Share prices on Bursa Malaysia strengthened in early trading Wednesday, boosted by bullish external sentiments,dealers said.
After 10 minutes of trading, the FTSE Bursa Malaysia KLCI (FBM KLCI) rose 9.31 points to 1,633.11 after opening 3.66 points higher at 1,627.46.
A dealer said the local bourse, which resumed trading today after the long Chinese New Year holidays, emerged stronger as the US stocks regained footing, helped by Malaysia's sharply narrow trade deficit.
HwangDBS Vickers Research said the US key indicators, Dow Jones and S&P 500 closed at its five-year high at 0.2 per cent-0.3 per cent in anticipation of President Barack Obama's State of the Union address mixed with favourable results in the earnings season.
However, on the local front, the research house expects the market to trade sideways with lower volume in conjunction with the festive season week.
"Following that, market activity could gradually pick up towards next week," it said in a statement.
The Finance Index jumped 89.601 points to 15,034.24, the Industrial Index gained 16.52 points to 2,798.74 and the Plantation Index perked 51.09 points to 7,949.75.
The FBM Emas Index surged 59.68 points to 11.079.34, the FBMT100 was up 60.62 points to 10,938.7, the FBM Mid 70 Index advanced 58.18 points to 11,982.26 and the FBM Ace Index gained 22.58 points to 4,055.31.
Gainers outpaced losers by 116 to 20 with 52 counters unchanged, 1,456 untraded and 17 suspended.
Volume stood at 22.06 million shares worth RM29.81 million.
Among actives, PJI Holdings and Pasukhas earned one sen each to 13.5 sen and 18 sen, respectively, Integrated Rubber added half-a-sen to 20.5 sen, MRCB garnered seven sen to RM1.33 while Ingenuity was unchanged at nine sen.
Heavyweights, Maybank and Maxis rose six sen each to RM9.04 and RM6.46, respectively, Sime Darby and CIMB added three sen each to RM9.29 and RM7.21, respectively, and Axiata gained four sen to RM6.30.-- Bernama
Kenanga Research raised the target price for SapuraKencana Petroleum Bhd to RM3.82 from RM3.42 after a financing structure was announced for the company's US$2.9 billion purchase of tender-rigs from Seadrill Ltd.
"We are tactically raising our target price to accommodate the potential earnings accretion from the new rigs," said Kenanga in a report on Wednesday. Kenanga maintained its 'outperform' call on the stock.
SapuraKencana, Malaysia's largest oilfield service provider, will see its debt increase to RM5.7 billion from the acquisition, said Kenanga. The brokerage maintained its earnings forecast for the company, in spite of the higher borrowing costs.
Shares of SapuraKencana rose 1.4 per cent to RM2.89 as of 9.44am, while the benchmark index was up 0.54 per cent.--Reuters
SEOUL — With its detonation Tuesday of a "smaller and light" nuclear device, North Korea moved closer to its top technological goal: building an atomic weapon small enough to mount on a long-range missile.
Such a capability, if North Korea achieves it, would turn the secretive police state from a regional menace into a global one and raise the stakes for neighboring and Western countries, including the United States, that have so far been unable to influence Pyongyang's behavior.
Security analysts cautioned there is no immediate way to verify the North's claim that it has successfully manufactured a smaller — or miniaturized — warhead, and they added that the North sometimes exaggerates its claims. Still, the country's latest nuclear test marks the clearest sign yet of its intentions and could be followed by subsequent blasts — tests that are necessary if the North wants full confidence that its nuclear devices work reliably, analysts say.
The North hinted at such a path Tuesday, with its Foreign Ministry saying in a statement that it was prepared to take unspecified "second and third stronger steps in succession" if the United States maintained its "hostile approach" toward the North.
Tuesday's test was conducted in the face of strong opposition from the United States and its allies. It also drew sharp condemnation from China, North Korea's strongest patron. President Obama said the North's weapons program represented a "threat to U.S. national security and to international peace and security."
The North detonated its device in a sealed tunnel carved horizontally into a remote North Korean mountain, setting off a brief seismic wave. The explosion appeared to be slightly more powerful than nuclear tests carried out by Pyongyang in 2006 and 2009.
"These provocations do not make North Korea more secure," said Obama, who on Tuesday evening is expected to call for nuclear arms reductions in his State of the Union speech. "Far from achieving its stated goal of becoming a strong and prosperous nation, North Korea has instead increasingly isolated and impoverished its people through its ill-advised pursuit of weapons of mass destruction and their means of delivery."
If North Korea is taken at its word, it now has a device — weighing less than 1,000 kilograms, or 2,200 pounds — that is "missile-deliverable," said Jeffrey Lewis, an East Asia nonproliferation expert at the Monterey Institute of International Studies.
"This does make them more of a threat," Lewis said.
Still, said Siegfried Hecker, a scientist who has visited the North's nuclear facilities several times, "such a weapon can only be used in a suicide attempt," because any attack by North Korea would draw such a strong counter-attack. "My opinion is, no, it's not a game-changer," Hecker said. "In the end, what it does, it makes the North Korean deterrent more credible."
President Barack Obama will announce in his State of the Union address that 34,000 U.S. troops will be home from Afghanistan within a year, a senior administration official said Tuesday.
That's about half the U.S. forces currently serving there, and marks the next phase in the administration's plans to formally finish the war by the end of 2014. The U.S. now has 66,000 troops in Afghanistan, down from a peak of about 100,000 as recently as 2010.
