5 arrested in Mexico tourist rapes

By Jessica King and Salomon Kaufman, CNN

updated 2:52 AM EST, Mon February 11, 2013

STORY HIGHLIGHTS

• 50 investigators are working the case


• An official says investigators are pursuing strong leads


• Six Spanish women were allegedly raped

Acapulco, Mexico (CNN) -- Mexican authorities are holding five suspects in connection with the alleged rapes of six Spanish tourists in Acapulco, Guerrero state Gov. Angel Aguirre Rivero said Sunday.

The state attorney general has not yet released any information on the suspects or where they're being held, prompting demonstrations by family members concerned about their whereabouts.

Fifty investigators have been dedicated to the case.

The six women were among 14 people victimized by hooded gunmen who burst into a beach bungalow in the resort town before dawn February 4. There are seven suspects between the ages of 20 and 30, lead investigator Marcos Juarez said.

In addition to the rapes, the men stole cell phones, iPads and tennis shoes from the victims, investigators said.

Investigators believe the victims bought drugs from one or more of the suspects a day or two earlier, and that the victims knew the suspects, Juarez said last week.

The Spanish nationals range from ages 20 to 34 and are under the protection of Mexican authorities in Mexico City.

Rape case in Mexican resort city puts violence back in the spotlight

Seven men who were with the group were tied up with cell phone cables and bikini straps while the gunmen assaulted the six women, officials said.

A seventh woman, a Mexican, was spared because of her nationality, Guerrero state Attorney General Martha Garzon said in a radio interview Wednesday.

"She has said that she identified herself to the men and asked them not to rape her," Garzon told Radio Formula. "And they told her that she had 'passed the test' by being Mexican, and from that point they don't touch her."

The gunmen's motive was robbery and "to have some fun," as they saw it, Garzon said. They do not appear to be a part of organized crime, officials said.

Military checkpoints have been set up to apprehend the suspects.

As they sift through evidence, investigators have cordoned off the area around the bungalow, which is in Playa Encantada.

Last year, the city of Acapulco attracted half a million tourists -- most of them Mexicans.

Mexico's Foreign Ministry said in a statement that the Spanish tourists received consular aid after the incident.

The U.S. State Department says "resort areas and tourist destinations in Mexico generally do not see the levels of drug-related violence and crime reported in the border region and in areas along major trafficking routes."

But the agency adds that resort city bars, including those in Acapulco, can be "havens for drug dealers and petty criminals."

Salomon Kaufman reported from Acapulco, and Jessica King reported from Atlanta.

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New England, N.Y. face first post-blizzard rush hour

NEWPORT, R.I. As electricity returns and highways reopen, Northeast residents are getting back to their weekday routines following the massive snowstorm that had millions digging out from New York to Maine.

But the routine for some New Englanders will be disrupted by school and workplace closings, while residents of New York's Long Island anticipate the reopening of a major roadway. For some, there's also a new worry: the danger of roof collapses as rain and warmer weather melt snow.

The storm that slammed into the region with up to three feet of snow was blamed for at least 15 deaths in the Northeast and Canada, and brought some of the highest accumulations ever recorded.

Still, coastal areas were largely spared catastrophic damage despite being lashed by strong waves and hurricane-force wind gusts at the height of the storm.

Hundreds of people, their homes without heat or electricity, were forced to take refuge in emergency shelters set up in schools or other places.

61 Photos

Powerful blizzard descends on Northeast

Utility crews, some brought in from as far away as Georgia, Oklahoma and Quebec, raced to restore power. By early Monday, region-wide outages had dropped from some 650,000 in eight states at their highest to 149,970 -- more than 126,000 of them in Massachusetts, where officials said some of the outages might linger until Tuesday.

"For all the complaining everyone does, people really came through," said Rich Dinsmore, 65, of Newport, R.I., who was staying at a Red Cross shelter set up in a middle school in Middletown after the power went out in his home on Friday.

Dinsmore, who has emphysema, was first brought by ambulance to a hospital after the medical equipment he relies on failed when the power went out and he had difficulty breathing.

Play Video

Northeast sees record snow fall

"The police, the fire department, the state, the Red Cross, the volunteers, it really worked well," said the retired radio broadcaster and Army veteran.

