A bridal shower turned tragic on Saturday when five women died after the stretch limousine they were riding in burst into flames on the San Mateo-Hayward Bridge over the San Francisco Bay.

Orville Brown, 46, the driver of the limousine, escaped unhurt. He told NBC Bay Area he thought the women were trying to get his attention to ask him to pull over so that they could smoke.

“She said, 'No smoke - smoke smoke…pull over pull over pull over.' I saw the smoke, pulled over, by the time I was getting out the car there was a lady coming over the partition,” Brown said.

Brown helped three other women come through the same partition to safety, he said.

“We were all in shock. Scared. Crying. Frustrated," he said. "I just reach out to the families and wish we could have done more.”

Brown said he thinks the fire may have been triggered by an electrical problem.  

A bride was among the women killed and was identified by her sister-in-law Lovela Nicolas as Neriza Fojas. A family member told NBC Bay Area Fojas was recently married here in the United States, but was also planning a wedding in the Philippines on June 19. 

Fojas was a registered nurse at Fresno Community Regional Medical Center, according to her family. The other four victims who did not survive were not identified Sunday night. 

Four other people in the limo escaped with burn and smoke inhalation injuries, California Highway Patrol Officer Art Montiel said. The car's driver was unhurt. 

The CHP credited good Samaritans who stopped and helped some of the women get out. 

San Mateo County Coroner Robert Foucrault told NBC Bay Area that the scene was the worst he had witnessed in his 20 years on the job.

He said it was obvious to him that the women were trying to get out of the vehicle and were overcome by smoke. "My understanding is that three passengers got out the side back door on the drivers side, and one made it out the passenger compartment window successfully - to the driver's compartment," Fourcrault said.

The coroner said three of the women made it out the back door on the driver's side. One made it through the divider into the driver's area. That is different than the driver described.  

Fourcrault said four women who did not survive and were found near the front of the passenger compartment as if they were trying to get to the driver's area through the privacy divider. The coroner's office plans to use dental records Monday to positively identify the victims.  

The highway patrol officer on the scene Saturday night said the women were "probably killed by the fire," though the cause of death has not been confirmed.

Witnesses told NBC Bay area the white Lincoln Town Car was not involved in an accident prior to catching on fire.

While the names of those killed have not been released, the CHP released the names, ages and hometowns of the women who survived and the driver. 

The passengers who survived were Jasmine Desguia, 34, of San Jose; Mary G. Guardiano, 42, of Alameda; Nelia Arrellano, 36, of Oakland; and Amalia Loyola, 48, of San Leandro. 

The surviving passengers were taken to Valley Medical Center and Stanford Hospital for treatment for burns and smoke inhalation.

A viewer named David Solomon sent in the still photo above.  The photos show the fire was in the rear of the vehicle. 

The fire was first reported around 10 p.m. in the third lane of westbound state Highway 92, according to the CHP.

A viewer sent us the below video from the scene.

Cypress Canyon Park is normally filled with fun and family but in the middle of the night Friday, vandals disrupted that by stealing stainless steel irrigation heads.

"It's terrible it's disappointing it's horrible that the people would steal from our parks and our kids," said softball coach Jeff Tarczy.

Vandals left behind 47 holes and word of the damage is spreading among members of the city's Civic Association.

Families are trying to figure out just how to catch the vandals and make sure this doesn't happen again.

They're already talking about possible security measures on Facebook and a newsletter is going out to all members of the Scripps Ranch Civic Association.

"Once people realize they're paying assessments for theft people are going to be upset," said association president Bob Ilko.

The thieves will likely make $300 off the steel but parts and labor to fix it will likely cost the City's Maintenance Assessment District up to $4,000.

A San Diego area highway proved to be a safe runway when a pilot is forced to make an emergency landing shortly after takeoff from Gillespie Field.

Two men, an instructor and a pilot getting a re-certification, were scared but uninjured when they were forced to land on State Route 52 Saturday.

The plane’s engine died and both pilots managed to glide the plane down to a safe landing.

“The seasoned pilot made the determination that they did not have enough air speed to make it to Gillespie, so he decided to land here on the freeway,” said CHP Officer Russ Nichols.

