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Albany, New York Sheriff Craig Apple assured a room of concerned citizens that county emergency crews were prepared to handle an oil-train accident involving three or four tank cars. Firefighters have been training to combat railcar fires with foam, and evacuation plans are detailed in a 500-page emergency response plan, Apple told residents in a May 12 address. But he was blunt about the potential impact of a larger derailment: "Look, let's face it, there's going to be mayhem." Albany's tracks handle as much as a fourth of the oil pumped from North Dakota's booming Bakken Shale, or up to several 100-car trains per day, each carrying 70,000 barrels. It is one of several spots along North America's new oil-by-rail corridors where residents and officials are restless, following six fiery derailments in the past 10 months. Some want to limit or halt the traffic, fearful that existing precautions will not prevent deadly blasts, air and waterway pollution

Firefighters in Alaska on Sunday were battling a massive wildfire that was pushing towards hundreds of homes and vacation cabins, with residents urged to be ready for a possible mandatory evacuation, state emergency officials said. _0"> The Funny River wildfire was burning on more than 110,000 acres inside the Kenai National Wildlife Refuge in southern Alaska, expanding from about 96,000 acres on Saturday, according to the Alaska Interagency Incident Management Team. Crews reported some progress late Saturday, saying the six-day-old blaze was 20 percent contained. The Alaska Air National Guard and Anchorage Fire Department have joined 409 firefighters battling the blaze on the ground, emergency officials said. More than 1,300 residents were placed under an evacuation advisory and urged to be ready to leave home should a mandatory evacuation order be issued. Wildfires in Alaska's wooded areas are not uncommon during the summer months, but warm and dry spring conditions

Air Force veteran Don Skinner, 83, wakes at dawn's early light, downs a cholesterol pill, blood thinner and some instant coffee then boots up his computer to spend eight hours each day telling war stories of the fallen who can't speak for themselves. The reverential routine is a calling for Skinner, the oldest of 200 volunteers who create online profiles of men and women who died in the line of duty. These accounts can be viewed in a Roll of Honor on the website Togetherweserved.com, an online meeting place for veterans and their loved ones. "These people's stories have got to be told," said Skinner, who was awarded a Purple Heart Medal and a Bronze Star Medal as a commanding sergeant who tended to his wounded comrades during an assault in Vietnam in 1968 despite being critically wounded himself. His service from 1949 to 1974 included the Korean War. Between treatments for bladder and colon cancer, Skinner, a widower living in Aiken, South Carolina, has resea

A police officer on a Native American Indian reservation in Arizona was shot dead while sitting in his patrol vehicle after ordering a car to pull over, police said Sunday. _0"> Jair Cabrera, an officer on the Salt River Pima-Maricopa Indian Community in metropolitan Phoenix, died early Saturday after being hit by a bullet that pierced the windshield of his police car, according to the Salt River Police Department. Cabrera, 37, was the first officer to die on the reservation in the line of duty, the department said. Cabrera had ordered the car to stop at a local gas station when the occupants opened fire, according to FBI spokesman Special Agent Perryn Collier. It was not clear if Cabrera had returned fire. The three occupants of the car were taken into police custody and at least one was facing criminal charges, the FBI said. The Salt River community is home to two Native American tribes: the Pima and the Maricopa, according to the community's website. The police d

Senator Richard Blumenthal said on Sunday he wanted to revive gun control legislation rejected by Congress in the wake of the 2012 Newtown, Connecticut, school massacre, saying it could have helped prevent this weekend's deadly California shooting spree. _0"> Blumenthal, a Democrat from Connecticut, said on CBS's "Face the Nation" program the legislation, which failed last year, could be revised to emphasize the mental condition of potential gun buyers. "Obviously, not every kind of gun violence is going to be prevented by laws out of Washington," he said. "But at least we can make a start and I am going to urge that we bring back those bills, maybe reconfigure them, center on mental health, which is a point where we can agree that we need more resources to make the country healthier and to make sure that these kinds of horrific, insane, mad occurrences are stopped. "And the Congress will be complicit if we fail in that," he said

Three people were killed and a fourth wounded in a shooting at a oceanfront hotel in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, one of the most popular tourist destinations in the U.S. Southeast, police said on Sunday. Officers responded to a call of shots fired at the Bermuda Sands resort on the Myrtle Beach boardwalk around 11 p.m. EDT on Saturday, according to the Myrtle Beach Police Department. Two men and one woman were pronounced dead at the scene and the fourth was transported to a local hospital in unknown condition, he said. The shooting came on a weekend when Myrtle Beach was packed with visitors for the Memorial Day holiday weekend, the unofficial start of the summer season, and for an annual sports rally called the Atlantic Beach Bikefest. "We certainly don't like to see any type of incident where somebody dies during this event, or any event that Myrtle Beach has," Myrtle Beach Police Captain David Knipes told WISTV. "To have three people (killed) in one night

A 22-year-old man who killed six people before taking his own life in a rampage through a California college town said in a chilling manifesto that police who knocked on his door last month to check on his welfare nearly foiled his plot. Elliot Rodger, the son of a Hollywood director, stabbed three people to death in his apartment before gunning down three more victims on Friday night in the town of Isla Vista near the campus of the University of California at Santa Barbara (UCSB). Rodger, who posted a threatening video railing against women online shortly before his rampage, stalked Isla Vista in his car and on foot, firing on bystanders in a killing spree that ended when he killed himself after a shootout with sheriff's deputies, police said. But less than a month before his attacks, after he had planned the killings and obtained the guns he would use, the community college student opened his door to a knock to find about seven officers looking for him. "I had the stri