Police are investigating multiple stabbing incidents with at least three known victims.

SPRINGFIELD — The confluence of nice weather and Independence Day festivities drew big crowds to downtown Springfield on Saturday night. But the evening also featured multiple stabbings, gunfire reports and other disturbances that kept Springfield police busy through early Sunday morning.

The trouble started around 9:54 p.m. Saturday, when officers were called to the scene of 1341 Main St., just across from Court Square, for a double stabbing report. Preliminary information from police indicated one victim was injured in the vicinity of that address, while a second was reportedly wounded across the street at Court Square itself.

Although the incidents happened in close proximity to one another, they apparently were unrelated, police said.

As those victims were being treated at Baystate Medical Center, an officer reported that a possible third stabbing victim showed up at the hospital for treatment around 10:26 p.m., but a detective and ranking officer reached on Sunday were unable to immediately confirm that information.

However, police were able to confirm that another man was stabbed in the back near the city's Worthington Street entertainment district just after 1:30 a.m. Sunday. Officers found the man in the parking lot across from the Fat Cat Bar and Grill. An update on his condition was unavailable.

Police described the suspect as a 5-foot-8 Hispanic man between the ages of 35 and 40. His hair was in a ponytail and he was wearing a light-blue shirt and blue jeans, police said.

Officers also responded to multiple gunfire reports, including a shooting near Hennessey Park in the Bay neighborhood that was reported shortly before 11:30 p.m. Witnesses told police that a teenager or young man ran up to a group of young people at the park and opened fire on them.

The shooter fled the area in a car whose direction of travel was unknown. Shell casings were recovered near the scene, but there were no apparent victims, according to police.

Officials are asking anyone with information about the downtown stabbings or any other crimes to call the Springfield Police Detective Bureau at (413) 787-6355. Anonymous text-message tips may be sent to CRIMES (274637) and should begin with the word SOLVE.

The fire was described by officials at the scene as a "small kitchen trash fire" that was brought under control quickly.

Fire that started in a trash can caused some exterior damage to a home on Quincy Street in Springfield Wednesday.REPUBLICAN FILE 

This story was updated with new information at 5:30 p.m.

SPRINGFIELD — Firefighters responded to a fire at about 1:33 p.m. Sunday at 87 Longhill St., a large apartment building in the city's lower Forest Park section.

The small bedroom fire was brought under control quickly, according to officials at the fire scene, which is near the corner of Hazelwood Street.

The fire caused less than $5,000 in damage mainly to the contents of the bedroom. There was also some smoke damage, said Dennis G. Leger, aide to Fire Commissioner Joseph Conant.

The fire was caused by careless disposal of smoking materials. Someone had tossed a lit cigarette into the trash can, which ignited and spread to a pile of clothing nearby, he said.

The tenant was allowed to remain in the apartment, he said.

The building, part of the former Longhill Gardens complex that's now called the Forest Park Apartments, is administered by WinnResidential, a Boston-based property management company.

There were no reported injuries.

Police continue to investigate multiple downtown stabbing incidents.

 

Police described two of the possible suspects as a 16-year-old Asian male, who was wearing a yellow tank top, and a dark-skinned black male, also believed to be in his early teens, who was wearing a blue tank top.

Two others seen fleeing the area were described as Hispanic males, each believed to be about 16. One was wearing jeans and a black shirt, the other a red shirt and black ball cap. It's unknown at this time if they were involved in one of the incidents, police said.

All four were last seen fleeing the Main Street area toward the courthouse and Columbus Avenue, according to police, who continue to investigate.

In addition to Saturday night's two stabbing victims, police confirmed a third victim from a stabbing in the city's entertainment district at about 1:30 a.m. Sunday. The male victim sustained a stab wound to the back, police said.

Officers at the scene requested an ambulance to respond to Stearns Square quickly. "Have that 7 step on it. The kid's got a stab wound near his lungs (on) the rear on his back," an officer said, using the code number for an ambulance.

GREENFIELD - The Annual Greenfield 4th of July celebration and fireworks display was held, Saturday, July 5, at Beacon Field.

GREENFIELD - The Annual Greenfield 4th of July celebration and fireworks display was held, Saturday, July 5, at Beacon Field.

School committee leaders said Amilcar Shabazz may have violated a white student's rights by publicly referring to him as "racist."

AMHERST — Amherst school superintendent Maria Geryk is keeping mum about an incident in which a white student was "aggressively and seriously assaulted" by students of color, the Daily Hampshire Gazette is reporting.

The issue came to light Thursday when leaders of three school committees associated with Amherst Regional High School reprimanded the chairman of an Equity Task Force formed to reduce racial tension at the school.

The memo chastised task force chairman Amilcar Shabazz of Amherst for referring to the white victim in the incident as "racist" at the group's June 18 meeting.

