NEWS OF THE DAY
From Across the Nation
1
Montecito mudslide: A key highway along the coast reopened Sunday, restoring some normalcy to a region ravaged by a deadly mudslide almost two weeks ago. U.S. Highway 101 was cleared of tons of mud and debris in Santa Barbara County. The highway had been closed since Jan. 9 when the slide tore through the community, killing at least 21 people and destroying hundreds of homes. Two people remain missing.
2
Pump prices: The average price of a gallon of regular gasoline rose 4 cents nationally over the past two weeks to $2.58, according to industry analyst Trilby Lundberg of the Lundberg Survey. The current price is 22 cents above where it was a year ago. Gas in San Francisco was the costliest among the cities surveyed at an average of $3.26 a gallon. The lowest price was in Tucson at $2.16 a gallon.
3
Helicopter crash: Two soldiers from Colorado were killed in a helicopter crash during training operations in the Southern California desert, the Army said. The AH-64 Apache crashed Saturday at the National Training Center at Fort Irwin. Maj. Gen. Randy George said both soldiers killed were assigned to the 4th Infantry Division stationed at Fort Carson in Colorado. Their identities were being withheld pending notification of their families. The cause of the crash is under investigation. Fort Irwin is located midway between San Bernardino and Las Vegas.
4
University grant: The University of Massachusetts in Amherst has received a $5.5 million grant from a philanthropy founded by Mark Zuckerberg and Priscilla Chan to create a way to search millions of scientific articles. The grant from the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative to UMass’s Center for Data Science will support the Computable Knowledge project using a form of artificial intelligence. The initiative was founded by Facebook CEO Zuckerberg and Chan, a pediatrician and philanthropist who is his wife. The goal is to build a navigable map of 60 million articles to help scientists find previously unknown connections between findings in genetics, diseases, drugs and treatments.
5
Police shooting: A Florida man with an assault rifle was fatally shot by officers after he attacked his wife and daughter, authorities said. Shannon Jason Cables, 46, was killed by deputies responding to a domestic violence call at his Lake Wales home Saturday, the Polk County Sheriff ’s Office said in a statement. Sheriff Grady Judd told the Lakeland Ledger newspaper that Cables first attacked his wife with Mace and a pool cue. Then, Cable’s daughter came to her mother’s defense. The two managed to get away, and Cables fled into woods behind the house. Deputies searched the woods with police dogs and a helicopter while the women received medical care. When the women returned home with law enforcement, deputies spotted Cables carrying an assault rifle and a shotgun approaching the house, Judd said. The sheriff ’s office said they ordered Cables to drop the weapon, but he pointed it at deputies who then shot him. The Florida Department of Law Enforcement and the sheriff ’s office are investigating.