Police remind residents of holiday crime precautions

With the holiday shopping season underway, area police departments are reminding residents of ways to avoid being targets of holiday-related crime.

Virginia State Police recently published a press release in conjunction with U.S. Cellular offering safety tips for shopping and driving during the holiday season.

150 stranded whales die in Australia

A group of 150 whales that became stranded on a remote coastline in southern Australia were battered to death on rocks before rescuers could save them.

Officials from Tasmania state’s Parks and Wildlife Service rushed Sunday in four-wheel-drive vehicles to the remote site at Sandy Cape after the long-finned pilot whales were spotted by air a day earlier.

Wal-Mart shoppers who trampled NY worker sought

Police are reviewing surveillance videos of a post-Thanksgiving shopper stampede that trampled a suburban Wal-Mart worker to death, but they acknowledge it may be difficult to bring criminal charges.

Nassau County police and Wal-Mart Stores Inc. said no new information was available Saturday on the employee’s brutal death, which rattled shoppers even as they flocked to the Valley Stream store a day later.

Police: Pakistani militants behind Mumbai attacks

The only gunman captured by police after a string of attacks on Mumbai told authorities he belonged to the Pakistani militant group Lashkar-e-Taiba, a senior police officer said Sunday.

Police said 10 gunmen terrorized Mumbai during a 60-hour siege, and all but one were shot dead.

PETA claims of abused pigs fails to sway probe

An investigation concludes that pigs were humanely treated after a truck hauling them overturned on Virginia Route 10 in Suffolk in September.

The investigation was conducted by Suffolk Commonwealth’s Attorney Phil Ferguson, who responded to a complaint by People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals.