INDIANAPOLIS — Investigators in the Indianapolis explosion that killed two people and decimated a neighborhood believe natural gas was involved and are focusing on appliances as they search for a cause, a city official said Tuesday.
Indianapolis Homeland Security Director Gary Coons made the announcement after the National Transportation Safety Board said investigators had found no leaks in the gas main or pipes leading into the house that exploded. The explosion Saturday leveled two homes and left dozens more uninhabitable.
TEXAS
Woman convicted of murder in day care fire
HOUSTON — A Texas woman was convicted of murder Tuesday in the death of one of four children who died in a fire at her home day care after she left them alone with hot oil on the stove while she shopped at Target.
Neighbors said they could hear children crying inside the burning Houston home but couldn’t reach them. The fire killed 16-month-old Elias Castillo and three other children. Three more were seriously injured.
Jurors began hearing evidence in the punishment phase of Jessica Tata’s trial Tuesday afternoon, more than an hour after their verdict for a murder conviction was announced. They found Tata, 24, guilty of one count of felony murder.
WASHINGTON
Death penalty sought in Afghan massacre
JOINT BASE LEWIS-McCHORD — Army prosecutors Tuesday asked an investigative officer to recommend a death penalty court-martial for a staff sergeant accused of killing 16 Afghan villagers in a predawn rampage, saying that Staff Sgt. Robert Bales committed “heinous and despicable crimes.”
Prosecutors made their closing arguments after a week of testimony in the preliminary hearing.
Prosecutors say Sgt. Bales, 39, slipped away from his remote base at Camp Belambay in southern Afghanistan to attack two villages early March 11. Among the dead were nine children.
CALIFORNIA
100 days after birth, panda gets name
SAN DIEGO — There is a little gift at the San Diego Zoo that’s going to get very big.
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By John Solomon
How the government's punishing of the exposure of official wrongdoing can linger for years
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