The small plane landed under freeway signs, rolled under the State Route 125 overpass and came to rest in the slow lane.

There were few cars on the road at the time.

When San Diego County sheriff's deputies showed up, they were able to help the pilots push the plane onto the shoulder and out of traffic.

That’s where the plane stayed here for about four hours as crews tried to figure out how to get it off the freeway.

They considered stopping traffic and pushing it off but the wingspan of the Piper single airplane were too wide to exit the off ramp.

So they brought in a large flatbed trailer and put the plane on sideways and took it away.

It's an ending that officers say could have been much worse.

“This could've been a huge disaster,” said Officer Nichols. “Luckily they found a break in traffic but this could have been a horrible if they crashed into the 125 mirror wall and car stacked up into it.”
 

An undetermined roadside ignition off the Ventura (101) Freeway in the Conejo Grade sparked the Springs Fire, officials said on Sunday.

Officials are calling it an "undetermined roadside ignition of grass and debris" that started the region's largest wildfire so far this year that scorched nearly 44 square miles along the Ventura and Los Angeles county lines.

“Undetermined is a very broad spectrum. So, they couldn’t find something specific that caused the fire," said Tony McHale, with the Ventura County Fire Department. "Examples of the kinds of things that we find along the highway – large metallic items that fall off vehicles, these things can cause sparks. Sometimes there’s discarded cigarettes."

Now that firefighters have the Springs Fire nearly under control after three days fighting in steep, rugged and rocky terrain, the focus of the blaze turns to a grassy area off the Ventura Freeway in the Conejo Grade where the fire was sparked on May 2.

Full Coverage: Southern California Wildfires

The fire began off the southbound side of the Ventura Freeway at Camarillo Springs Road. The fire quickly spread to over 28,000 acres of the Santa Monica Mountains in near triple-digit heat and low humidity.

It was 75 percent contained by Sunday evening with full containment expected by Monday.

Some 15 homes and several recreational vehicles were damaged and several communities in the path were evacuated.

Five firefighters suffered minor injuries, according to the Ventura County Fire Department. Two of the first responders suffered wounds from falls, and three had debris in their eyes.

The fire prompted a massive mutual-aid response from agencies across the state.

At one point, 1,900 firefighters -- assisted by water-dropping and fire-retardant dropping planes and helicopters -- attacked the flames.

Two men were shot while traveling along eastbound Interstate 8 in La Mesa early Sunday.

The California Highway Patrol responded to a call just before 4 a.m. reporting a person on the road next to a vehicle on I-8 near the junction with State Route 125.

Officials say two men in their 20s were brought to Grossmont Hospital with gunshot wounds around the same time.

The men were in serious conditions and were transported to another nearby hospital because of the seriousness of their injuries La Mesa police Lt. Matt Nicholas said.

Officials believe a vehicle pulled alongside the victims’ vehicle and fired multiple shots at the victims.

Investigators have not released a motive or a description of the suspect’s vehicle.

CHP officers closed down a portion of I-8 to traffic for more than five hours Sunday morning as they combed the highway for evidence in the shooting.

Traffic has been reopened along I-8 from 70th Street to Severin Drive.

A bridal shower turned tragic on Saturday when five women died after the stretch limousine they were riding in burst into flames on the San Mateo-Hayward Bridge.

Orville Brown, 46, was the driver of the limousine. He told NBC Bay Area's Cheryl Hurd he thought the women were trying to get his attention to ask him to pull over so that they could smoke. “She said, 'No smoke - smoke smoke…pull over pull over pull over,'" he recalled. "I saw the smoke, pulled over, by the time I was getting out the car there was a lady coming over the partition.”

He said he helped three other women come through that same partition. “We were all in shock. Scared. Crying. Frustrated. I just reach out to the families and wish we could have done more.”

Brown said he thinks the fire may have been triggered by an electrical problem.  

A bride was among the women killed. A family member told NBC Bay Area the woman was recently married here in the United States, but was also planning a wedding in the Philippines on June 19. 

