Only days after Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel asked for federal agents and U.S. Marshals to help combat the city's wave of violence, about 50 Chicago police officers have arrived in Charlotte to work perimeter security details for a week at the Democratic National Convention.
The Chicago officers, in their distinctive uniforms and checkerboard-brimmed hats, said they had been instructed not to talk with reporters about their out-of-town assignment.
A suicide bomber rammed a vehicle filled with explosives into a US Consulate SUV in Peshawar, Pakistan, on Monday, killing at least two people and injuring as many as 19 others.
There were conflicting reports of the casualties. The information minister of Khyber Pukhtookhwa province said that two US nationals were killed in the attack, but statement from the US Embassy said that "two U.S. personnel and two Pakistani staff of the Consulate were injured" and that "no consulate personnel were killed."
It was around 9 a.m. when the white car barged its way into the convoy guarding the US government vehicle. Shortly after, there was an explosion, a large plume of smoke and the smell of explosives filled the air, witnesses told ABC News.
Rehmat Ali, a passerby, said that he fell to the ground when the explosion happened and "when I gained senses and looked around I saw some people lying of the road and a vehicle on fire."
Scenes like this one is not new to Peshawar, which has been scarred by such attacks for decades.
In August 2008, then US Consul General Lynne Tracy, along with two other consular employees, were attacked by a car bomber as their armored jeep left her house for her office located in Peshawar's safest locality. The occupants of the vehicle escaped injury.
And then again in May 2011 two armored vehicles belonging to the US consulate were hit by a roadside bomb, wounding two American nationals.
All attacks including today's happened in the same locality which is considered relatively safe.
A suicide bomber rammed a vehicle filled with explosives into a US Consulate SUV in Peshawar, Pakistan, on Monday, killing at least two people and injuring as many as 19 others.
There were conflicting reports of the casualties. The information minister of Khyber Pukhtookhwa province said that two US nationals were killed in the attack, but statement from the US Embassy said that "two U.S. personnel and two Pakistani staff of the Consulate were injured" and that "no consulate personnel were killed."
It was around 9 a.m. when the white car barged its way into the convoy guarding the US government vehicle. Shortly after, there was an explosion, a large plume of smoke and the smell of explosives filled the air, witnesses told ABC News.
Rehmat Ali, a passerby, said that he fell to the ground when the explosion happened and "when I gained senses and looked around I saw some people lying of the road and a vehicle on fire."
Scenes like this one is not new to Peshawar, which has been scarred by such attacks for decades.
In August 2008, then US Consul General Lynne Tracy, along with two other consular employees, were attacked by a car bomber as their armored jeep left her house for her office located in Peshawar's safest locality. The occupants of the vehicle escaped injury.
And then again in May 2011 two armored vehicles belonging to the US consulate were hit by a roadside bomb, wounding two American nationals.
All attacks including today's happened in the same locality which is considered relatively safe.
Days after Isaac hammered Louisiana and Mississippi with winds and rain, much of a parish southeast of New Orleans was still flooded and thousand were without power.
Thousands of evacuees remained at shelters or bunked with friends or relatives.
"My family is split up," said Angela Serpas, from severely flooded Braithwaite in Plaquemines Parish. Serpas and her daughter were staying with her in-laws while her husband and son were staying in Belle Chasse, a suburban area of the parish.
"This is the second time we've lost our home. We lost it in Katrina," she said.
President Barack Obama was to visit Louisiana on Monday, a day ahead of the Democratic National Convention. He will meet with local officials, tour storm damage and view response and recovery efforts before addressing reporters at Saint John the Baptist Parish, the White House said. Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney visited the state Friday. Obama's Homeland Security Secretary, Janet Napolitano, visited Bay St. Louis, Miss., and Slidell, La., on Sunday.
"We are part of a team to make sure Hurricane Isaac is put to rest as soon as we can for all those affected," Napolitano said. "In the meantime, please know all of us are thinking about those in Louisiana who are without their homes or without their businesses."
At least seven people were killed in the storm in the U.S. ' five in Louisiana and two in Mississippi. More than 2,800 people were registered at various state, local and Red Cross shelters in the state, down from around 4,000 earlier. State officials were uncertain how many people would eventually need longer-term temporary housing. Kevin Davis, head of the state's emergency office, said that housing would likely include hotels at first, then rental homes as close as possible to their damaged property.
Progress was evident in many places. Workers continued their return to offshore oil and gas production platforms and drilling rigs, electricity came on for hundreds of thousands of people and the annual Southern Decadence Festival, a gay pride celebration, carried on in the French Quarter.
In Baton Rouge, thousands of gamblers even gathered for the opening of Louisiana's newest riverboat casino' an opening that was delayed three days by Isaac.
Crews in the town of Lafitte intentionally breached a levee Sunday night in an effort to help flooding there subside, Jefferson Parish Councilman Chris Roberts told The Times-Picayune.
In the New Orleans region, there were signs of a slow recovery. Workers continued to deal with toppled trees and downed power lines, driving remained hazardous in areas without working traffic lights, and New Orleans opened two cooling shelters so those with no electricity could escape the heat.
Much of Plaquemines Parish, a vulnerable finger of land that juts into the Gulf of Mexico, remained under as much as 5 feet of water, Parish President Billy Nungesser said. The Category 1 hurricane walloped the parish, and for many, the damage was worse than that from Katrina in 2005.
"I've never seen water come up this quick this fast," he said.
Nungesser said there were reports that cattle in the largely rural parish took refuge on porches. In one instance, cattle broke through a window and lumbered onto furniture to stay above water.
