At least two people were injured when a fire erupted Saturday on the pool deck of a Las Vegas hotel, according to fire officials, NBC News reported.
One person was hospitalized after the blaze was sparked on a pool deck of the Cosmopolitan Hotel and Casino, according to the Clark County Fire Department. Another person was treated for smoke inhalation, but was not hospitalized.
Several people in the area reported seeing smoke, according to The Las Vegas Review-Journal.
Corbin Williams, who had been staying on the 14th floor of the hotel said he felt like he was in danger.
“It was raging outside. It was really scary,” Williams said to NBC’s Owned Stations. “The flames were touching the window of my suite. You could hear people getting forced outside of their rooms.”
The hotel said in a statement that there were no serious injuries and that the cause of the fire is still under investigation.
The Cosmopolitan of Las Vegas has since returned to full operation with the exception of the hotel's spa, fitness center and two floors of the West End tower which were areas impacted by the fire, according to a statement from the hotel.
After years of critics suspicion over Barack Obama's birth certificate authenticity, the president made a quip during a dinner hosted by Kenya's president, Uhuru Kenyatta.
"Some of my critics back home might be suggesting I'm here to look for my birth certificate," the president said during a toast.
Obama's visit to Kenya marks the first time a sitting U.S. president has traveled to the East African nation, which, is his father's homeland.
In 2011, Obama made his Hawaiian birth certificate public after so-called "birthers" questioned his eligibility to be president, claiming he was not a U.S. citizen.
A tourist was hospitalized Saturday morning after homeless man clubbed him in the face with a 3-foot piece of wood outside a Midtown Manhattan hotel, authorities said.
The victim, whose name wasn't released by police, sustained a broken nose in the incident, which occurred at about 7:45 a.m. outside the Grand Hyatt Hotel on East 42nd Street. The man was taken to Bellevue Hospital where he was said to be in stable condition.
Police arrested John Addis, 40, a few blocks from the hotel and charged him with assault and criminal possession of a weapon, officials said. The attack appeared to be random, investigators said.
There was no information available as to whether Addis had a lawyer who could comment on the charges.
A heartwarming video showing a Bloomingdale police officer helping a 21-year-old mentally disabled woman has gone viral.
In the video, Officer Michael Giovenco holds the woman's hand and walks with her, at her request, to calm her down, according to the Bloomingdale Police Department, who posted the video on Facebook.
The woman had wandered away from home, and police found her walking along a roadway, the department said.
"She was visibly scared and upset and would not come with the police," the department's Facebook post read. "Officer Giovenco was able to calm her down and she advised that she just wanted to walk the 'trails.' Officer Giovenco told her that he would walk the 'trails' with her."
The woman eventually agreed to let the officers walk her back home. The department commended Giovenco for his "excellent police work" in helping the woman.
Since the video was posted Saturday morning, more than 1,000 people have shared, and another 6,000 have "liked" it on Facebook.
The La Jolla Recreation Center celebrated its one hundredth birthday Saturday with a rededication and reception.
The center opened its doors in July 1915. Built by master architect Irving Gill, philanthropist Ellen Browning Scripps commissioned the building on land adjacent to her home for $200,000. Gill also designed such landmarks as the La Jolla Women’s Club, the Bishop’s School and the Children’s Pool at La Jolla Cove.
“It’s a centennial year in San Diego and in La Jolla here as well,” Cindy Greatrex Vice President of the board of the rec center said on Saturday. “ It’s one of the first [rec centers] in the country, and we’re told it’s the oldest west of the Mississippi – so it should be the first in San Diego to my knowledge.”
When the center opened La Jolla’s population was under 4000, around a tenth of what it is today. The center became a historical landmark in 1973.
“It’s got a legacy with the Scripps family and also just throughout the community…We’re doing some of the same activities from a hundred years ago and we’re doing some activities that couldn’t have even been dreamt of a hundred years ago,” said Greatrex.
The birthday festivities included actors in period costume, live music, a bounce house and a petting zoo.
A Boil Water Order has been issued for Louis Stelzer County Park near Wildcat Canyon Road in Lakeside.
San Diego Health Department officials issued the order, effective immediately, after officials found trace amounts of Total Coliform bacteria in the water.
Total coliform is a bacterium found in soil and in animal waste.
The water serves a ranger station, volunteer pad, drinking fountains and public restrooms.
The boiling order will continue until the distribution system has been disinfected and no other samples are found the bacteria in the water supply.
Hillary Clinton is confident that no emails marked as classified entered her personal account while she was secretary of state.
"I did not receive anything that was marked as classified," Clinton told reporters after a campaign even in Winterset, Iowa.
The Department of Justice has been asked by two inspectors general to investigate whether classified information was mishandled in relation to Clinton's use of a private email account.
The Democratic presidential candidate said "there was a disagreement between various agencies" as to whether four emails in question should have been classified at the time they were sent.
The brother of the man who opened fire at a Louisiana movie theater this week, killing two and injuring nine before taking his own life, said Saturday that the family saw signs of mental illness but did not know he was capable of such violence, NBC News reported.