According to the memo, Shabazz said the white student was targeted this spring after students of color decided to "beat up the greatest racist they could find." An internal investigation by the school found no evidence the victims was racist, the memo said.

The memo said Shabazz, as a town official, may have violated the victim's FERPA (Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act) rights by speaking pejoratively about him in a public setting. The victim's identity is widely known within the school community, said the memo.

Shabazz is also a member of the Amherst Regional School Committee.

Geryk has declined comment on the incident, citing student confidentiality. She told the Gazette school officials followed standard protocol when they handled the case internally and spoke with the family of the victim. It's not clear whether the family notified Amherst police.

The 30-member Equity Task Force was formed several months ago after earlier racial incidents, including the appearance of graffiti targeting an African-American math teacher. The task force contains School Committee members, school personnel and other members of the community.

"We will not allow extremists, it doesn't matter from which side, to inflame the region and cause bloodshed," Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said in a nationally televised statement. "Murder is murder, incitement is incitement, and we will respond aggressively to both."

JERUSALEM -- Israel arrested six Jewish suspects Sunday in the grisly slaying of a Palestinian teenager who was abducted and burned alive last week -- a crime that set off a wave of violent protests in Arab sections of the country. 

Leaders of the Jewish state appealed for calm amid signs the death was revenge for the recent killings of three Israeli teenagers.

"We will not allow extremists, it doesn't matter from which side, to inflame the region and cause bloodshed," Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said in a nationally televised statement. "Murder is murder, incitement is incitement, and we will respond aggressively to both."

He promised to prosecute those responsible to the full extent of the law.

The region has been on edge since three Israeli teens -- one of them a U.S. citizen -- were kidnapped while hitchhiking in the West Bank last month. Last week, the teens' bodies were found in a West Bank field in a crime Israel blamed on the militant group Hamas.

Just hours after the youths were buried, Mohammed Abu Khdeir, a 16-year-old Palestinian from east Jerusalem, was abducted near his home, and his charred remains were found shortly afterward in a Jerusalem forest. Preliminary autopsy results found he was still alive when he was set on fire.

Palestinians immediately accused Israeli extremists of killing the youth in revenge. And on Sunday, Israeli authorities said the killers had acted out of "nationalistic" motives.

The suspects remained in custody and were being interrogated, authorities said.

An Israeli official said there were six suspects and described them as young males, including several minors, all of whom lived in the Jerusalem area. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because the investigation was continuing.

He said police had located a car used by the suspects. During the investigation, he said, police learned of an attempted kidnapping the previous day of a child in the same neighborhood and concluded the cases were linked. Israeli TV showed pictures of the 9-year-old boy with red marks around his neck.

Abu Khdeir's family said that the arrests brought them little joy and that they had little faith in the Israeli justice system.

"I don't have any peace in my heart, even if they captured who they say killed my son," said his mother, Suha. "They're only going to ask them questions and then release them. What's the point?"

She added: "They need to treat them the way they treat us. They need to demolish their homes and round them up, the way they do it to our children."

Abu Khdeir's death triggered violence in his neighborhood, as angry crowds destroyed train stations and hurled rocks. The unrest spread to sections of northern Israel over the weekend.

On Sunday, the situation in east Jerusalem, home to most of the city's Palestinians, appeared to be calming down, as businesses and markets reopened, and roads that had been cordoned off were reopened to traffic.

Top Israeli officials expressed concern that the charged atmosphere of recent days had led to the boy's killing.

After the Israeli teenagers were found dead, several hundred Jewish extremists had marched through downtown Jerusalem calling for "death to Arabs." Social media sites were also flooded with calls for vengeance.

Justice Minister Tzipi Livni said her ministry is investigating some of the anti-Arab incitement seen on Facebook last week.

"These things need to be cut when they are small," she told Channel 2 TV. "At this moment, everybody's job should be to lower the flames."

Cabinet minister Jacob Peri, a former head of the Shin Bet security agency, said he had met with Arab leaders in northern Israel to calm tensions. President Shimon Peres, a Nobel peace laureate, also was in contact with Arab leaders.

About 50 people were arrested in several days of demonstrations following Abu Khdeir's death, and 15 police officers and two civilians were injured, authorities said.

A 15-year-old Palestinian-American cousin of Abu Khdeir was also injured in clashes with Israeli security forces in east Jerusalem.

The boy, Tariq Abu Khdeir, who goes to school in Florida, was ordered confined to his home in Israel for nine days while police investigate what they say was his participation in violent protests -- a charge his family denies.

The U.S. State Department said it was "profoundly troubled" by reports that he was beaten, and Israel's Justice Ministry launched an investigation.

As Tariq was released to his family, he was crying and appeared badly bruised, with both eyes and his mouth swollen. "I feel better. I am excited to be back home," he said.

State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki said that "if the investigation is concluded promptly, Mr. Khudeir should be able to return to Florida as planned with his family later this month."

Tariq's parents said they plan on returning to the U.S. with their son on July 16.