President Obama declared a state of emergency for Connecticut, allowing federal aid to be used in recovery.

CBS News correspondent Miguel Bojorquez reports that Hamden, Conn., about 80 miles from New York City, got the deepest snow: 40 inches. The blizzard dumped five inches of snow per hour there for some time.

Driving bans were lifted and flights resumed at major airports in the region that had closed during the storm, though many flights were still canceled Sunday. Public transit schedules were being restored.

The Boston-area public transportation system, which shut down on Friday afternoon, was expected to resume full service on Monday, albeit with delays.

Massachusetts Bay Transit Authority (MBTA) General Manager Beverly Scott, speaking at a Sunday afternoon press conference, noted that snow accumulation, downed tree limbs and other damage from high winds and the overall age of the transit system made restoration challenging, reports CBS Boston station WBZ.

The Metro-North Railroad expected to resume much of its train service on its New York and Connecticut routes while the Long Island Rail Road said commuters could expect a nearly normal schedule.

"A lot of progress has been made," said Salvatore Arena, a spokesman for the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, which operates Metro-North.

Some public schools canceled classes on Monday, including in Boston, Providence and on Long Island, while local governments in some areas told non-essential workers to take the day off.

On eastern Long Island, the harrowing images from New York's slice of the massive snowstorm -- people stranded overnight, cars abandoned on long stretches of drift-covered highways -- were slowly erased Sunday as hundreds of snowplows and heavy equipment descended to try to help clear the way for Monday's commute.

Long Island was slammed with as much as 30 inches of snow, which shut down roads, including the Long Island Expressway. A 27-mile stretch of the road was closed Sunday and early Monday for snow-removal work.

Gov. Andrew Cuomo said more than a third of all the state's snow-removal equipment was sent to the area, including more than 400 plow trucks and more than 100 snow blowers, loaders and backhoes.

"The massive amount of snow left behind effectively shut down the entire region," Cuomo said.

On Sunrise Highway, which runs parallel to the Long Island Expressway, Dennis Lawrence, of Bellport, N.Y., had already spent 90 minutes digging out the car he had abandoned and had at least another 30-60 minutes to go on Sunday. He left it there Friday after getting stuck on his way home from his job in New York City.

"The car was all over the place, it just slid over and wouldn't move," the 54-year-old elevator mechanic said. "I finally decided today to come and get it."

Boston recorded 24.9 inches of snow, making it the fifth-largest storm in the city since records were kept. The city was appealing to the state and private contractors for more front-end loaders and other heavy equipment to clear snow piles that were clogging residential streets.

The National Weather Service was forecasting rain and warmer temperatures in the region on Monday, which could begin melting some snow but also add considerable weight to snow already piled on roofs, posing the danger of collapse. Of greatest concern were flat or gently-sloped roofs and officials said people should try to clear them -- but only if they could do so safely.

"We don't recommend that people, unless they're young and experienced, go up on roofs," said Peter Judge, spokesman for the Massachusetts Emergency Management Agency.

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Time to rinse! AI assistant helps clean your teeth

FOR most of us, brushing our teeth is just a tedious part of the daily grind. But for people with dementia or learning difficulties, such tasks can be difficult. They could soon gain more independence thanks to an AI designed by Christian Peters at Bielefeld University in Germany and his colleagues.

Peters has already come up with a system that guides people when washing their hands. Brushing teeth is more complicated because it involves many steps - such as putting toothpaste on the brush, filling a glass with water or rinsing the mouth.

The TEBRA system uses a video camera to monitor someone brushing their teeth and checks that each step happens at the right time. It prompts them via a screen on the washstand if they forget a step or if they get stuck. The idea is not to dictate a routine, but to adapt to that of the user, says Peters.

TEBRA is being tested at a care home in Bielefeld for people with learning disabilities. Caregivers there reported that the system was less distracting for some people than a human carer. The work will be presented at the International Conference on Health Informatics in Barcelona, Spain, next week. Peters also plans to adapt his system to tasks such as shaving.

This article appeared in print under the headline "Time to rinse! An AI to help you clean your teeth"

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- AFP/ck

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New Yorkers tell of hours stranded on snowy roads

FARMINGVILLE, N.Y. Stranded for hours on a snow-covered road, Priscilla Arena prayed, took out a sheet of loose-leaf paper and wrote what she thought might be her last words to her husband and children.