The U.S. is still finalizing plans for the size and scope of its military presence after the war ends. The White House has said it would be open to leaving no troops in Afghanistan, though it's likely that a small presence will remain, in keeping with the Pentagon's preferences.
Obama won't announce troop numbers beyond 2014 in Tuesday's speech and has not yet made that decision, said the official, who requested anonymity in order to discuss the troop drawdown ahead of the president.
Obama discussed the next phases of the drawdown with Afghan President Hamid Karzai during a day-long meeting in Washington last month, the first meeting between the two leaders since Obama's re-election. The two leaders agreed to accelerate their timetable for putting Afghan forces in the lead combat role nationwide, moving that transition up from the summer to the spring.
Obama will announce the troop drawdown and the future of the U.S. role in Afghanistan during a joint session of Congress that is otherwise expected to be dominated by the economy and other domestic issues.
Foreign policy has intruded in recent days, however, and the White House quickly condemned North Korea early Tuesday for its nuclear launch hours before Obama's address. The president is expected to make further remarks on this in his primetime speech.
Some private security analysts, as well as some Pentagon officials, worry that pulling out of Afghanistan too quickly will leave the battle-scarred country vulnerable to collapse. In a worst-case scenario, that could allow the Taliban to regain power and revert to the role they played in the years before 9/11 as protectors of al-Qaida terrorists bent on striking the U.S.
Many Americans, however, are weary of the war, according to public opinion polls, and are skeptical of any claim that Afghanistan is worth more U.S. blood. Registered voters are roughly split between those who say the U.S. should remove all troops and those who favor leaving some troops in place for counterterrorism efforts, according to a recent Fox News poll.
The Obama administration gave the first clear signal in early January that it might leave no troops in the country after December 2014. Administration officials have said they are considering a range of options for a residual U.S. troop presence of as few as 3,000 and as many as 15,000, with the number linked to a specific set of military-related missions like hunting down terrorists.
Pope Benedict XVI announced Monday that he would resign his position as the head of the Roman Catholic Church on February 28, shocking the Christian world and even many close to him.
Benedict, 85, announced his decision in Latin during a meeting of Vatican cardinals Monday morning, explaining that because of his advanced age and diminishing strength, he didn't feel he could carry on the job.
In his remarks to the cardinals, Benedict said his age and health left him with a level of energy, "no longer suited to an adequate exercise of the Petrine ministry." The Petrine ministry is the Vatican's official description of the office of the pontiff.
When he became pope at age 78, Benedict XVI was already the oldest pontiff elected in nearly 300 years. He's now 85, and in recent years he has slowed down significantly, cutting back his foreign travel and limiting his audiences.
The pope now travels to the altar in St. Peter's Basilica on a moving platform to spare him the 100-yard walk down the aisle. Occasionally he uses a cane. Late last year, people who were spending time with the pontiff emerged saying they found him weak and too tired to engage with what they were saying.
The Vatican stressed on Monday that no specific medical condition prompted Benedict's decision to become the first pontiff to resign in 600 years.
The pope's brother, Georg Ratzinger, told a news agency in Germany that the pontiff had been advised by his doctor not to take any more transatlantic trips and had been considering stepping down for months.
Talking from his home in Regensburg to the news agency dpa, Georg Ratzinger said his brother was having increasing difficulty walking and that his resignation was part of a "natural process."
"His age is weighing on him," the 89-year-old said of his 85-year-old brother. "At this age my brother wants more rest."
The 265th Pontiff, Benedict will be the first leader of the Church to step down voluntarily in almost six centuries. He has led the Church since 2005 through a tumultuous time that has seen him criticized for his handling of the scandal related to years of sexual abuse of young parishioners by priests and other clergy, and senior church officials' alleged moves to hide those actions.
Benedict has also had to deal with the fallout of a traitor in his own ranks -- his butler was convicted in 2012 (video) of stealing personal documents from Benedict's living quarters and leaking them to the media.
Benedict's decision sets the stage for a conclave to elect a new pope before the end of March. Vatican communications advisor Greg Burke told "CBS This Morning" that the pontiff's sudden departure doesn't leave a lot of time for Church officials to pick a replacement if they want the post filled before Easter, but he also noted that there won't be the usual delay of nine days mourning for a pope who dies in office.
"We certainly hope to have a new pope by Easter," said Burke.
Burke said he only found out about the pope's decision a couple hours before Benedict announced it to the cardinals.
"It was a surprise, but maybe not a shock," said Burke, who had worried about the aging pontiff's health increasingly in recent weeks. "I was always very nervous when I saw him going up and down steps," added Burke, noting that Benedict had problems with at least one of his knees. He said the pontiff did not, however, have any immediate, grave medical condition that he was aware of.
New York Cardinal Timothy Dolan said electing a new pope would be all new to him since he's still learning what it means to be archbishop. At a news conference Monday, Dolan quipped he was "still writing thank-you notes from when I was made a cardinal" last year.
As cardinal, Dolan will be part of the College of Cardinals electing a new pope. In replying to questions, he said it would be "highly improbable" for him to be considered for the papacy.
The following is a transcription of part of the remarks Pope Benedict made in Latin to his cardinals on Monday morning, which was released to the media by the Vatican (Click here to read the full text):
"I have come to the certainty that my strengths, due to an advanced age, are no longer suited to an adequate exercise of the Petrine ministry.