"We're in shock just like everybody else," Rem Houser, the older brother of gunman John Houser, told NBC News from outside his Columbus, Georgia, home. "The focus of our family has just been thinking about the mental illness issue. Did we miss something was there something we didn't see?"
"We say no. We saw no sign of this," Houser said, admitting that he rarely talked to or saw his brother over the last 20 years.
But that's not the way it always was, Houser, 61, said.
A New Jersey man brandished a samurai sword and waved it at a fellow driver Saturday while stuck in traffic at the entrance to the Holland Tunnel, police said.
Richardson Rosius, 32, of Eatontown, became enraged as cars were merging near the tunnel's entrance and pulled out a 10 1/2-inch blade, according to Port Authority of New York and New Jersey Police.
He hopped out of his vehicle in traffic at about 2 p.m. and pointed the weapon at the other driver, police said. He was arrested when he drove out of the tunnel in New Jersey.
Rosius was arrested on a weapons charge, said officers, who added that they found the sword on his front seat. The sword, a wakizashi, was typically worn by the samurai class in feudal Japan.
It was not immediately clear whether he had a lawyer who could comment about the charge.
Last month, police arrested a man who hacked at a vehicle with a machete in a congested Holland Tunnel.
A woman who noticed a stranger at her neighbor's door and went to talk to him fell victim to a jewelry burglary at her own house when her house was left unlocked and unattended in New Haven, police said.
$1,300 in jewelry was stolen in the distraction burglary and police are asking residents to be on the lookout for the thieves.
A man at the door of a home in the East Rock neighborhood approached an elderly female neighbor who saw him to ask if the neighbor was home, police said. He struck up a conversation with her and said he worked for the city and was assessing trees he was tasked to cut down, walking her to the backyard, according to police. While he was chatting with her for about 10 to 20 minutes, he was also communicating with someone on his phone in Spanish.
The woman grew suspicious and went to check on her door after remembering she'd left it unlocked. By then the door was locked and the man asked her what she was wrong, so she told him that the previously locked door was now locked. The man then began screaming over the phone in Spanish and the victim yelled for people inside to unlock the door, the woman told police.
Two men flung the door open and ran outside and all three men took off in a large, new, white Chevrolet pickup tuck with a white cap covering the bed, police said.
The resident called police to report the crime. She was not injured.
Police described the first man the woman spoke to as 5-foot-4 with an average build, crew cut styled hair and a clean-shaven face. He was wearing a blue T-shirt that had a logo on it. One of the men who ran from the woman's house was wearing a white shirt with an emblem on the left sleeve, a red and white cap, light blue pants or jeans and dark footwear. The other person was wearing dark short pants, likely blue, a dark blue short-sleeved shirt and possibly a white undershirt. He was wearing a dark cap.
Police ask anyone who encounters people matching the description or who has information about the crime to call Det. Manuella Vensel 203-946-6304 or police at 203-946-6316 if you see them.
The burglaries are unusual, but police said they do sometimes happen, so you can heed the following precautions to prevent burglaries:
A Newport Beach attorney was sentenced to prison time for his role in “sophisticated loan” fraud schemes that amounted to more than $4 million in Orange and San Diego counties.
Attorney Gino Paul Pietro was sentenced to 30 months collectively for activities that one judge said brought “dishonor and disgrace to the entire legal profession,” according to U.S. Attorney for the Central District of California Laura Duffy.
“Because members of the bar are given special privileges, they are rightly held to a strict standard of honesty and fair dealing,” said U.S. Attorney Laura E. Duffy said in a statement. “Unfortunately, Pietro placed his own financial interests ahead of his obligations to his clients, to banks, and to the courts. Attorneys who engage in fraudulent conduct should not be surprised to find themselves in federal court – but this time, as defendants.”
In one scheme, Pietro was convicted of his part in a sophisticated loan fraud scheme where a “straw buyer” would conceal his client’s receipt of more than $4 million in commercial loans. Those loans were backed by the federal government, according to Duffy, and he was sentenced on Monday to 24 months in custody.
U.S. District Judge Dana M. Sabraw sentenced Pietro for defrauding six different defendants and their families, six of whom had entered the U.S. illegally, of $3,000 each. He told those families he was a licensed attorney who could globally resolve their criminal and immigration cases and was sentenced to 10 months in custody.
Pietro must repay the $18,000 in restitutions for the San Diego victims of the fraud scheme.
He will appear in court in Santa Ana on Oct. 26, where a judge will determine how much restitution to victims of the loan fraud scheme.
The six victims that had committed crimes by entering the county illegally “didn’t deserve this,” Sabraw said.
Sabraw said the attorney brought “dishonor and disgrace to the entire legal profession.”
He will report to prison on Nov. 27, 2015.
A new instagram account is throwing shade on apathetic drivers who make you stop and say, "Seriously!?"