She told her 9 1/2-year-old daughter, Sophia, she was "picture-perfect beautiful." And she advised her 5 ?-year-old son, John: "Remember all the things that mommy taught you. Never say you hate someone you love. Take pride in the things you do, especially your family. ... Don't get angry at the small things; it's a waste of precious time and energy. Realize that all people are different, but most people are good. "

"My love will never die — remember, always," she added.

Arena, who was rescued in an Army canvas truck after about 12 hours, was one of hundreds of drivers who spent a fearful, chilly night stuck on highways in a blizzard that plastered New York's Long Island with more than 30 inches of snow, its ferocity taking many by surprise despite warnings to stay off the roads.

Even plows were mired in the snow or blocked by stuck cars, so emergency workers had to resort to snowmobiles to try to reach motorists. Four-wheel-drive vehicles, tractor-trailers and a couple of ambulances could be seen stranded along the roadway and ramps of the Long Island Expressway. Stuck drivers peeked out from time to time, running their cars intermittently to warm up as they waited for help.

With many still stranded hours after the snow stopped, Gov. Andrew Cuomo urged other communities to send plows to help dig out in eastern Long Island, which took the state's hardest hit by far in the massive Northeast storm.

In Connecticut, where the storm dumped more than 3 feet of snow in some places, the National Guard rescued about 90 stranded motorists, taking a few to hospitals with hypothermia.

51 Photos

Powerful blizzard descends on Northeast

The scenes came almost exactly two years after a blizzard marooned at least 1,500 cars and buses on Chicago's iconic Lake Shore Drive, leaving hundreds of people shivering in their vehicles for as long as 12 hours and questioning why the city didn't close the crucial thoroughfare earlier.

Cuomo and other officials were similarly asked why they didn't act to shut down major highways in Long Island in advance of the storm, especially given the sprawling area's reputation for gridlock. The expressway is often called "the world's longest parking lot."

"The snow just swallowed them up. It came down so hard and so fast," explained Suffolk County Executive Steven Bellone.

"That's not an easy call," added Cuomo, who noted that people wanted to get home and that officials had warned them to take precautions because the worst of the snow could start by the evening rush hour. Flashing highway signs underscored the message ahead of time: "Heavy Snow Expected. Avoid PM Travel!"

"People need to act responsibly in these situations," Cuomo said.

But many workers didn't have the option of taking off early Friday, Arena noted. The 41-year-old sales account manager headed home from an optical supply business in Ronkonkoma around 4 p.m. She soon found her SUV stuck along a road in nearby Farmingville.

"Even though we would dig ourselves out and push forward, the snow kept piling, and therefore we all got stuck, all of us," she recalled later at Brookhaven Town Hall, where several dozen stranded motorists were taken after being rescued. Many others opted to stay with their cars.

Play Video

Getting travel back to normal after blizzard

Richard Ebbrecht left his Brooklyn chiropractic office around 3 p.m. for his home in Middle Island, about 60 miles away, calculating that he could make the drive home before the worst of the blizzard set in. He was wrong.

As the snow came rushing down faster than he'd foreseen, he got stuck six or seven times on the expressway and on other roads. Drivers began helping each other shovel and push, he said, but to no avail. He finally gave up and spent the night in his car on a local thoroughfare, only about two miles from his home.

"I could run my car and keep the heat on and listen to the radio a little bit," he said.

He walked home around at 8 a.m., leaving his car.

Late-shifters including Wayne Jingo had little choice but to risk it if they wanted to get home. By early afternoon, he'd been stuck in his pickup truck alongside the Long Island Expressway for nearly 12 hours.

He'd left his job around midnight as a postal worker at Kennedy Airport and headed home to Medford, about 50 miles east. He was at an exit in Ronkonkoma — almost home — around 1:45 a.m. when another driver came barreling at him westbound, the wrong way, he said. Jingo swerved to avoid the oncoming car, missed the exit and ended up stuck on the highway's grass shoulder.

He rocked the truck back and forth to try to free it, but it only sank down deeper into the snow and shredded one of his tires. He called 911. A police officer came by at 9:30 a.m. and said he would send a tow truck.

At 1 p.m. Saturday, Jingo was still waiting.