I am well aware that this ministry, due to its essential spiritual nature, must be carried out not only with words and deeds, but no less with prayer and suffering.
However, in today's world, subject to so many rapid changes and shaken by questions of deep relevance for the life of faith, in order to govern the bark of Saint Peter and proclaim the Gospel, both strength of mind and body are necessary, strength which in the last few months, has deteriorated in me to the extent that I have had to recognize my incapacity to adequately fulfill the ministry entrusted to me."
Frank Kummer, Emily Babay, Mari Schaefer and Jessica Parks, Breaking News Desk
Posted: Monday, February 11, 2013, 9:02 AM
A gunman opened fire in a Wilmington, Del. courthouse, this morning, leaving five people shot and three of those dead.
The gunman was among the dead. Two women were also killed, one of whom was reported to be the gunman's wife.
Two law enforcement officers were among those shot in the barrage.
Officials said there was an exchange of gunfire and investigators were still piecing together what happened.
The shootings at the New Castle County Courthouse in Wilmington, Del. took place around 8:15 a.m., just as courtrooms were readying for the day.
Police have confirmed that the suspected shooter, a man, killed his wife before shooting others. Investigators don't believe the shooter had any type of note on him, police said.
Authorities were searching the floors of the courthouse, located at 500 N. King St., throughout the morning. Officials said they did not believe the gunman had an accomplice.
Police said the two officers wounded were male Delaware Capitol Police officers. Their injuries are not considered life-threatening. The Capitol Police force protects state-owned facilities in Delaware.
Just after 11 a.m., armed police officers were still in front of the courthouse as news media and local residents stood by. Police cars have blocked off streets around the complex.
From the News Desk
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Earlier, 61-year-old Ralph Hilton was at work when he received a call from his sister, Victoria Warren, who was at the courthouse for jury duty.
"I'm scared," she said, crying to him. "I heard gunshots."
She was hiding with a few others in a small room, Hilton said.
Brittany Mangrum, 24, was headed up the courthouse stairs to pay a fine when the doors opened and people began to run from inside.
"I decided to turn around and run with them," she said.
A block up from the courthouse on 4th Street, chiropractor Alicia Gower and medical assistant Natalie Atkinson sat in an empty office. Police tape blocked the intersection outside their window.
"Nobody's been in today," Atkinson said. Four patients had rescheduled.
The women have been watching the news unfold on television, and chatting with two cops who came in occasionally to watch, too.
"They said the two law enforcement officers are gonna be OK, so that's good," Gower said.
Authorities on Sunday will offer a reward for information leading to the capture of a former Los Angeles Police Department officer wanted in the killings of three people and the wounding of two others.
According to a statement, the news conference will be attended by law enforcement officials from Los Angeles, Riverside and Irvine. Officials from the FBI and U.S. marshal's office also will be there.
Los Angeles Police Chief Charlie Beck
announced he was reopening the investigation into the firing of Dorner from the Police Department, the event that apparently sparked his vengeful campaign.
Beck said he was reopening the investigation "not to appease a
murderer" but to assure the public his department is fair and
transparent. He said he wanted to protect an "increasingly positive
relationship with the community" that the LAPD has developed over the last few years.
"I am aware of the ghosts of the LAPD's past and one of my biggest
concerns is that they will be resurrected by Dorner's allegations of
racism within the department," Beck said in a prepared statement.
"...Therefore, I feel we need to also publicly address Dorner's
allegations regarding his termination of employment."
Dorner was stripped of his badge in 2009 after a police disciplinary
board found him guilty of making false statements against his training
officer, Teresa Evans. In August 2007, Dorner accused Evans of kicking a
mentally ill man during an arrest in San Pedro.
The internal affairs investigation concluded Evans had not kicked the man and Dorner was lying.
Police said Dorner has killed three people, including a Riverside
police officer, and injured two others over the last week in a campaign
to take revenge on those he blamed for his dismissal from the LAPD.
At a news conference Saturday, LAPD Cmdr. Andrew Smith announced a special joint task force was being formed to investigate the Dorner
case. Participating agencies include the Irvine and Riverside police
departments, the FBI, the U.S. marshal's office and other law enforcement organizations.
Dorner remained a fugitive Saturday despite an interstate manhunt
that included SWAT teams, armored-personnel carriers and helicopters
with heat-detecting cameras.
In their third day of searching for the 33-year-old Navy veteran,
authorities kept their focus on the mountains around Big Bear Lake in
San Bernardino County.
Dorner's burned-out pickup truck was discovered Thursday morning on a
dirt forest service road in the area. The truck's axle was damaged and
investigators discovered torched weapons inside the vehicle, law
enforcement sources said. Sheriff's SWAT units began scouring the forest
for Dorner within hours, but their efforts were slowed by heavy
snowfall.
On Saturday, agencies from throughout the region collaborated on an
aerial search using two helicopters equipped with infrared cameras that
detect heat.
"We can see any person or a rabbit," said helicopter pilot Bill
Fitzgerald of the Orange County Sheriff's Department. "The only thing
that's harder about it here is that the person could be bundled up, so
you maybe only get their head or hands."
With the novelty of the manhunt wearing thin and fresh powder thick
on the slopes, tourists descended on the resort area Saturday. Visitors
enjoying blue skies and 18 inches of fresh snow said they doubted Dorner
was near.
"It would be dumb for him to be up here with his torched vehicle,"
said Kristy Deas, who was visiting with her husband and three children
from Edwards Air Force Base. "He's probably somewhere else."