The situation along Israel's southern border with the Gaza Strip, meanwhile, remained tense. Gaza militants have stepped up rocket fire in recent weeks, drawing Israeli airstrikes.

The Israeli military said late Sunday that it carried out an airstrike on militants involved in firing rockets at Israel. It said at least 25 rockets were fired at Israel from Gaza over the course of the day.

Gaza medical official Ashraf al-Kidra said that two men were killed and one injured. Relatives said they belonged to a militant group.

A George W. Bush-era law to address human trafficking prevents the government from returning the children to their home countries without taking them into custody and eventually through a deportation hearing. Minors from Mexico and Canada, by contrast, can be sent back across the border more easily. The administration says it wants more flexibility under the law.

WASHINGTON -- The legal, humanitarian and political constraints facing the Obama administration as it copes with thousands of Central American children entering the country illegally came into sharp focus in a series of interviews Sunday.

A George W. Bush-era law to address human trafficking prevents the government from returning the children to their home countries without taking them into custody and eventually through a deportation hearing. Minors from Mexico and Canada, by contrast, can be sent back across the border more easily. The administration says it wants more flexibility under the law.

Even if Congress agrees, however, the change might do little to ease the partisan quarreling and complex logistical and humanitarian challenges surrounding the issue.

Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson said Sunday the administration has dramatically sped up the processing of adults who enter the country illegally, and it is opening more detention facilities. He acknowledged that the unaccompanied children from Central America, some 9,700 taken into custody in May alone, pose the most vexing problem.

All persons, regardless of age, face "a deportation proceeding" if they are caught entering the country illegally, Johnson said. The administration, he said, is "looking at ways to create additional options for dealing with the children in particular, consistent with our laws and our values."

Repeatedly pressed to say whether thousands of Central American children will be deported promptly, Johnson said, "we need to find more efficient, effective ways to turn this tide around generally, and we've already begun to do that."

Several Republicans, and even a Democrat, said the administration has reacted too slowly and cautiously to the crisis. More than 50,000 unaccompanied minors have been caught on the U.S.-Mexico border this year. Most are from Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador, where a spike in violence and poverty are prompting parents to send their children on difficult and dangerous journeys north.

Their numbers have overwhelmed federal agencies. When 140 would-be immigrants -- mostly mothers with children -- were flown to southern California to ease an overcrowded Texas facility, angry residents of Murrieta greeted the bus as it pulled into town, complaining that they were being asked to do more than their share.

"This is a failure of diplomacy, it is a failure of leadership from the administration," said Texas Gov. Rick Perry, who sought the 2012 GOP presidential nomination.

Rep. Henry Cuellar, D-Texas, said the administration "is one step behind" a major dilemma that was foreseeable. The number of children coming from Central America without adults has been rising dramatically for several years.

President Barack Obama is asking Congress for more money and authority to send the children home, even as he also seeks ways to allow millions of other people already living in the U.S. illegally to stay.

The Bush-era law requires unaccompanied children to be handed over to the Department of Health and Human Services for care and housing. Unlike Mexican or Canadian children, the Central Americans must be taken into custody and given a deportation hearing before they can be returned to their home countries.

A possible change to the Bush-era law could give Border Patrol agents more leeway in handling these children.

Unaccompanied Central American children generally are being released to relatives already in the United States. Mothers with their children often are released with a notice to appear later in immigration court.

Meanwhile, word of seemingly successful border crossings reaches their home countries, encouraging others to try.

Johnson said the U.S. government is trying to send the message that all persons who enter the country illegally will face deportation proceedings eventually. In Central America, he said, "the criminal smuggling organizations are putting out a lot of disinformation about supposed free passes into this country" that will expire soon. "We're cracking down on the smuggling organizations by surging law enforcement resources," Johnson said.

Johnson and others are warning of the dangers that immigrants, and especially children, face when the try to reach the United States on their own.

Alan Long, mayor of Murrieta, Calif., denounced the nation's current immigration laws and practices. Central Americans think "they're coming to a better place," Long said Sunday, "but on that journey one-third of the females -- some younger, in their teens -- are raped."

Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., said that children entering the country illegally must be sent home.

If not, Graham said, "you're going to incentivize people throughout that part of the world to keep sending their children here."

Graham said foreign aid should be cut off to countries that don't do more to discourage illegal immigration to the United States.

Johnson spoke on NBC's "Meet the Press;" Perry appeared on ABC's "This Week;" Cuellar and Long made their comments on CNN's "State of the Union;" Graham was on CBS' "Face the Nation."

Nearly 1,800 people have turned to the American Legion, which has held town-hall meetings and opened temporary crisis centers in Arizona, North Carolina and Texas.

EL PASO, Texas -- A counselor at the local Veterans Affairs office looked at Rebecca King, a victim of domestic violence and abuse who was seeking help for depression, and told her she would not be able to see a psychologist. She looked too nice and put together for someone depressed, King was told.