The victim's sister-in-law Lovela Nicolas identified the bride who died as Neriza Fojas. Fojas was a registered nurse at Fresno Community Regional Medical Center, according to her family.  The other four victims who did not survive were not identified Sunday night. 

Four other people in the limo escaped with burn and smoke inhalation injuries, California Highway Patrol Officer Art Montiel said. The car's driver was unhurt. 

The CHP credited good Samaritans who stopped and helped some of the women get out. 

The coroner on the case told a harrowing tale of the fire and desperate attempt to get out of the limo.  

San Mateo County Coroner Robert Foucrault told NBC Bay Area's Diane Dwyer that the scene was the worst he has witnessed in his 20 years on the job.

He said it was obvious to him that the women were trying to get out of the vehicle and were overcome by smoke. "My understanding is that three passengers got out the side back door on the drivers side, and one made it out the passenger compartment window successfully - to the driver's compartment," Fourcrault said.

The coroner said three of the women made it out the back door on the driver's side. One made it through the divider into the driver's area. That is different than the driver described.  

Fourcrault said four women did not survive and were found near the front of the passenger compartment as if they were trying to get to the driver's area through the privacy divider. The coroner's office plans to use dental records Monday to positively identify the victims.  

The highway patrol is also planning a news conference Monday.

The highway patrol officer on the scene Saturday night said the women were "probably killed by the fire," though the cause of death has not been confirmed.

Witnesses told NBC Bay area the white Lincoln Town Car was not involved in an accident prior to catching on fire. It was not clear what could have sparked the flames. 

The names of those killed have not been released, but the CHP released the names, ages and hometowns of the women who survived and the driver. 

The passengers who survived were Jasmine Desguia, 34, of San Jose; Mary G. Guardiano, 42, of Alameda; Nelia Arrellano, 36, of Oakland; and Amalia Loyola, 48, of San Leandro. 

The surviving passengers were taken to Valley Medical Center and Stanford Hospital for treatment for burns and smoke inhalation.

A viewer named David Solomon sent in the still photo above.  The photos show the fire was in the rear of the vehicle. 

The fire was first reported around 10 p.m. in the third lane of westbound state Highway 92, according to the CHP.

A viewer sent us the below video from the scene. He said he had no idea people were trapped. 

A father and his sons were pulled from the Pacific Ocean Saturday in a daring rescue lifeguard are calling miraculous.

A San Diego-based commercial fishing boat turned into a rescue boat after finding the three men drifting in the ocean two miles off the coast of La Jolla.

One of the victims was unconscious in the water when the crew on the fishing boat found him.

The men had been in the water for hours after their boat capsized according to RJ Hudson, captain of the charter boat New Seaforth.

"We saw a man waving his hands and he looked like he clearly needed some help," said a passenger on the charter boat.

The crew reacted quickly - calling for help and maneuvering for a rescue.

"That crew on board the New Seaforth - they did a heroic job of getting the three people on board their boat in my opinion," said Lt. John Everhart with San Diego Lifeguard Services.

But it wasn't just the crew working to save lives - it was an all hands effort.

“We pulled him on the boat pulled him out of the way a couple other people stared CPR immediately," said Steve, one of the rescuers.

Six people including three registered nurses performed CPR on the unconscious victim, taking turns to keep him alive.

Christina Barrett was one of them.

"It was pretty intense and scary,” Barrett said. “He was making movements so we were just yelling at him come on keep breathing."

San Diego lifeguards arrived within 20 minutes and took over first aid as New Seaforth made it back to shore.

"They worked as hard as they could to get him back and he came back and it was good to see him spit some water out and take a breath on his own," Steve said.

Hudson said the victims were a 47-year-old man and his two sons, ages 24 and 18.
 

Accidentally spending $1 more than usual on Lotto Tickets paid off for a single mother of four in Southern California to the tune of $14 million.

Thuan Le bought her winning SuperLotto Plus last week at a Mission Viejo CVS (map), where she typically buys $4 worth of Powerball tickets and $1 on a SuperLotto Plus ticket.

When Le noticed she accidentally put $6 into the self-service machine, she took her chances on an extra – would-be winning – SuperLotto Plus ticket.