Years of court filings and Internet posts have shed some light on the
fugitive's mysterious personality. Dorner was described as a bully and
depicted as a man who appeared obsessed with preserving his good name.
He had a history of making complaints against fellow LAPD officers as well as an ex-girlfriend.
When a Los Angeles police disciplinary board found Dorner guilty of
making false statements against Evans, he could not hide his dismay. "I
told the truth!" Dorner blurted out in the hearing room. "How can this
happen?"
Dorner's stunned reaction was detailed in transcripts of the hearing
filed in appeals court. "The board has determined that Officer Dorner's
credibility is damaged beyond repair," the board chairman said.
Dorner also was accused of punching a recruit, Abraham Schefres, in
the chest while both were in the Police Academy in 2006, records show.
Schefres was wearing a bulletproof vest and a trauma plate when Dorner
allegedly punched him.
Schefres did not believe the punch warranted a complaint at the time
and later told an investigator he "believed this was part of Dorner's
persona," records show. He described Dorner as a "hothead" who would
walk up to fellow recruits and "get in their faces in an aggressive" but
joking way.
Dorner said he "tapped" Schefres on the chest because he was wearing an expensive trauma plate, according to the transcripts.
Schefres was interviewed about the punch during an investigation into
allegations that Dorner slapped the hand of another recruit, records
show. Dorner had accused a second recruit — as well as another recruit —
of using a racial slur while they were traveling in a police vehicle
during their time in the academy.
The department confirmed Dorner's slur allegation against one of the
recruits but not the other, records show. The agency concluded Dorner's punch of Schefres did not rise to the level of misconduct.
By then, Dorner was serving a military deployment overseas for the
Navy. He returned to the LAPD in the summer of 2007, and in August made
the accusation against Evans.
In a Facebook post that authorities have described as his manifesto,
Dorner allegedly said he had "exhausted all available means at obtaining
my name back. In essence, I've lost everything because the LAPD took my
name and (knew) I was INNOCENT!!!"
Dorner spent years unsuccessfully appealing his termination. The Facebook post complained about Randal K. Quan,
saying he did not fairly represent Dorner at the LAPD hearing.
"Suppressing the truth will lead to deadly consequences for you and your
family," the manifesto said.
Quan's daughter, Monica Quan, a Cal State Fullerton assistant basketball coach, and her fiance, Keith Lawrence,
were found shot to death last Sunday in Irvine. Irvine police on
Wednesday named Dorner as the suspect. On Thursday, Dorner allegedly
opened fire on three Riverside police officers, killing one and wounding
another.
--Matt Stevens, Ari Bloomekatz, Hailey Branson Potts
Photo: Search and rescue personnel from the San Bernardino County Sheriff's
Department gear up Saturday for the continuing manhunt for fugitive ex-cop
Christopher Dorner in the mountains around Big Bear Lake.
Credit: Michael Robinson Chavez / Los Angeles Times
The thick blanket of snow and troubles that buried most of the Northeast this weekend slowly began receding Sunday, with power being restored in some areas, and highways and airports again coming to life.
Power had returned to more than 300,000 people and businesses Sunday, almost half the number left cold and dark during the height of the brutal and historic storm that dumped 2 feet to 3 feet of snow in many areas.
Although more than 6,000 flights have been canceled in the region since Friday, New York's major airports were operational Sunday. Even Boston's Logan International Airport was open for business.
And the sun came out.
In Somerset, Mass., Mary Lewis, 48, was feeling some relief Sunday, her house again warm after almost 24 hours without power. She, her husband and teen daughter had spent hours trying to stay warm with the heat of a fireplace and hot chocolate from a gas grill. They finally had to abandon their home, taking shelter with a neighbor who never lost power.
Her power was restored late Saturday. On Sunday she was was able to drive to the home of her parents, 45 minutes away, to help dig them out.
"It was a little stressful for awhile, but it's getting better," Lewis said. "At least we were prepared for it. We are resilient."
But much work remains before normalcy returns following the storm that was blamed for 11 deaths in the USA, including an 11-year-old Boston boy who was overcome by carbon monoxide in a running car that his father was digging out of a snow bank.
Hurricane-force winds and history making snowfalls had conspired to spread misery from New Jersey to Maine. Winds gusted to 76 mph in Boston and 84 mph in Cuttyhunk, Mass., during the height of the storm Saturday. The storm piled the most snow on Hamden, Conn. — 40 inches — and was the fifth largest in Boston history, with 24.9 inches of snow recorded there.
The 31.9 inches in Portland, Maine, is the most ever recorded there from a single snowstorm; the storm was the second biggest for Hartford, Conn. (22.8 inches) and Concord, N.H. (24 inches), and third biggest in Worcester, Mass. (28.7 inches).
New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg said his city dodged the worst of the weather, with Central Park coming in at just under a foot of snow.
But in New England, while many highways were cleared Sunday, many side roads remained impassable and cars remained entombed by snow drifts. Some people found the snow packed so high against their homes they couldn't get their doors open.
"It's like lifting cement. They say it's 2 feet, but I think it's more like 3 feet," said Michael Levesque, who was shoveling snow in Quincy, Mass., for a landscaping company.
Across much of the region, streets were empty of cars and dotted instead with children who had never seen so much snow and were jumping into snow banks and making forts. Snow was waist-high in the streets of Boston. Plows that made some thoroughfares passable piled even more snow on cars parked on the city's narrow streets.
