water infested with jelly fish while her brother swam for five hours to get help. Contessa L. Riggs, 43, of Washington D.C., was fishing off the coast of Deal Island, Md., on Tuesday with her brother, John Franklin Riggs, her 70-year old father, 9-year-old niece and 3-year-old son, when a thunder storm struck. "It was sundown. The water suddenly became very choppy and a wave crashed into the boat, filling the boat with water," Riggs told ABC News. -snip Riggs knew that nobody...

Reports indicate that passengers aboard crashed Asiana Flight 214 were trapped by their seatbelts while the Boeing 777 burned around them. If only someone had a knife to cut them free, even a small pocketknife… But nobody had any kind of knife, because knives aren’t allowed on flights that land or originate in the United States. So what happened? ... police officers on the ground threw utility knives up to crew members so they could cut the seat belts of those who remained trapped as rescue crews removed the injured. You read that correctly: passengers were trapped in the burning...