"I would have been fine if I didn't have to swerve," he said.

In Middle Island, a Wal-Mart remained unofficially open long past midnight to accommodate more than two dozen motorists who were stranded on nearby roads.

"We're here to mind the store, but we can't let people freeze out there," manager Jerry Greek told Newsday.

Officials weren't aware of any deaths among the stranded drivers, Cuomo said. Suffolk County police said no serious injuries had been reported among stuck motorists, but officers were still systematically checking stranded vehicles late Saturday afternoon.

While the expressway eventually opened Saturday, about 30 miles of the highway was to be closed again Sunday for snow removal.

Susan Cassara left her job at a Middle Island day care center around 6:30 p.m., after driving some of the children home because their parents couldn't get there to pick them up.

She got stuck on one road until about 2:30 a.m. Then a plow helped her get out — but she got stuck again, she said. Finally, an Army National Guardsman got to her on a snowmobile after 4 a.m.

"It was so cool. Strapped on, held on and came all the way here" to the makeshift shelter at the Brookhaven Town Hall, she said. "Something for my bucket list."

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LAPD Reopens Case of Suspected Cop-Killer's Firing

The Los Angeles Police Department announced today it will reopen the case of the firing of Christopher Dorner, but said the decision was not made to "appease" the fugitive former cop suspected of killing three people.

Dorner, a fired and disgruntled former Los Angeles police officer, said in the so-called "manifesto" he released that he was targeting LAPD officials and their families and will keep killing until the truth is known about his case.

"I have no doubt that the law enforcement community will bring to an end the reign of terror perpetrated on our region by Christopher Jordan Dorner and he will be held accountable for his evil actions," LAPD Chief Charlie Beck said in a statement released tonight.

He spoke of the "tremendous strides" the LAPD has made in regaining public trust after numerous scandals, but added: "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."

To do that, he said, full re-investigation of the case that led to Dorner's firing is necessary.

"I feel we need to also publicly address Dorner's allegations regarding his termination of employment, and to do so I have directed our Professionals Standards Bureau and my Special Assistant for Constitutional Policing to completely review the Dorner complaint of 2007; To include a re-examination of all evidence and a re-interview of witnesses," he said. "We will also investigate any allegations made in his manifesto which were not included in his original complaint.

Irvine Police Department/AP Photo

Christopher Dorner Search: Officials Search for Ex-officer in the Mountains Watch Video

Hundreds of Officers on Hunt for Alleged Cop Killer Watch Video

"I do this not to appease a murderer. I do it to reassure the public that their police department is transparent and fair in all the things we do."

PHOTOS: Former LAPD Officer Suspected in Shootings

As police searched for Dorner today in the San Bernardino Mountains, sources told ABC News that investigators found two AR-15 assault rifles in the burned-out truck Dorner abandoned.

The truck had a broken axle, which may be the reason he decided to set fire to it, the police sources said.

A man identifying himself as Dorner taunted the father of Monica Quan four days after the former LAPD officer allegedly killed her and just 11 hours after he allegedly killed a police officer in Riverside, Calif., according to court documents obtained by ABC News

A man claiming to be Dorner called Randall Quan and told him that that he "should have done a better job of protecting his daughter," according to the documents.

In his 6,000-word "manifesto," Dorner named Randal Quan, a retired LAPD captain and attorney who represented him before a police review board that led to Dorner's dismissal from the force.

"I never had an opportunity to have a family of my own, I'm terminating yours," Dorner wrote, and directed Quan and other officials to "[l]ook your wives/husbands and surviving children directly in the face and tell them the truth as to why your children are dead."

Monica Quan and her fiancé Keith Lawrence were gunned down last Sunday in their car in the parking of their Irvine, Calif., condominium complex. Both were struck with multiple gunshot wounds.

The call, according to court records, was traced to Vancouver, Wash., but law enforcement officials do not believe Dorner was there at the time at the call.

Dorner is believed to have made the call early Thursday afternoon, less than half a day after he is suspected of killing a police officer and wounding two others early that morning, sparking an unprecedented man hunt involving more than a thousand police officers and federal agents spanning hundreds of miles.