In Massachusetts, NStar utility said it was too dangerous to send in crews in many areas. National Guard troops helped evacuate coastal areas where there was some flooding.
Municipal workers from New York to Boston labored through the night Saturday in snow-bound communities.
"We've never seen anything like this," said Suffolk County Executive Steven Bellone of Long Island, which got more than 2½ feet of snow.
Amtrak said trains between New York and Boston were suspended Saturday but some trains would run Sunday.
The storm, dubbed "Nemo" by the Weather Channel, was not as bad as some of the forecasts led many to fear, and not as dire as the Blizzard of '78, used by longtime New Englanders as the benchmark by which all other winter storms are measured.
Contributing: Gary Strauss, Kevin McCoy, Melanie Eversley, Ben Mutzabaugh, Stephanie Haven; Associated Press
BOSTON — A howling storm across the Northeast left the New York-to-Boston corridor shrouded in 1 to 3 feet of snow Saturday, stranding motorists on highways overnight and piling up drifts so high that some homeowners couldn't get their doors open. More than 650,000 homes and businesses were left without electricity.
At least three deaths in the U.S. were blamed on the storm, including that of a New York man killed when the tractor he was using to plow his driveway ran off the edge of the road.
More than 38 inches of snow fell in Milford, Conn., and an 82 mph wind gust was recorded in nearby Westport. Areas of southeastern Massachusetts, Rhode Island and New Hampshire got at least 2 feet of snow, with more falling.
Roads in many places were impassable. Across much of New England, snowed-over cars looked like white blobs. Streets were mostly deserted save for snowplow crews and a few hardy souls walking dogs or venturing out to take pictures. In Boston's Financial District, the only sound was an army of snowblowers clearing sidewalks.
The digging-out went more smoothly in some places than in others.
A little more than 11 inches fell in New York, but the city was "in great shape" and "dodged a bullet," Mayor Michael Bloomberg said, predicting streets would be cleared by the end of the day. The New York region's three major airports — LaGuardia, Kennedy and Newark, N.J. — were up and running again by late morning after shutting down the evening before.
But hundreds of motorists had abandoned their vehicles on New York's Long Island, and even snowplows were getting stuck. Emergency workers used snowmobiles to try to reach stranded motorists, some of whom spent the night stuck in their cars.
Richard Ebbrecht, a chiropractor, left his office in Brooklyn at 3 p.m. on Friday and head for his home in Middle Island, N.Y., in Suffolk County, but got stuck six or seven times on the Long Island Expressway and other roads.
"There was a bunch of us Long Islanders. We were all helping each other, shoveling, pushing," he said. He finally gave up and spent the night in his car just two miles from his destination. At 8 a.m., when it was light out, he walked home.
"I could run my car and keep the heat on and listen to the radio a little bit," he said. "It was very icy under my car. That's why my car is still there."
Massachusetts, Rhode Island and Connecticut closed roads to all but essential traffic.
Some of the worst of the storm appeared to hit Connecticut, where even emergency responders found themselves stuck on highways all night. In the shoreline community of Fairfield, police and firefighters could not come in to work, so the overnight shift was staying on duty, said First Selectman Michael Tetreau.
"It's a real challenge out there," Tetreau said. "The roads are not passable at this point. We are asking everyone to stay home and stay safe."
Several state police cars were also stuck in deep snow in Maine, where stranded drivers were warned to expect long waits for tow trucks.
As the ground search resumed Saturday in Bear Bear for a disgruntled
ex-cop suspected of hunting down LAPD officials and their families, authorities pledged to continue until they find Christopher Jordan Dorner.
Dorner,
a 33-year-old former Los Angeles police officer, is suspected of killing three
people and wounding two.
Officials
with the San Bernardino County Sheriff's Department said armored
personnel carriers would be used to transport search teams into mountain areas, where they will
comb the forest. With no sightings so far of Dorner, officials canceled a press briefing
scheduled for noon Saturday.
The trail has gone cold since Dorner's Nissan Titan pickup was found
Thursday morning engulfed in flames on a U.S. Forest Service dirt road between
the Bear Mountain and Snow Summit ski resorts.
But Saturday could offer the
clearest weather in days, and perhaps the best chance to find the alleged
killer.
The
mountain air was a crisp 19 degrees Saturday morning, with a thick blanket of
snow covering the landscape. The National Weather Service said temperatures
will climb to 31 degrees with little to no wind, mostly clear skies and no
snow, preserving any tracks left overnight. A Pacific storm is expected to have fully cleared by Sunday.
Saturday morning, dozens of San Bernardino County SWAT officers were filling their bellies at the Best Western in Big Bear Lake, their vehicles idling and warming up. Later they would hit the road for their third day in the wilderness.
The day before, ski-masked SWAT teams went door-to-door checking hundreds of
homes and shuttered cabins, as other authorities fanned out on foot, slogging
through fresh snow with search dogs. The teams combed backcountry and checked
every shed, trash bin and barrel where the fugitive could hide. Dorner is
described as African American, 6 feet tall and weighing 270 pounds.
No one has seen Dorner or his tracks since Thursday and local
residents are beginning to believe he got out of town before police locked down
the area. Still some remain at the ready.
Roger Curtis, a retired carpenter who lives in Big Bear, said he was
watching the manhunt on TV when a car alarm sounded. "I got the guns and
loaded them," he said.
