Large explosions on fuel barges injure three in Alabama
A series of large explosions on two natural gas barges lit up the night sky in the US state of Alabama last night injuring three people.
The explosions were captured in this amateur footage:
Firefighters arrived at the scene after the second explosion but decided to let the fires burn themselves out because the situation was deemed too unstable.
The Coast Guard said that the barges were empty and had been docked on the Mobile River for cleaning, and that a safety zone had been established a mile around the fire, Fox News reports.
Three people were hospitalised with burns but information on their conditions was not immediately available.
Alabama stand-off ends with child safe, gunman dead
A gunman who held a five-year-old boy hostage in an underground bunker in rural Alabama has been killed and the child was plucked to safety, an FBI spokesman said today.
His rescue came on the seventh day of a stand-off involving a suspect identified as 65-year-old Jimmy Lee Dykes, a Vietnam War veteran.
FBI spokesman Steve Richardson said the child "appears physically unharmed" and is being treated at a local hospital.
Police continue to negotiate with shooting suspect
Police in Alabama are negotiating with a gunman who boarded a school bus, shot the driver dead, then fled with a six-year-old child.
The Dale County Sheriff told WBMA-TV that the man shot the driver in Midland City after he refused to let the child off the bus. The driver, whose identity was not released, later died of his wounds.
Reports: US school bus driver shot and child abducted
A school bus driver in Alabama has been shot several times by a gunman who boarded the bus and then fled with a six-year-old passenger in Dale County, local media is reporting.
Sergeant Rachel David, of Dothan Police, told WSFA 12 that a man had been shot and the suspect was not yet in custody.
ABC 33 40 is reporting that police are currently in negotiations with the suspect who had taken the child to an area behind a nearby church.
Suspect Desmonte Leonard, 22, fled the scene in a white Chevrolet Caprice Credit: Auburn Police Division
A gunman who shot dead three people at a pool party at an off-campus apartment complex in Alabama remains at large.
Auburn Police Chief Tommy Dawson identified the suspect as 22-year-old Desmonte Leonard of Montgomery, Alabama's capital, and said he was being sought on three counts of capital murder.
Two former Auburn University footballers, Edward Christian and Ladarious Phillips, both 20, were shot dead as an argument escalated at a pool party. The third fatality was named by police as Demario Pitts, 20. Three others were wounded.
Auburn Police received a call reporting shots fired on Saturday evening and Christian was pronounced dead at the scene. The other two men fatally shot later died in hospital.
US Marshals and the FBI are helping with the investigation.