Le checked the winning ticket with her friend. After ticking off the matching numbers one by one, Le was so excited, she ran screaming from the store, according to a news release from California Lottery.

A single mother of four sons, Le said she plans to use her winnings to buy a house, travel and visit her parents in Vietnam.

One of Le’s sons thought his mother was kidding when she called, exuberant to share the news.

"We thought she was joking," her son told Lotto officials, "but we thought would she really joke like this? My older brother said, 'yes, she would.'"

Le’s lucky numbers were 5, 33, 25, 46, 32, and the Mega number 26. CVS Pharmacy will receive a bonus of one half percent, or $70,000, for selling the winning ticket.

Gold medalist Gabby Douglas is crisscrossing the country, promoting her book.

Douglas describes "Raising the Bar" as a big scrapbook with pictures, quotes, thoughts and memories.

She said she hasn't been back to the gym since winning gold at the 2012 Summer Olympics in London but is headed back soon.

"It's going to be hard, but I'm ready for it," she said.

"I think I'm going to ease on in to it," she added, laughing.

And she hasn't ruled out the 2016 Olympics.

"I hope to see myself in another Olympics, and there's so many great opportunities that I could be doing, acting, producing, hosting," she said.

The 17-year-old also hasn't ruled out college, though she said it's hard for gymnasts to do that while they're still competing.

Boston Marathon bombing survivor Jeff Bauman Jr. made a rockstar entrance to game two of the Bruins' first round playoff encounter with the Toronto Maple Leafs on Saturday. During a touching pregame ceremony, the Chelmsford, Mass., resident waved a Boston Bruins team flag while the Foo Fighters' song "All My Life" played in the background.

Bauman, 27, lost both legs in the April 15 bombings. He attended the marathon to cheer on his girlfriend.

Before Bauman hit the ice the words, “By now you know his inspirational story. His perseverance in the face of great adversity represents all that is Boston Strong” were displayed on the TD Garden's center ice big screen.

Bauman didn't speak at the event, but the crowd roared when he pumped his first into the air emphatically. Before he left the ice, Bauman gave the crowd a thumbs up.

“I want to thank everyone for their amazing support for me and all those injured and their families,” Bauman said in a statement later. “I’m making great progress and I thank everyone for their thoughts and prayers. Please continue to respect our space at this time. I want to thank the Bruins players and organization for the generosity and support for all those impacted.”

Watch the tribute below:

The day after Escondido police officers shot and killed a suspect armed with a knife, investigators described the shooting as a case of “suicide by cop.”

Officers confronted the suspect just before 11 p.m. Saturday at Washington Avenue and Trovita Court.

The 29-year-old man was carrying a knife.

Responding officers ordered the man to drop the knife and attempted to use a taser to get the man to comply.

Soon after officers said the man charged officers.

"A total of 5 shots were then fired. This was from a distance of about 6 to 10 feet,” said Lt. Neil Griffin with the Escondido Police Department. “So the officers felt like they were immediately threatened, which they clearly were. "

Investigators said they found a note and several text messages on the suspect’s phone indicated he was suicidal.

The name of the suspect has not yet been released. Two officers are on administrative leave pending an investigation.

San Diegans may be feeling confused when it comes to the season after experiencing sprinkles and cooler weather Monday, just 48 hours after record heat and Santa Ana conditions.

Get Your Forecast

The rain had a big impact on area freeways. According to the California Highway Patrol, 286 accidents were reported between midnight and 6 p.m. Monday. There are 50-75 crashes on a regular day, according to officials.

The National Weather Service says an offshore low-pressure system will continue to bring cool, cloudy weather with a chance of showers into Tuesday.

Track the Storm

We can expect light showers and breezy conditions Monday night, according to NBC 7 meteorologist Dagmar Midcap. A wind advisory is also in effect through early Tuesday morning.
 

The death toll in the Bangladesh building collapse topped 675 Monday, giving the disaster the grim distinction of being the deadliest ever to hit the garment industry. Workers are still searching for bodies at the site as others dig for clues about which global fashion brands had ties to the building's ill-fated garment suppliers.