Police say that Dorner has killed three people and injured others in a
campaign to take revenge on those he blamed for his dismissal from the LAPD four years ago.
Investigators are scrutinizing a conspiracy-laden manifesto published on what they believe was Dorner's Facebook page. The screed threatened
"unconventional and asymmetrical warfare" against police officers and
their families, saying that Dorner has no choice but to kill to reclaim his damaged
reputation.
Police accuse him of killing the daughter of a retired LAPD captain and her
fiance, who were found shot to death Sunday in a car in Irvine. While on the
run, police said, Dorner shot three police officers, one fatally, in Riverside
County.
With warnings on radio and TV that an armed and deadly fugitive remained at
large, police spent hours chasing down bogus leads and erroneous sightings.
Dorner was driving a white Lexus near Barstow. He was spotted entering the county jail in downtown Los Angeles. He was holed up in a hotel in San Diego or in a park in Norco or at a home next to the Barona
Indian Reservation in San Diego County. None of those tips checked out, and
authorities are considering false reporting charges against one person who was
more prankster than tipster.
"When you're dealing with a case that's getting this amount of press
coverage, you're going to get your share of bad information," said Laura
Eimiller, a spokeswoman for the FBI, whose agents searched Dorner's home in Las
Vegas and are investigating a package that CNN received, apparently from
Dorner, that made various threats. Federal and local authorities also searched
the home of his mother, Nancy Dorner, in La Palma, carrying out bags of
potential evidence.
Meanwhile on Redbeam Avenue in Torrance, residents were still trying to make
sense of the bullet holes police had left behind.
In their pursuit of Dorner, at least seven police officers
opened fire on what turned out to be a mother and daughter delivering
newspapers down a quiet residential street, law enforcement sources told The
Times.
"How do you mistake two Hispanic women, one who is 71, for a large
black male?" said Richard Goo, 62, who counted five bullet holes in the
entryway to his house.
In an interview with The Times on Friday, LAPD Chief Charlie Beck said Margie Carranza,
47, and her mother, Emma Hernandez, 71, were the victims of "a tragic
misinterpretation" by officers working under "incredible
tension," he said.
Beck and others stressed that the investigation into the shooting is in its
infancy. They declined to say how many officers were involved, what kind of
weapons they used, how many bullets were fired and, perhaps most important,
what kind of verbal warnings — if any — were given to the women before the
shooting began.
Glen T. Jonas, the attorney representing the women, said the police officers
gave "no commands, no instructions and no opportunity to surrender"
before opening fire. Jonas estimated that the officers fired between 20 and 30
rounds. Photographs of the back of the truck showed at least two dozen bullet
holes. Neighbors, however, suggested there were more shots fired.
Kathy Merkosky, 53, was outside her stucco home pointing out the six bullet
holes in the bumper and grill of her silver Acura MD-X. She knew her truck was
damaged when she spotted it on television and "saw fluid flowing into the
street."
Her Ford Focus was hit as well — a bullet shattered the windshield and
another flattened a front tire.
"I've never heard gunfire on my street," Merkosky said. "Or
ever in my life.... I hope they catch the guy so all this craziness will
end."
NEW YORK: The S&P 500 punched to a new five-year high on Friday and the Nasdaq to its best since 2000, as stocks regained footing helped by a sharply narrowed US trade deficit.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average also reached a post-crisis high above 14,022 during trade, but slipped back to end up 48.92 points (0.35 percent) at 13,992.97.
The S&P 500 index rose 8.54 points (0.57 percent) to 1,517.93, while the tech-rich Nasdaq Composite Index jumped 28.74 points (0.91 percent) to 3,193.87.
The indices were still shy of their all-time closing records struck on October 9, 2007, of 1,564.15 for the S&P and 14,164.53 for the Dow. The Nasdaq last saw Friday's level in 2000 as markets plunged in the dot-com crash.
Friday's trade was buoyed by December US trade figures showing a sharp narrowing of the country's trade deficit, helped by a surge in oil exports and a parallel fall in the oil import bill.
The smaller trade deficit "implies positive GDP growth for the fourth quarter," after the initial estimate of an 0.1 percent contraction, said economist Harm Bandholz of UniCredit.
Bullishness also came from China's report that its trade surplus rose and inflation eased in January, adding to recent evidence the world's number-two economy is emerging from a drawn-out downtrend.
The Dow was led higher by Hewlett-Packard, which put on 2.6 percent amid speculation that the company could be broken up in the wake of PC industry rival Dell's going private.
Debt rater Moody's sank 7.7 percent, bringing its week loss to 21.6 percent, as speculation mounted that it could be in federal and state authority sights over its rating of mortgage securities, after Standard & Poor's was sued for allegedly exaggerating such ratings before the financial crisis.
S&P parent McGraw-Hill lost 2.6 percent, taking its fall for the week to 26.9 percent.
Online professional network LinkedIn jumped 21.3 percent after it smashed fourth-quarter earnings estimates and issued bullish predictions for 2013.
Apple put on another 1.4 percent as it fielded pressure from shareholders to share out its US$137 billion cash hoard. -- AFP
A blizzard blew into the northeastern United States on Friday, bringing whiteout conditions to some parts of New England and threatening to drop record amounts of snow around Boston.
Authorities scrambled to prepare for the storm, which had already touched off a massive traffic pile-up in southern Maine and prompted organizers of the nation's sledding championship in Maine to postpone a race scheduled for Saturday, fearing too much snow for the competition.