Like others who've failed to receive help at troubled VA offices, the Army veteran then gave up.

"I have a son, I'm his only support system, I have to keep it together" King recalled telling the VA office in El Paso, trying to explain why she didn't look disheveled.

She is now among nearly 1,800 people who have turned to the American Legion, which has held town-hall meetings and opened temporary crisis centers in Phoenix, Fayetteville, North Carolina, and El Paso. People can gain access to health benefits, schedule doctor's appointments, enroll in the VA and even get back pay.

The centers come in the wake of the VA scandal that brought to light long wait times and false record-keeping among other things, and are being established in towns where the VA audit showed wait times were longer. Between now and October, crisis centers will come to Fort Collins, Colorado; Saint Louis, Missouri and Baltimore, Maryland. They also plan to visit Clarksburg, West Virginia; White City, Oregon and Harlingen, Texas.

Jessica Jacobsen, deputy director of the VA's regional public affairs office in Dallas, said the VA will use community partners, such as the American Legion, to help "accelerate access and get veterans off wait lists and into clinics."

"This is an example of this type of partnership and how it is successful," Jacobsen said, noting the VA is helping the Legion with the crisis centers, providing them with counselors, nurses, schedulers and benefits rates.

But the VA shouldn't view getting veterans access to benefits and doctors as out of the ordinary, says Verna Jones, director of the American Legion's Veterans Affairs and Rehabilitation Division.

"This is not extra, this is what is supposed to be happening," she said.

On the first day the Legion's crisis center team arrives in a town, they typically hold a town-hall meeting, where they take questions from veterans -- sometimes, the head of the local VA is there to answer as well. In the days following, veterans come to the Legion post and talk to counselors, who assess the best way to tackle a given problem, be it benefits, retroactive payment, scheduling a doctor's appointment or enrolling a veteran in the VA's system for the first time.

During the center's three days in El Paso, 74 veterans were told they are eligible to more than $461,000 in retroactive payments for uncollected benefits, American Legion Post 58 commander Joe Ontiveros said.

King divorced her husband, who was also in the military, after years of abuse and moved back to El Paso in 2012. She got by until January, when she learned her ex-husband wanted to take their son for the summer.

"I started having nightmares, started feeling depressed," she said. A counselor at the VA dismissed her claims, saying a depressed person would not be well-dressed and with a nice hairdo.

"I told her I didn't want to look how I'd been looking," King said. The counselor said that in order to prescribe medication, King would have to be evaluated by a doctor.

"She said they would schedule an appointment, but I was never called back," she said. "I've been calling and calling but nothing."

After talking with the American Legion representatives at the El Paso crisis center, King will get help -- an appointment with a psychologist that had yet to be scheduled as of Friday. "I believe this will be helpful," she said.

Navy veteran Rik Villarreal had given up on the VA as well. Twenty years after a torpedo nearly crushed his hand, he lives with chronic pain. When the VA closed his case, the document also acknowledged he had Complex Regional Pain Syndrome -- the same diagnosis he received from a private neurologist to which the VA had sent him.

"I appealed, but they didn't return my emails. They tire you out, you get to a point where you say: 'The VA wins.' That's when you give up," he said.

His mother encouraged him to go to the El Paso crisis center -- "Mijo, you gotta get over there," he said she told him -- where he sat with an American Legion attorney who told the VA representatives to reopen his case.

When told he might be due some retroactive payment, Villarreal shrugged it off: "I don't want money. All I want is treatment for the pain."

How much distance from an immoral act is enough? That's the difficult question behind the next legal dispute over religion, birth control and the health law that is likely to be resolved by the Supreme Court.

WASHINGTON -- How much distance from an immoral act is enough?

That's the difficult question behind the next legal dispute over religion, birth control and the health law that is likely to be resolved by the Supreme Court.

The issue in more than four dozen lawsuits from faith-affiliated charities, colleges and hospitals that oppose some or all contraception as immoral is how far the Obama administration must go to accommodate them.

The justices on June 30 relieved businesses with religious objections of their obligation to pay for women's contraceptives among a range of preventive services the new law calls for in their health plans.

Religious-oriented nonprofit groups already could opt out of covering the contraceptives. But the organizations say the accommodation provided by the administration does not go far enough because, though they are not on the hook financially, they remain complicit in the provision of government-approved contraceptives to women covered by their plans.

"Anything that forces unwilling religious believers to be part of the system is not going to pass the test," said Mark Rienzi, senior counsel for the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty, which represents many of the faith-affiliated nonprofits. Hobby Lobby Inc., winner of its Supreme Court case last month, also is a Becket Fund client.

The high court will be asked to take on the issue in its term that begins in October. A challenge from the University of Notre Dame in South Bend, Indiana, probably will be the first case to reach the court.