Los Angeles based makeup-artist Andria Farrell started the @parkingspotshaming social media account on the visual app, allowing people to voice their frustrations on just how horrible that parking job really was.
An array of photos shows single cars taking up two parking spots and even making up their own spots at times.
One photo shows a family van parked the wrong way in two spots with part of the caption reading, "Not even sure how this made sense."
To shame those clueless drivers, Ferrell created the ParkingSpotShaming@gmail.com account for all your parking woes.
Thousands of neighbors are expected to line the streets for Pacific Beach's popular annual street fair Sunday morning.
The the PB Sip ‘n’ Stroll, will take place Sunday, July 26 on Cass Street.
The event will feature over 50 local merchants, art activities, live music, and a Westcoaster beer and wine garden. The PB Town Council has added a new community and kid's corner this year as well.
During the inagural Ride ‘n’ Stroll bikers, skaters, unicyclists, walkers and runners will follow two routes from the PB mural on Haines & Diamond Street to the Sip ‘n’ Stroll. Free parking is provided at the bike corral. DekoBikes will also be available. Participants should meet at 11 am.
The Pacific Beach Historical Society will present the PB Historic Pictorial Walk this year with over 100 old photos of PB.
The event is free and will raise more toward creating a bike friendly business district.
For more information, visit their website.
A small airplane crashed into a residential neighborhood in Tokyo Sunday, setting buildings ablaze and leaving three people dead, public broadcaster NHK reported, according to NBC News.
Live aerial images on Japanese television showed the wing and the body of the plane amid the charred homes, one of which appeared to be gutted by the fire.
The plane took off from an airfield in Chofu at around 11 a.m. local time (10 p.m. Saturday ET) and the aircraft crashed about a third of a mile away, NHK said, citing the Tokyo Fire Department.
Tokyo Metropolitan Police did not officially release any figures on the numbers of casualties, but NHK, citing a police source, said two of the five people onboard the plane were killed, while one person in the home that caught fire also died.
At least seven people were injured when a children's swing ride tipped over at a Kentucky amusement park on Saturday, police told NBC News.
Emergency personal responded after the ride, which suspends riders in the air as it spins around, malfunctioned and toppled over at Beech Bend Park in Bowling Green Saturday evening, according to the Warren County Sheriff's department.
Some children were among the injured, police confirmed. The extent of the injuries was not yet known, but no fatalities have been reported.
The cause of the malfunction remains unclear.
A fire station built in San Diego’s Little Italy neighborhood 100 years ago is now officially designated as a historic site.
Old Fire Station 6, located at 1572 Columbia Street, is currently home to the San Diego Firehouse Museum. On Saturday, San Diego City Councilmember Todd Gloria joined current and retired firefighters at the station to unveil a plaque designating Old Fire Station 6 historic.
During the designation ceremony, retired firefighters who worked out of the century-old fire station shared stories of their service. Gloria took to his Twitter page to share photos from the plaque unveiling.
"Station 6 was the site of some notable inventions for the fire service and is well-deserving of this historic designation," Gloria said. "As San Diego welcomed international visitors for the 1915 Panama-California Exposition, the firefighters at Station 6 were using ingenuity and professional prowess to make our region safer."
Tom Rouse, an X-Noble Grand Humbug of Squibob, told NBC 7 the plaque is the perfect way to honor the rich history of the fire station and its innovative contributions to the firefighting world.
“This was the birthplace where all of the fire threads on fire hose were standardized,” Rouse explained.
Rouse said that before that innovation out of Old Fire Station 6, hoses from different fire departments around San Diego communities were unable to connect with one another.
"Now, we can go to a different state and connect to their fire hose," he added.
The San Diego Firehouse Museum was founded in 1962, taking over the Old Fire Station 6 building. Today, it houses a multitude of displays featuring firefighting equipment, engines and tools dating back to the late 1800s.
Memorabilia includes La Jolla’s first fire engine, a horse-drawn steamer and a piece of steel from the World Trade Center
The museum is open Thursday and Friday from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m., and Saturday and Sunday from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Admission is $3 for adults and $2 for children and seniors.
Hearing reports of a "lion-like animal," police closed off streets near a park in north Milwaukee on Saturday night, days after people said they saw a lion prowling city streets, Reuters reported.
Milwaukee police and the Department of Natural Resources responded to the area, at 30th and Fairmont streets, for what a police statement called "a confirmed sighting of a lion-like animal."
The animal was not located, it added. Local residents reported earlier on Saturday they had seen a lion and her cub in a creek in the park.
On Tuesday a white pit bull dog was shot in the paw after apparently having been mistaken for the lion reported to have been prowling city streets. It was expected to fully recover.
Newly-released photos show Vice President Dick Cheney, President George Bush and other members of the administration reacting on the day of the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks.
The photos were released in response to a Freedom of Information Act request and were taken by Cheney's staff photographer.
The photos show the country's leaders mulling what to do after the attacks, which killed nearly 3,000 people in New York, Pennsylvania and Washington, D.C.
NBC News collected 13 photos.