From New York to Maine, the storm began gently, dropping a light dusting of snow, but officials urged residents to stay home, rather than risk getting stuck in deep drifts when the storm kicks up later Friday afternoon.
Even in its early stages, the storm created some panic. Drivers lined up at gas stations to top off their tanks, grocery stores were swamped as shoppers stocked up on bread and milk, and travelers were forced to confront flight delays and cancellations.
The early edge of the storm led to a 19-vehicle pile-up in southern Maine, snarling traffic on a major interstate highway north of Portland. No major injuries were reported.
"It was close to whiteout conditions, it's sort of a precursor of what's coming later," said Stephen McCausland, a spokesman for the Maine State Police.
Officials across the region closed schools and more than 3,000 flights were canceled. Several thousand customers lost power in New Jersey and points south, though officials warned the number was likely to rise as the snowfall got heavier and winds picked up.
Governors and mayors ordered nonessential government workers to stay home, urged private employers to do the same, told people to prepare for power outages and encouraged them to check on elderly or disabled neighbors.
The light snow falling across much of New England on Friday morning was a taste of the weather to come, said Jerry Paul, senior meteorologist with Weather Insight, a unit of Thomson Reuters. <TRI.TO
"That's going to be gradually building today as time goes on," Paul said.
A wide swath of New England, including northeastern Connecticut, Providence, Rhode Island, and the Boston area, will likely see 24 inches to 30 inches (60 centimeters to 76 centimeters) of snow, with some areas seeing more than three feet (one meter) by the time the storm ends on Saturday morning, Paul added.
At the storm's peak, winds could gust up to 65 miles per hour (105 kilometers per hour), he said.
Boston's record snowfall, 27.6 inches (70.1 cm), came in 2003.
CHEERING ON STORM
Organizers of the country's championship sledding race, that had been scheduled to get underway in Camden, Maine, on Saturday, postponed the event by one day.
"As soon as the weather clears on Saturday and it is safe, the toboggan committee will be out at Tobagganville cleaning up the chute as quickly as they can," said Holly Edwards, chairman of the U.S. National Toboggan Championships. "It needs to be shoveled out by hand."
Some 400 teams were registered for the race, which features costumed sledders on a 400-foot (121 meter) chute.
After two years of very little snow across the region, people whose livelihoods depend on skiers and snowmobilers cheered on the storm.
"It affects restaurants, lodgings, everything if those people aren't up here to play," said Scott Senecal, manager of the VIP Discount Auto Center in Littleton, New Hampshire, in the White Mountains. "All those people that come up here they're going to have flat tires, batteries that die … Cold weather causes people to have to spend money whether they wanted to or not."
FUEL WORRIES
In New York City, still not fully recovered from the effects of October's devastating Hurricane Sandy, officials said they had 1,800 Sanitation Department trucks equipped with snow plows ready to be deployed.
Motorists, mindful of the severe fuel disruptions after Sandy, rushed to buy gasoline, leading to shortages in New York City. A Reuters photographer reported at least three service stations had run out of gas in the borough of Queens on Friday morning, with long lines formed at others.
Sandy knocked out power to hundreds of thousands of homes, taking gasoline stations out of service, and damaged port facilities, exacerbating the shortages by preventing operable stations from refueling.
"We've seen some lines at stations in the southern part of the state, ahead of the storm, which may actually help prevent problems after the storm," said Ralph Bombardiere, executive director of the New York State Association of Service Stations and Repair Shops. "I'm not expecting anything like the vast power outages and problems we had with Sandy."
Life was not any easier for those who planned to fly. More than 3,000 flights were canceled on Friday, with close to 1,000 planned cancellations for Saturday, according to the website FlightAware.com. The hardest-hit airports were in the New York City area, Boston and Toronto.
BIG BEAR LAKE, Calif. Police spent all night searching the snowy mountains of Southern California but were unable to find the former Los Angeles police officer accused of carrying out a killing spree because he felt he was unfairly fired from his job.
About 80 miles east of LA at Big Bear Lake, where Christopher Dorner's torched pickup was found, authorities said Friday morning that no new evidence had been found.
San Bernardino County Sheriff John McMahon said the hunt will go on until Dorner is found or there's evidence that he's left the mountain. Searchers Friday are dealing with falling snow and freezing temperatures in the Big Bear Lake region of the San Bernardino Mountains. More than 100 officers were assisting in the manhunt.
CBS News correspondent Ben Tracy reports from Big Bear that authorities admit that the truck could be an elaborate diversion or even a trap.
Local ski areas were open, but Bear Valley schoolchildren had the day off because of the manhunt.
About 150 miles to the south, up to 16 San Diego County sheriff's deputies spent the night surrounding and searching a rural home after a hoaxer reported Dorner was there. There were people at home but Dorner wasn't one of them, said Lt. Jason Rothlein. Investigators have a pretty good idea who made the call and will be seek criminal charges, he said.
Though the focus is on the resort area, the search for Dorner, 33, stretches across California, Nevada, Arizona and northern Mexico. LAPD officers are especially on edge because Dorner, who was fired from the force in 2008 after three years on the job, promised in rambling writings to bring "warfare" to police and their families.
"We don't know what he's going to do," said Cindy Bachman, spokeswoman for the San Bernardino County Sheriff's Department, one of many law enforcement agencies whose primary purpose has become finding Dorner. "We know what he's capable of doing. And we need to find him."