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Sooty ships may be geoengineering by accident

GEOENGINEERING is being tested - albeit inadvertently - in the north Pacific. Soot from oil-burning ships is dumping about 1000 tonnes of soluble iron per year across 6 million square kilometres of ocean, new research has revealed.

Fertilising the world's oceans with iron has been controversially proposed as a way of sucking carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere to curb global warming. Some geoengineers claim releasing iron into the sea will stimulate plankton blooms, which absorb carbon, but ocean processes are complex and difficult to monitor in tests.

"Experiments suggest you change the population of algae, causing a shift from fish-dominated to jellyfish-dominated ecosystems," says Alex Baker of the University of East Anglia, UK. Such concerns led the UN Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) to impose a moratorium on geoengineering experiments in 2010.

The annual ship deposition is much larger, if less concentrated, than the iron released in field tests carried out before the moratorium was in place. Yet because ship emissions are not intended to alter ocean chemistry, they do not violate the moratorium, says Jim Thomas of the ETC Group, a think tank that consults for the CBD. "If you intentionally drove oil-burning ships back and forth as a geoengineering experiment, that would contravene it."

The new study, by Akinori Ito of the Japan Agency for Marine-Earth Science and Technology, is the first to quantify how shipping deposits iron in parts of the ocean normally deficient in it. Earlier models had assumed that only 1 to 2 per cent of the iron contained in aerosols, including shipping emissions, is soluble in seawater, so the remaining 98 to 99 percent would sink to the bottom without affecting ocean life. But Ito found that up to 80 per cent of the iron in shipping soot is soluble (Global Biogeochemical Cycles, doi.org/kdj). As this soot rapidly falls to the sea surface, it is likely to be fertilising the oceans.

In the high-latitude north Pacific - a region that is naturally iron-poor and therefore likely to be most affected by human deposits - ship emissions now account for 70 per cent of soluble iron from human activity, with the burning of biomass and coal accounting for the rest. Shipping's share will rise as traffic continues to grow and regulations restrict coal and biomass emissions.

Can we learn anything from this unintentional experiment? Baker thinks not. "The process isn't scientifically useful," he says, because the uncontrolled nature of the iron makes it difficult to draw meaningful comparisons.

The depositions are unlikely to be harmful at current levels, he says, but "given the uncertainties, I just don't know how much these iron emissions would have to increase before there was demonstrable harm to an ecosystem, or benefit in terms of carbon uptake, for that matter".

This article appeared in print under the headline "Ships inadvertently fertilise the oceans"

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Obama urges balanced approach to deficit reduction

WASHINGTON: US President Barack Obama urged Congress Saturday to find a balanced approach to deficit reduction, warning that steep budget cuts known as "the sequester" would hurt the economy and threaten thousands of American jobs.

"If the sequester is allowed to go forward, thousands of Americans who work in fields like national security, education or clean energy are likely to be laid off," Obama said in his weekly radio and Internet address.

"All our economic progress could be put at risk," he added.

The cuts, which are due to take effect on March 1, would also affect US military readiness, said the president.

"As our military leaders have made clear, changes like this affect our ability to respond to threats in an unstable part of the world," Obama pointed out.

The sequester was agreed by the president and Congress in 2011 to be so punishing that it would force Washington's warring political factions to forge an agreement on a way to cut the US budget deficit.

But amid partisan gridlock, no agreement on cutting the deficit has been reached and cuts due in March will slash defense spending by $55 billion and non-defense discretionary spending by $27 billion this year.

On Friday, the White House issued a doom-laden survey of the impact of sequestration.

It said 10,000 teacher jobs were at risk, food inspections could stop, 373,000 mental health patients would lose treatment and prosecutors could be furloughed.

The FBI would have 1,000 fewer officers, small business loans would be cut by $540 million, and around 600,000 women and children could lose government-funded emergency nutrition, according to the White House.

"The good news is, there's another option," Obama said.

He reminded his audience that two months ago, the White House and Congress faced a similar prospect of deep cuts and tax hikes, known as the "fiscal cliff".

On that occasion, said the president, Democrats and Republicans managed to come together and make "responsible cuts and manageable changes to our tax code" to pull back from the brink.

"This time, Congress should pass a similar set of balanced cuts and close more tax loopholes until they can find a way to replace the sequester with a smarter, longer-term solution," Obama said.

- AFP/ck

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