Controlled breaches of one overtopped levee and additional pumps are being used to get rid of the water.
A wildfire that broke out in the Angeles National Forest has cut short the Labor Day holiday weekend for thousands of visitors who flock to the popular recreational attraction.
The fire broke out near a campground Sunday afternoon and quickly grew to 3,600 acres, or about 5½ square miles. It sent a huge cloud of smoke that could be seen from the coast to the desert inland.
Campgrounds that typically attract up to 12,000 visitors on the holiday weekend, as well as rehabilitation centers and the private community of Camp Williams Resort above the city of Glendora, were evacuated, forest spokeswoman L'Tanga Watson said.
The forest is heavily used by Southern California residents because it is close to populated areas. Fire officials said that while the campgrounds were not in the line of the fire, they had to be emptied so that the only road in and out of the San Gabriel Canyon could be open just for fire trucks and emergency vehicles.
The fire was burning thick brush that was not touched by a destructive fire in 2009, Watson said. She said the flames, fueled by a combination of dry heat and the heavy brush, were marching uphill toward the wilderness.
About 300 firefighters were aided by four water-dropping helicopters and nine air tankers. Fire officials also activated the use of a DC-10 capable of dropping thousands of gallons of retardant.
Firefighters were counting on cooler weather overnight to help them gain control of the blaze, Watson said.
The cause of the fire was under investigation.
The 2009 fire, which killed two firefighters, destroyed 89 homes and blackened 250 square miles of forest, was the largest in Los Angeles County history.
In Northern California, a fire that's been burning since Aug. 18 in a rugged area of Mendocino County has destroyed seven homes and nine outbuildings, fire officials said Sunday. That fire has scorched nearly 64 square miles.
The Allen, Texas, High School football team got their new $60 million football stadium off to a good start, shutting out the state champion.
"It was so exciting to play in front of this crowd tonight," running back Jeff Harris told the Star-Telegram. "We were a little nervous coming out, but you settle down and get the butterflies out. We got a lot of extra energy from the fans. They helped a lot."
At the end of the game, the stadium's video score board read: Allen, 24. Southlake Carroll, 0.
The stadium, which was built as part of a voter-approved $119 million bond package that passed in 2009, boasts some major league amenities, including artificial turf, a multi-level press box, a weight room, a wrestling room and seats for 18,000 people.
Including the standing room crowd, there were 21,000 people at the game Friday night.
While students and their parents seem to be thrilled with it, some Texans are less impressed.
"It's lamentable that people want to do this with their own money and the money of their community," said Tom Palaima, a professor at the University of Texas, Austin, and a former representative of the Coalition on Intercollegiate Athletics, a faculty organization that monitors sports expenditures on college campuses.
"Young men and women are now understanding at the age of 8, 9, and 10 that their way to get into a good college or university is by participating in sports and not putting a focus on academics," he said.
Allen High principal Steve Payne disagreed.
"We are an exemplary high school," he told ABC News. "I think our first class facilities tell everybody that we have first class academics and first class kids. Without them, we wouldn't have those first class facilities."
U.S. News and World Report ranked the 5,700-student school 99th out of 1,842 schools in the state of Texas, and 1,219th out of 21,776 schools nationwide. Eighty-five percent of students go on to college, said Payne.
A Sweet 16 party aboard a party bus ended in tragedy Friday night when a teen stuck his head out of the emergency roof hatch, struck his head on an overpass and died.
Daniel Fernandez, 16, of Queens, New York, was on a double-decker party bus carrying 65 teens to a birthday party in New Jersey when the accident happened between 6:30 p.m. and 6:45 p.m., Port Authority Police Department spokesman Steve Coleman said. He said he wasn't sure how many adults were on board.
The driver picked up the party-goers from Saint Francis Preparatory School in Queens, where they start class next week, and was headed toward the New Jersey Turnpike. Just after Fernandez opened the hatch and stuck his head out, the bus passed under the Fletcher Avenue overpass, where Fernandez struck his head, Coleman said.
Emergency responders rushed Fernandez to Hackensack Medical Center as his classmates took to twitter with the hashtag #staystrongdan and #prepfam.
"Just hoping for that one tweet or trxt with good news, this isnt fair," wrote Twitter user Bobby Perretti.
"Be strong Dan. Your going to be okay. You can do it kid. We're all praying for you," tweeted Melissa Dericioglu.
Fernandez was pronounced dead at the hospital, and users started tweeting their grief with the hashtag #ripdan. Many said they couldn't sleep or that they woke up crying.
The limousine company, Designer Limousine in Port Washington, N.Y., said the hatch on the "Double Decker Mega Liner" roof was intended for emergency escape only. The party bus boasts two bars, two dance floors, nightclub lighting and 15 flat-screen televisions, according to the Designer Limousine website.
"This is a terrible tragedy," Designer Limousine manager Alicia Pitzer told ABCNews.com. She said the company will conduct an internal investigation.
"What happened, happened," she said. "We can't turn back the hands of time."
The Bergen County Prosecutor's office will handle the police investigation going forward. Police said it was not clear whether any charges will be filed, or whether the teens were drinking.
A 25-year-old woman was killed as she fell from a moving party bus last month in Los Gatos, Calif., on her way home from a concert. In 2010, a 19-year-old died in a car crash after drinking aboard a party bus, prompting his father to speak out for tougher restrictions on so-called "booze cruises." As a result, a San Mateo lawmaker has proposed a California bill that would hold the bus drivers responsible for underage drinking in the vehicle.