CBS News senior correspondent John Miller, a former top LAPD official, reports that Dorner cut off all his cell phones and other connections Jan. 31, indicating that he had spent time planning his alleged rampage.
On Thursday, law enforcement officials were inspecting a package CNN's Anderson Cooper received from Dorner. CNN spokeswoman Shimrit Sheetrit said that a parcel containing a note, a DVD and a bullet hole-riddled memento was addressed to Cooper's office.
The memento was a coin bearing the name of former Los Angeles Police Chief Bill Bratton, who appeared with Dorner in a picture taken years ago. On "CBS This Morning" Friday, Bratton described Dorner as "an incredibly dangerous individual" and reacted to the damaged coin.
"When you see that that coin that was given in friendship and respect has three bullet holes, it's certainly very chilling," Bratton said.
Tracks that surrounded the truck and hours of door-to-door searching around Bear Mountain Ski Resort turned up nothing, and authorities conceded that the whereabouts of Dorner, also a former Naval reservist and onetime college running back, remained a mystery.
"He could be anywhere at this point," said San Bernardino County Sheriff John McMahon, who had 125 deputies and police officers and two helicopters searching the community of Big Bear Lake, where light snow fell early Friday morning.
The saga began Sunday night, when Monica Quan and fiance Keith Lawrence were found shot in their car at a parking structure at their condominium in Irvine. Quan was an assistant women's basketball coach at Cal State Fullerton.
The following morning in National City, near San Diego, some of Dorner's belongings, including police equipment and paperwork with names related to the LAPD, were found in a trash bin.
The LAPD was notified of the find, and two days later informed Irvine police of an angry manifesto written by a former officer and posted on Facebook. Among those named as targets was Randal Quan, a former LAPD captain turned attorney who represented Dorner in his unsuccessful attempts to keep the police job he lost in 2008 for making false statements.
Randal Quan was also Monica Quan's father.
"Bing bing bing, the dots were connecting," Irvine police Lt. Julia Engen said. "These names are somehow associated to Mr. Quan, who just lost his daughter the prior day. The dots connected. OK, now we've got a name of somebody to look at. That's when the discovery was connected."
On Wednesday night, Irvine and Los Angeles police announced they were searching for Dorner, declaring him armed and "extremely dangerous." Hours later, they learned they were all too correct.
Two LAPD officers en route to provide security to one of Dorner's possible targets were flagged down by a resident who reported seeing the suspect early Thursday at a gas station in Corona. The officers then followed a pickup truck until it stopped. The driver, believed to be Dorner, got out and fired a rifle, police said. A bullet grazed an officer's head.
Later, two officers on routine patrol in neighboring Riverside were ambushed at a stoplight by a motorist who drove up next to them and opened fire with a rifle. One died and the other was seriously wounded but was expected to survive, said Riverside police Chief Sergio Diaz.
Thousands of heavily armed officers patrolled highways throughout Southern California, while some stood guard outside the homes of people police said Dorner vowed to attack. Electronic billboards, which usually alert motorists about the commute, urged them to call 911 if they saw him.
At a news conference held amid heightened security in an underground room at police headquarters, Los Angeles Police Chief Charlie Beck urged Dorner to surrender.
"Of course he knows what he's doing; we trained him. He was also a member of the Armed Forces," he said. "It is extremely worrisome and scary."
While in the Naval Reserves, Dorner earned a rifle marksman ribbon and pistol expert medal. He was assigned to a naval undersea warfare unit and various aviation training units, according to military records, taking a leave from the LAPD to be deployed to Bahrain in 2006 and 2007.
He wrote that he would "utilize every bit of small arms training, demolition, ordinance and survival training I've been given," the manifesto read.
The hunt led to two errant shootings in the pre-dawn darkness Thursday.
LAPD officers guarding a target named in the manifesto shot and wounded two women in suburban Torrance who were in a pickup truck delivering newspapers. Investigators said Maggie Carranza, 47, and her mother, Emma Hernandez, 71, were in a Toyota Tundra, similar to Dorner's Nissan Titan. Carranza had minor hand injuries. Hernandez was hospitalized with a gunshot wound in the back. A lawyer said they had no warning.
Minutes later, Torrance officers responding to a report of gunshots encountered a dark pickup matching the description of Dorner's, police said. A collision occurred and the officers fired on the pickup. The unidentified driver was not hit and it turned out not to be the suspect vehicle, they said.
In San Diego, where police said Dorner tied up an elderly man and unsuccessfully tried to steal his boat Wednesday night, Naval Base Point Loma was locked down Thursday after a Navy worker reported seeing someone who resembled Dorner.
Navy Cmdr. Brad Fagan said officials believe Dorner had checked into a base hotel on Tuesday and left the next day without checking out. Numerous agencies guarded the base on Thursday. Fagan said Dorner was honorably discharged and that his last day in the Navy was last Friday.
Nevada authorities also joined the search, because Dorner owns a house nine miles from the Las Vegas Strip.
In Big Bear, Dorner's pickup was taken to be processed at a crime lab Thursday evening and examined by investigators from multiple agencies.
The manhunt was affecting some local businesses. A couple of fast food restaurants shut their doors and only took drive-in customers, and the main shopping avenue had light foot traffic.
Dorner's writings suggested he did not expect to live through the ordeal.
"Unfortunately, I will not be alive to see my name cleared," he wrote at one point in his manifesto, later saying, "Self-preservation is no longer important to me. I do not fear death as I died long ago."
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