The Obama administration argues that the accommodation creates a generous moral and financial buffer between religious objectors and funding birth control. The nonprofit groups just have to raise their hands and say that paying for any or all of the 20 devices and methods approved by government regulators would violate their religious beliefs.

To do so, they must fill out a government document known as Form 700 that enables their insurers or third-party administrators to take on the responsibility of paying for the birth control. The employer does not have to arrange the coverage or pay for it. Insurers get reimbursed by the government through credits against fees owed under other parts of the health law.

Houses of worship and other religious institutions whose primary purpose is to spread the faith are exempt from the requirement to offer birth control.

The objections by religious nonprofits are rooted in teachings against facilitating sin.

Roman Catholic bishops and other religious plaintiffs argue that filling out the government form that registers opposition to contraceptives, then sending the document to the insurer or third-party administrator, is akin to signing a permission slip to engage in evil.

In the Hobby Lobby case, the justices rejected the government argument that there was no violation of conscience because the link between birth control coverage and the outcome the employer considers morally wrong was slight.

Just hours after the Hobby Lobby decision, the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Atlanta granted a temporary reprieve to the Alabama-based Eternal Word Television Network. Judge William H. Pryor Jr. said in a separate opinion in that case that the administration "turns a blind eye to the undisputed evidence that delivering Form 700 would violate the Network's religious beliefs."

But the Supreme Court could draw a distinction between subsidizing birth control and signing a document to deputize a third-party to do so, said Robin Fretwell Wilson, a family law specialist at the University of Illinois College of Law.

"Think about how thinned down that objection is," Fretwell Wilson said. "The court might say that is a bridge too far."

Judge Karen Nelson Moore of the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Cincinnati said the document is a reasonable way for objecting organizations to inform the insurer, but that the obligation to cover contraception is in the health law, not the form.

"Self-certification allows the eligible organization to tell the insurance issuer and third-party administrator, 'We're excused from the new federal obligation relating to contraception,' and in turn, the government tells those insurance companies, 'But you're not,'" the judge wrote.

People on both sides of this argument are looking to the Hobby Lobby case for clues about how the justices might come out in this next round.

In a Supreme Court filing, the Justice Department said the outcome strongly suggested that the court would rule in its favor when considering the nonprofits' challenge.

"The decision in Hobby Lobby rested on the premise that these accommodations 'achieve all of the Government's aims' underlying the preventive-health services coverage requirement 'while providing greater respect for religious liberty,'" the Justice Department wrote, quoting from Justice Samuel Alito's majority opinion. The legal filing was in opposition to an emergency plea from Wheaton College in Wheaton, Illinois, to avoid having to fill out Form 700. Wheaton is one of only a few nonprofits not to have won temporary relief in its court fight.

Rienzi, who also represents Wheaton, wrote in reply that the government is wrong to assume that the Hobby Lobby decision "blessed the accommodation." He noted that Alito specifically said the court was not deciding whether the administration's workaround for nonprofits adequately addressed their concerns.

On Thursday, the court, with three justices dissenting, allowed Wheaton to avoid using the form while its case remains on appeal. Instead, the college can send written notice of its objections directly to the Health and Human Services Department rather than the insurer or the third-party administrator. At the same time, the government can take steps to ensure that women covered by Wheaton's health plan can get emergency contraception the college won't pay for.

Several legal experts said that perhaps a simple revision to the government document at the center of the dispute could resolve matters.

"I think the question will come down to does the government really need them to tell the insurance companies or can you reword the form," said Marc Stern, a religious liberty specialist and general counsel for the American Jewish Committee. The faith-affiliated charities "might win a redrafting of the form. I don't think they can win an argument that says we can do absolutely nothing," Stern said.

FLORENCE - The Quabbin Missile Crisis from the Pioneer Valley Roller Derby hosted the R.I.P. Tides from the Maine Roller Derby on Sunday, July 6 in Florence. The event, two, 30-minute periods played in a former factory building in Florence featured five on five packs with speedy jammers and hard-hitting blockers.

FLORENCE - The Quabbin Missile Crisis from the Pioneer Valley Roller Derby hosted the R.I.P. Tides from the Maine Roller Derby on Sunday, July 6 in Florence.

The event, two, 30-minute periods played in a former factory building in Florence featured five on five packs with speedy jammers and hard-hitting blockers.

As state officials across the country grapple with how to prevent mass killings like the ones at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown and near the University of California, Santa Barbara, some are turning to a gun seizure law pioneered in Connecticut 15 years ago.

HARTFORD, Conn. -- As state officials across the country grapple with how to prevent mass killings like the ones at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown and near the University of California, Santa Barbara, some are turning to a gun seizure law pioneered in Connecticut 15 years ago.

Connecticut's law allows judges to order guns temporarily seized after police present evidence that a person is a danger to themselves or others. A court hearing must be held within 14 days to determine whether to return theguns or authorize the state to hold them for up to a year.

