Briefs

LOCAL & VCU

VCU text-alert system malfunctions during test

VCU’s text-alert system malfunctioned Friday, sending messages to all subscribers during what was supposed to have been limited to an internal test.

Officials at the university were working to ensure that Friday’s error is not repeated, Senior Vice President for Finance and Administration John Bennett said.

The university’s regular once-a-semester test of its emergency communications system, including sirens on both of its MCV and Monroe Park campuses, is set for next Thursday at noon.

Brief by the Richmond Times-Dispatch

Shooting victim identified as Chesterfield man

Richmond police have identified the man shot to death in North Side Saturday night as Louis-Charles Kepler Jr., 21, of Chesterfield County.

Police found Kepler on the ground beside a pickup truck in the 3200 block of Garland Avenue about 7:15 p.m. He had been shot in the abdomen.

Kepler was taken to VCU Medical Center, where he died about an hour later, police said. Investigators have a strong suspect and the motive appears to be drug-related, police said.

Anyone with information about the case is asked to call Crime Stoppers at (804) 780-1000.

Brief by the Richmond Times-Dispatch

Hopewell fire displaces 13 families

Firefighters are on the scene of a blaze at an apartment building in Hopewell that displaced 13 families early Sunday morning, officials said.

Firefighters were summoned at 4:26 a.m. to Parkside
Apartments at Burnside Street and Allen Avenue, where they found a burning three-story building, said Hopewell fire Capt. Jerry Hays.

The American Red Cross is assisting the displaced residents, Hays said, adding that he was unaware of any injuries.

Brief by the Richmond Times-Dispatch

NATIONAL & INTERNATIONAL

Navy takes off fuel, water, people to lighten ship

The Navy offloaded fuel, water and personnel from a grounded, $1 billion guided missile cruiser so tugboats and a salvage ship could try again early Sunday morning to free it from a rock and sand shoal.

The USS Port Royal ran aground Thursday evening, about a half-mile south of the Honolulu airport. It was visible from several vantage points on Oahu.

No one was injured and no oil or other contaminants have leaked, said representatives of the Navy and Coast Guard, as well as state officials.

Brief by The Associated Press

76 killed in Australian fire disaster

Police say the death toll from wildfires in Australia has risen to 76, making it the country’s worst fire disaster.

Authorities said the toll would climb further as they reached further into a huge zone of southern Victoria state that was devastated by scores of blazes during intense heat and strong winds on Saturday.

Officials said they had confirmed some 700 homes had been destroyed in the fires that in some cases have razed entire towns.

Victoria police spokeswoman Rebecca Fraser said the latest death toll is 76.

Brief by The Associated Press

24 confirmed dead after Brazil plane crash

Brazilian authorities on Sunday, Feb. 1, recovered the bodies of 24 people who were killed when their small plane crashed in an Amazon jungle river.

The dead were found inside the twin turboprop plane, which went down about 50 miles from the jungle city of Manaus, firefighter Maj. Jair Ruas Braga said.

Seven children were killed, along with nine women and eight men. A 9-year-old child was among four people who survived the Saturday afternoon crash.

Relatives of the survivors told local media that one of the engines apparently stopped just before the pilot tried an emergency landing in the Manacapuru River.

Brief by The Associated Press

2 US soldiers defusing bomb killed in Afghanistan

A U.S. military spokeswoman says two American soldiers were among four people killed in southern Afghanistan when a roadside bomb they were trying to disarm exploded.

The provincial police chief in Helmand province, Kamal Uddin, says the explosion took place Sunday in Nad Ali district. Uddin says an Afghan translator and a policeman were also killed in the blast.

Capt. Elizabeth Mathias, a U.S. military spokeswoman, confirmed that two U.S. soldiers were among the four killed.

Brief by The Associated Press

China fights drought with chemical cloud seeding

Parts of China’s parched north got light rain after authorities fired shells loaded with cloud-seeding chemicals into the sky, but there was no end in sight for its worst drought in five decades, the government said on Feb. 1.

Beijing has declared an emergency across China’s north, where 4.4 million people lack adequate drinking water and winter wheat crops are withering.

Brief by The Associated Press