Since Rana Plaza buckled last month, a handful of retailers including Secaucus, N.J.-based The Children’s Place and Plano, Texas-based J.C. Penney have acknowledged that some apparel sold in their stores had been produced in one of the building’s five factories. Still, many more have remained silent, leaving labor and human rights groups that want retailers to compensate victims of the disaster with little choice but to physically dig through the rubble to find out who was doing business with suppliers housed in the shoddily-built structure.

There is no obligation for apparel companies to disclose where their garments are made, and with the exception of some companies — such as Levis and Nike, which disclose their suppliers online— sourcing information is typically kept from the public. (Neither Levis nor Nike used factories in Rana Plaza.)

“The vast majority of key brands and retailers including those sourcing from Bangladesh disclose nothing,” said Scott Nova, the executive director of the Worker’s Rights Consortium, which has been working to compile a list of retailers that used factories housed in Rana Plaza.

His organization’s investigation began with a search through online shipping records, which linked apparel from Rana Plaza to Cato fashions, The Children’s Place and Joe Fresh, the fashion line sold in nearly 700 J.C. Penney stores.

While shipping records can shed some light on who does business with whom, Nova notes, the information in these documents can often be spotty.

"It depends on whether the actual brand or retailer on the U.S.-end puts its own name on the shipping manifest as opposed to the name of a middleman and more ofthen than not it's the name of middleman," Nova said. "The same thing can happen on the factory side."

The building’s rubble, therefore, is the only place investigators expect to find a fuller, more honest picture of the brands tied to disaster.

Laura Gutierrez, a Bangladesh-based volunteer with the International Labor Rights Forum, estimates that she has seen more than a dozen different brand names at the site of the collapse.

“The majority of the building is inaccessible, because the floors pancaked on top of each other, so I know that I’m missing quite a lot,” she said in an interview with NBC Friday. “I haven’t even located the offices in the building. It’s not a pretty picture.”

So far, the major brands that confirmed their connections to the site include United Colors of Benetton, Primark, Joe Fresh, Cato, J.C. Penney, The Children’s Place and Mango. Several have indicated that they would compensate victims and work to improve working conditions in the country.

Dress Barn acknowledged that it had done business with one of the factories in the past, but had not taken any orders from the facility since 2010. Walmart was listed as a customer on the website of Ether Tex, one of the garment factories housed in Rana Plaza. But the company indicated that any connection it may have had to Ether Tex predated the factory’s move to the stricken building, The Wall Street Journal reported.  

Many unfamiliar names have also been found on labels pulled from the disaster site and activists are still working to figure out where these brands are based and who is behind them.

The investigation process is expected to take longer than usual given the unique nature of the Rana Plaza disaster. Unlike fires, which have plagued Bangladesh’s garment industry in the past, a building collapse requires a massive excavation before all the evidence can be gathered.

“A lot of this stuff is buried along with a lot of bodies. So this may be an unusual situation in which material is being found over a period of weeks or months,” Nova said. “Who knows what’s going to be found under the rubble.”

As of Monday, the death toll at Rana Plaza surpassed 650 and scores were still missing. The eight-story building was evacuated the day before its April 24 collapse after giant cracks appeared on the structure. The factories, however, were back up and running the following day. More than 3,000 people were inside Rana Plaza when it caved in.

Since the disaster, the building’s owner, Sohel Rana, has been arrested, along with his father, engineers and four factory owners. The mayor of Savar, where the factory was located, was also suspended for allegedly allowing the illegal construction of the building.

Barbara Briggs, a spokeswoman from the Institute for Global Labour and Human Rights, which has been gathering testimonies from victims of the collapse, said that some of the injured will be completely disabled for the rest of their lives.

“These companies ought to pony up and provide compensation to the families to try to at least take care of some of the material needs that they’re going to have for this disaster,” she said. “Longer term,” she added, “we’re all going to have to think long and hard about how we assure the basic safety and most fundamental rights of the workers who make the products that we buy.”

The California Highway Patrol said Monday that the limousine where five women died on Saturday was authorized to carry eight passengers, not nine.

Capt. Mike Maskarich said that the driver, Orville Brown, however, was properly licensed to operate the white stretch car, considered a "chartered party vehicle," despite the fact that there was one more passenger than allowed.

In a separate interview on Monday, Brown told NBC Bay Area that he thought "a limo could hold more than that, to be honest with you."

He added: "I don't make the rules I'm just a driver."

A surviving passenger in the limo, Neila Arrellano, 36, a nurse who works at the Fruitvale Health Center in Oakland, described through tears that she was yelling at Brown to pull over.

"Stop the car, stop the car," she recalled telling Brown. "I told you, there is smoke."

Arrellano also said the driver wasn't paying attention because he was on the phone.

“Open the door. Open the door. But he didn’t do anything. He was on the phone,” Arrellano said.

Brown's brother, Lewis Brown, responded to that claim. He told NBC Bay Area they think she was confused. "The partition was solid. He [Orville Brown] was not on the phone. He added that she couldn't have seen him at all because the partition wasn't made of see-through glass.

Investigators are trying to determine if any criminal wrongdoing occurred in relation to the Limo Stop limousine bursting into flames about 10 p.m. when a bridal shower turned tragic. That's when five women died on Highway 92, after the 1999 Lincoln Town Car they were riding in burst into flames on the San Mateo-Hayward Bridge. Four women were able to escape and were taken to hospitals.

VIDEO: News Conference: CHP and Fire Officials Address Limo Fatality (Part 1) | (Part 2)

The CHP has yet to review the maintenance records of the limo. No arrests have been made.

The California Public Utilities Commission regulates limo companies. And a check with their database on Monday shows that the company - Limo Stop - has no complaints on file.

Limo Stop Owner Kultar Singh deferred all comment to his lawyer, Doug Sears, of Sacramento, who was not immediately available for comment.

Other officials at the news conference in Redwood City were short on detail, but expressed their sympathies.

News Conference: CHP and Fire Officials Address Limo Fatality (part 2)

A bride was among the women killed. The victim's sister-in-law, Lovela Nicolas, identified the bride as Neriza Fojas.

A family member told NBC Bay Area she was recently married here in the United States, but she was also planning a wedding in the Philippines on June 19. 

She was preparing to get her master's degree according to Christina Kitts who said that Fojas lived in Hawaii while she reviewed for her nursing exam, then took a job in Oakland, Calif., for two years before moving to Fresno, where she had been a nurse at Community Regional Medical Center for a year.

Community Regional released the name of a second victim on Monday. They said fellow nurse Michelle Estrera also died in the fire.

"Neriza Fojas and Michelle Estrera were exemplary nurses who dedicated their lives to helping others. These two outstanding nurses were loved by their patients, colleagues and staff at our hospital. Both were good friends, stellar nurses and excellent mentors who served as preceptors to new nurses. On behalf of everyone at Community Regional, we offer our condolences to their family and friends. We will dearly miss these two special people who have touched our lives during their time at Community Regional," the hospital statement read.

The remaining three victims have not been identified.

Four other people in the limo escaped with burns and smoke inhalation.

As of Monday morning, Valley Medical Center in San Jose said that Jasmine Desguia, 34, of San Jose and Amalia Loyola, 48, of San Leandro were still in critical condition. Stanford Medical Center would not discuss the details of Mary G. Guardiano, 42, of Alameda.

Nelia Arrellano, 36, of Oakland had been released from Stanford earlier in the day.

Eight of the women in the limo, including Arrellano, were internationally sponsored nurses who worked at the Fruitvale Health Care Center on East 15th Street in Oakland, an administrator told NBC Bay Area on Monday.

Brown, the limo driver (pictured) told NBC Bay Area over the weekend that he thought the women were trying to get his attention to ask him to pull over so that they could smoke.

“She said, 'No smoke - smoke smoke…pull over pull over pull over,'" he recalled. "I saw the smoke, pulled over, by the time I was getting out the car there was a lady coming over the partition.”

He said he helped three other women come through that same partition. “We were all in shock. Scared. Crying. Frustrated. I just reach out to the families and wish we could have done more.”

RAW AUDIO: Limo Driver Speaks About Fatality in San Mateo Bridge Accident

The limo company, Limo Stop released a statement, saying it was "deeply saddened" by the tragedy.