The 1999 law, the first of its kind in the country, was in response to the 1998 killings of four managers at the Connecticut Lottery headquarters by a disgruntled employee with a history of psychiatric problems.

Indiana is the only other state that has such a law, passed in 2005 after an Indianapolis police officer was shot to death by a mentally ill man. California and New Jersey lawmakers are now considering similar statutes, both proposed in the wake of the killings of six people and wounding of 13 others near the University of California, Santa Barbara by a mentally ill man who had posted threatening videos on YouTube.

Michael Lawlor, Connecticut's undersecretary for criminal justice planning and policy, believes the state'sgun seizure law could have prevented the killings of 20 first-graders and six educators at Sandy Hook Elementary School in December 2012, if police had been made aware that gunman Adam Lanza had mental health problems and access to his mother's legally owned guns.

"That's the kind of situation where you see the red flags and the warning signs are there, you do something about it," Lawlor said. "In many shootings around the country, after the fact it's clear that the warning signs were there."

Gun rights advocates oppose gun seizure laws, saying they allow police to take people's firearms based only on allegations and before the gun owners can present their side of the story to a judge. They say they're concerned the laws violate constitutional rights.

"The government taking things away from people is never a good thing," said Rich Burgess, president of the gunrights group Connecticut Carry. "They come take your stuff and give you 14 days for a hearing. Would anybody else be OK if they just came and took your car and gave you 14 days for a hearing?"

Rachel Baird, a Connecticut lawyer who has represented many gun owners, said one of the biggest problems with the state's law is that police are abusing it. She said she has had eight clients whose guns were seized by police who obtained the required warrants after taking possession of the guns.

"It's stretched and abused, and since it's firearms, the courts go along with it," Baird said of the law.

But backers of such laws say they can prevent shootings by getting guns out of the hands of mentally disturbed people.

"You want to make sure that when people are in crisis ... there is a way to prevent them to get access to firearms," said Josh Horwitz, executive director of the nonprofit Education Fund to Stop Gun Violence in Washington, D.C.

Connecticut authorities report a large increase in the use of gun seizure warrants involving people deemed dangerous by police over the past several years. Officials aren't exactly sure what caused the increase but believe it's related to numerous highly publicized mass shootings in recent years.

Police statewide filed an estimated 183 executed gun seizure warrants with court clerks last year, more than twice the number filed in 2010, according to Connecticut Judicial Branch data. Last year's total also was nearly nine times higher than the annual average in the first five years of the gun seizure law.

Connecticut police have seized more than 2,000 guns using the warrants, according to the most recent estimate by state officials, in 2009.

Police in South Windsor, about 12 miles northeast of Hartford, say the law was invaluable last year when they seized several guns from the home of a man accused of spray-painting graffiti referencing mass shootings in Newtown and Colorado on the outside of the town's high school.

"With all that we see in the news day after day, particular after Newtown, I think departments are more aware of what authority they have ... and they're using the tool (gun seizure warrants) more frequently than in the past," said South Windsor Police Chief Matthew Reed. "We always look at it from the other side. What if we don't seize the guns?"

The resident was not home at the time of the fire.

EASTHAMPTON – A fire in a multi-family apartment building displaced one tenant Sunday.

The fire started at about 5:40 p.m. in the back apartment of the two-story home at 72 Pleasant St. The resident of the apartment was not home at the time, Fire Capt. Kevin Benson said.

“It is a single unit apartment and fire and smoke were showing from the first floor when we arrived,” he said.

A dozen firefighters responded and extinguished the blaze within 10 to 15 minutes. Northampton firefighters assisted and Holyoke firefighters manned the Easthampton station during the blaze, Benson said.

The apartment was too damaged for the resident to be able to return but the other units were not damaged so the tenants will be able to go back, he said.

According to city records the home is owned by Theodore Taralinkof of Southampton. There are five apartments.

The cause of the blaze is under investigation by the Easthampton Fire Department and the state Fire Marshal’s office, Benson said.

Because of the fire, Pleasant and Searle streets were closed for more than an hour. They have been reopened.

A witness said the unidentified 18-year-old youth landed in the water in a strange way and did not resurface.

MILFORD, Mass. — Milford police suspended until Monday their search for a Rhode Island teen who jumped into the waters at a quarry and did not resurface.

Police responded to a call for help Sunday afternoon. A witness said the unidentified 18-year-old youth landed in the water in a strange way and did not resurface, The Telegram & Gazette reported.

The party included three young men and two young women, police said.

Milford police called it a "major search" with divers being lowered at least 30 feet into the water.

They said in a Twitter post Sunday night that the search would resume early Monday.

Police say they try to keep trespassers away from the privately owned quarry.

Recovery operation to resume early tomorrow for 18 year old presumed drowned in Milford Quarry pic.twitter.com/p29UoIGwsK

— Milford Police Dept (@milfordpolice) July 6, 2014

The 62-year-old was brought to Albany Medical Center by helicopter.

MOUNT WASHINGTON – A 62-year-old woman was badly injured when she fell about 5 feet down an embankment while hiking at Bash Bish Falls State Park Sunday.

The woman, who lives in Randolph, was transported by helicopter to the Albany Medical Center after the 1:30 p.m. accident, Massachusetts State Police officials said.

The Copake, N.Y. Fire Department and the Egremont Police and Fire departments assisted in the rescue. After she was rescued from the state park they transported her to a nearby landing site where she was moved by helicopter, police said.

Police did not release the woman’s name and did not know her condition.

The victim's injuries are not believed to be life-threatening.

SPRINGFIELD – One person was shot in the north end Sunday night.

Police detectives are now at the scene at Osgood Street investigating the shooting, which happened at about 9 p.m., so information is limited, Springfield Police Sgt. Christopher Hitas said.

When police responded they found spent shell casings but no victim. The victim was later brought to Baystate Medical Center in a private car, Hitas said.

His injuries are not considered life-threatening, he said.

The shooting came one day after several people were seriously injured in stabbings after the Saturday fireworks.

Police reports indicated witnesses saw a young male open fire toward a group of young people near the park on Oak Grove Avenue. There were no known victims, but multiple shell casings were recovered nearby.

 

However, they did find multiple shell casings in front of 46 Burr St., which is between Montrose and Mapledell streets and just down the street from the Oak Grove Avenue park.

Witnesses told police they heard up to 10 gunshots after a young male ran up to a group of young people and opened fire near Oak Grove. The shooter reportedly got into a white car that fled in an unknown direction.

About 50 minutes after the shooting scene was cleared, police and ambulance personnel were called back to Oak Grove Avenue for a 12:19 a.m. Sunday report of a male stabbing victim seen running down the road.

The victim was located a few minutes later outside the Mason Square Apartments at 837 State St., which is several blocks west of Oak Grove. Officers requested the ambulance to be redirected to the State Street location.

Additional information was not immediately available.

Pope Francis begged forgiveness Monday in his first meeting with Catholics sexually abused by members of the clergy and went further than any of his predecessors by vowing to hold bishops accountable for their handling of pedophile priests.

By FRANCES D'EMILIO

VATICAN CITY — Pope Francis begged forgiveness Monday in his first meeting with Catholics sexually abused by members of the clergy and went further than any of his predecessors by vowing to hold bishops accountable for their handling of pedophile priests.

Abuse victims and their advocates have long demanded that higher-ups be made to answer for the decades-long cover-ups of rape and molestation of youngsters in a scandal that has rocked the church and dismayed its worldwide flock of 1.2 billion.

The pope celebrated a private Mass with six victims — two each from Ireland, Britain and Germany — at his Vatican residence, and spent the rest of the morning listening to their accounts, one on one.

"Before God and his people, I express my sorrow for the sins and grave crimes of clerical sexual abuse committed against you. And I humbly ask forgiveness," Francis said.

"I beg your forgiveness, too, for the sins of omission on the part of church leaders who did not respond adequately to reports of abuse made by family members, as well as by abuse victims themselves," the pope said. "This led to even greater suffering on the part of those who were abused, and it endangered other minors who were at risk."

But in speaking of accountability, he made no mention of what countless victims and their families around the globe have waited years to hear: whether bishops and other prelates who shuffled child-molesting priests from parish to parish or didn't inform police and prosecutors would be fired or demoted.

"All bishops must carry out their pastoral ministry with utmost care in order to help foster the protection of minors, and they will be held accountable," Francis said, delivering his homily in his native Spanish. The survivors were allowed to bring a relative or friend and an interpreter.

The U.S.-based victims group SNAP, or the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, reacted skeptically.

"We are glad the pope promises to 'hold accountable' Catholic officials who conceal abuse," SNAP Director David Clohessy said in statement. "But he hasn't done it yet, not in Rome, nor in Buenos Aires. Saying and doing are different things. The first is easy, the second is hard."

Anne Barrett Doyle, a director of another victims advocacy group, BishopAccountability.org, said the pope's meeting with the three men and three women was still a positive step.

"The pope made a significant and historic promise to discipline bishops who fail to respond adequately to child sexual abuse," she said.

One of the six victims, Marie Kane, 43, who was abused by a priest for three years while a teenager in Ireland, said she asked Francis to remove an Irish cardinal, Sean Brady, from his post because of how he handled abuse allegations.

Kane told The Irish Times that she told Francis a "cover-up is still happening, and you have the power to make these changes." She quoted him as replying, "It was difficult to make these changes."

When Brady turns 75 next month, he will be required to offer his resignation to the pontiff, who can accept or ask him to stay on.

Francis has also been criticized for how he handled abuse cases when archbishop of Buenos Aires, specifically for not meeting with victims and for denying he had handled the case of an abusive priest.

Many faithful, especially in the U.S., were outraged when Boston Archbishop Bernard Law, accused of shielding abusive priests during his tenure, was given a prestigious post at a Rome basilica in 2004 by Pope John Paul II instead of being demoted.

Francis acknowledged that the abuse drove some victims to addiction and even suicide and said the deaths "weigh upon the heart and my conscience and that of the whole church."

Vatican spokesman the Rev. Federico Lombardi said the six first met with the pope on Sunday during dinner at the Vatican.

Francis had probably already met another sex abuse survivor, Marie Collins, an Irish woman serving on a commission he created to help draw up a strategy against sex abuse.

A spokesman for German victims, Norbert Denef, dismissed Monday's meeting as "nothing more than a PR event." Several meetings that Francis' predecessor Benedict XVI held with victims starting in 2008 generated similar reactions.

Former New England Patriots tight end and alleged murderer Aaron Hernandez is changing jail cells.

BOSTON — Former New England Patriots tight end and alleged murderer Aaron Hernandez is changing jail cells.

Hernandez was granted his request to move closer to Boston during a hearing in a Bristol County Courtroom on Monday.

Hernandez has been held behind bars at the Bristol County House Of Correction and Jail since June 2013 when he was indicted on murder charges. Hernandez's defense team, led by attorney James Suttan, argued that they needed to move him closer to Boston so he could prepare for his murder trial in Suffolk County.

Hernandez is facing multiple charges including three counts of first-degree murder for the 2013 killing Odin Lloyd, 27, of Dorchester and the 2012 double shooting deaths of Daniel Jorge Correia de Abreu, 29, and Safiro Teixeira Furtado, 28, of Dorchester.

A date for the Lloyd murder trial was not set, though it is expected to start sometime between October and January. The trial for the double homicide is expected to set for May 2015.

The commercial airplane bodies fell into the Clark Fork River.

MISSOULA, Mont. — A Montana Rail Link spokeswoman says it took about 12 hours to remove the first of three commercial airplane bodies that fell into the Clark Fork River after a train derailed.

Spokeswoman Lynda Frost said Monday that specialized machines are pulling the 20-ton fuselages attached to 50-ton flatbed cars from the embankment one at a time at a rate of 20 feet per hour.

Frost says the most difficult fuselage to retrieve was removed safely Sunday. Crews are working on the second fuselage Monday and plan to remove the third by Tuesday.

She says crews are attempting to remove the fuselages and their flatbed cars without causing any additional damage.

Three other Boeing 737 fuselages fell off the train during Thursday's derailment 50 miles west of Missoula. Boeing officials are assessing the damage.

The crash happened when a minivan tried to pass a vehicle on a two-lane highway and slammed into an oncoming sports car with two people inside.

SALT LAKE CITY — A sixth person has died from injuries suffered in a fiery, head-on collision that occurred during one of the deadliest Fourth of July weekends of the past two decades in Utah, authorities said Monday.

A seventh person also is in critical condition from Sunday's crash, which happened when a minivan tried to pass a vehicle on a two-lane highway and slammed into an oncoming sports car with two people inside, Utah Highway Patrol Sgt. Todd Royce said.

The sports car caught fire, killing an Arizona man and a Nevada woman. Five people were in the minivan, and three of them died at the scene.

The wreck happened on U.S. Route 191 near Monticello, about 285 miles southeast of Salt Lake City.

It came two days after another head-on collision involving a wrong-way driver on Interstate 80 in northern Utah killed three members of a family.

All told, there were at least 11 confirmed traffic deaths in the state from Friday through Sunday of the holiday weekend, said Gary Mower, a research analyst for the Utah Highway Safety Office. Several other people remain in critical condition.

The deadliest July Fourth weekend since the state began keeping track 20 years ago was in 2008, when 12 people died over four days. Last year, 10 people died over five days, Mower said.

The rate of highway deaths around the Fourth of July ranks the highest of any of the holidays, with 1.4 fatalities per day over the past 10 years, Utah statistics show

Royce said this year's two major crashes should serve as a stark reminder that people need to drive more carefully.

Impairment is suspected in the I-80 crash, and a bad decision to try to pass another car with not enough room caused the US-91 collision, Royce said.

"If they would have been a little more patient," he said. "Both of these crashes were entirely avoidable."

Authorities are withholding the victims' identities in the crash near Monticello until all family members have been notified.

It appears the minivan was carrying a Salt Lake City family who was visiting relatives in the Moab area, Royce said. The relationship between the two people in the sports car is unknown, he said.

In the I-80 crash, authorities say Paul Mumford, 36, of West Jordan, inexplicably turned around Friday night and drove the wrong way before colliding with an SUV driven by Jose Adame-Orozco, 36, of Farmington.

Three passengers in the SUV died at the scene: Adame-Orozco's girlfriend, Delphine John, 44, and her daughters, Deliah Ramirez, 18, and Anaya Orozco, 3.