"Limo Stop, Inc. will do everything possible to investigate and assist authorities in determining the cause of this fire in order to bring forth answers and provide closure to (the) victims and their families," the statement added.

The CHP credited three good Samaritans who stopped and helped some of the women get out. 

San Mateo County Coroner Robert Foucrault told NBC Bay Area that the scene was the worst he has witnessed in his 20 years on the job.

He said it was obvious to him that the women were trying to get out of the vehicle and were overcome by smoke.

Below, Arrellano describes through tears how events surrounding a limo fire that killed five of her friends unfolded.

Police are investigating after a noose was found hanging in the men's bathroom at a public park in Connecticut on Monday, according to the recreation director.

Staff found it hanging from the back of a door in a restroom in New Hartford's Brodie Park around 8 a.m. on Monday. The town's recreation director Dennis Minor was at town hall when one of his staffers called and said it had been found.

Minor said he was at the park on Saturday and it wasn’t there. People were also at the park on Sunday and nothing was reported, he said.

The noose was found two days after Minor, who is black, made a campaign announcement at the park that he is beginning his campaign for First Selectman, according to the Waterbury Republican-American. He told the Republican-American that he has no idea what the noose means and there was no note.

"I think this is a great town," Minor told the Hartford Courant. "If somebody had a bad day and felt like they needed to string up a noose, I feel sorry for them. This is a great town. I have nothing but great things to say about the town of New Hartford."
 

Mayor Bob Filner proposed a bigger budget for Police and Fire Departments for 2014.

Leaders in public safety arena say this is a very welcome change.

The City Council today dedicated the morning to public safety and heard about their pressing and long-term needs. And council members were supportive knowing that the mayor has proposed an $18.6 million dollar budget increase for the fire department.

The money will likely go toward eliminating furloughs and rehiring fire fighters to fill positions that have been empty during recent years.

The police department will also get a boost of $4.6 million in 2014. The funds will likely go toward increasing police academy training for new hires.
   
Both fire and police officials say employees leaving San Diego for better pay elsewhere is a major long-term problem.
   
But they say the Mayor and City Council are being supportive.

“I had to cut the budget for 5 years every year,” said SDPD Chief William Lansdowne. “This is the first time I didn’t have to do that that I can remember. There is certainly a significant appreciation for what we do and there's the commitment to try to make it work.”

City Council member Marti Emerald says the money will help departments create savings in other areas and can hopefully create long term solutions.
 

San Diego police continue to look for two men who robbed a recycling plant in Old Town Monday.

The robbery happened around 10:15 a.m. at Old Town Recycling, 2161 Hancock Street.

Police took a third man into custody, but it’s unclear if he was directly involved in the robbery.

Police say employees saw one man with a gun. They're trying to determine if a shot was actually fired, according to officials.

Police say the robbers stole one employee’s wallet. The men were last seen driving away in a gray or silver SUV.

No injuries were reported.
 

A plot in a Hamden cemetery has been offered to the family of Boston Marathon Bombing suspect Tamerlan Tsarnaev.

Paul Keane, the owner of the plot, writes in his blog "The Anti Yale" that he would like to "donate a burial plot next to my mother in Mt. Carmel Burying Ground to the Tsarnaev family if they cannot obtain a plot. The only condition is that I do it in memory of my mother who taught Sunday School at the Mt. Carmel Congregational Church for twenty years and taught me to 'love thine enemy.'"

Keane told the New Haven Register that his family owns four plots in the Central Burying Grounds on Whitney Ave.

Keane's parents were laid to rest in two of the plots, while the other two remain empty. Keane told the New Haven Register that  he doesn't care what "a pariah Tsarnaev is, everybody deserves a burial."

Mt. Carmel Cemetery Association President Frank Esposito told the New Haven Register if someone owns a plot, the cemetery has no say in who can be buried there.

Muslim faith requires that bodies be buried as soon as possible after death. Tsarnaev was killed more than two weeks ago after a shoot-out with Boston Police days after the marathon bombings.

Keane's entire blog post is at http://theantiyale.blogspot.com/2013/05/offer-to-tsarnaev-family.html