Issue link: https://www.epageflip.net/i/325704
Newsfeed HUG A TREE A Nepalese student hugs a tree during a mass tree hugging on the World Environ- ment Day on the outskirts of Katmandu, Nepal. More than 2,000 people gathered in Nepal's capital Thursday in a bid to set a world record for the largest tree hug. NEWYORK Arecentlyreleasedconvict suspected of fatally stabbing a 6-year- old boy and injuring a 7-year-old girl in a Brooklyn elevator is also being eyed in the stabbing of a homeless man days later at a Manhattan subway platform, a police official said Thursday. Daniel St. Hubert, who was ar- rested Wednesday night shortly after he was publicly identified as a suspect in Sunday's gruesome attack in a pub- lic housing building, appears on sur- veillance video near the subway stop where a man was stabbed on a plat- form, said Stephen Davis, the police department's top spokesman. Witnesses to Wednesday morning's seemingly random stabbing also de- scribed a man resembling the 27-year- old suspect using an 8-to-10-inch knife with a brown handle similar to one re- covered on St. Hubert when he was ar- rested, Davis said. Investigators are reviewing all stabbings that have occurred since St. Hubert was released from prison on May 23, following a five-year sentence for attempted murder and assault. NewYorkCitystabbing suspect eyed in 3rd attack MYRTLE BEACH, S.C. Police are inves- tigating how a loaded gun wound up among children's toys at a Target store in South Carolina. According to a police report, an employee at the Myrtle Beach store reported May 30 that he was inves- tigating a possible theft when he no- ticed a black handgun on top of a su- perhero toy box. The employee told officers he had seen a man repeatedly walking around that section of the store, but authori- ties said they didn't know if that man had put the gun among the toys. Authorities said the 9-mm handgun had not been reported stolen and had eight bullets inside. Officers said they would review security camera footage to try to determine who left the gun. The discovery comes as Target and other retailers face pressure to prohibit customers from carrying guns into their stores. On Wednesday, the group Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense in America launched a petition asking the company to prevent customers from carrying firearms in Target stores. WEAPONS Loaded gun found among toys at South Carolina Target store NEWARK,N.J. A nurse was unfairly de- nied unemployment benefits after she was fired for refusing a flu shot without claiming a religious or medical exemp- tion, a New Jersey appeals court ruled Thursday. The three-judge panel wrote that the hospital's policy of allowing reli- gious or medical exemptions to the flu shot requirement "unconstitutionally discriminated against" plaintiff June Valent by rejecting her refusal to be vaccinated for secular reasons. Valent was working as a nurse at Hackettstown Community Hospital in 2010 when the hospital's parent com- pany began requiring employees to take the flu vaccine unless they had medical or religious reasons not to. Employees claiming an exemption were required to sign a form and provide documentation. Anyone refusing the vaccine was re- quired to wear a mask while at work. Valent declined the vaccine but didn't state a medical or religious rea- son, and agreed to wear a mask. She was terminated based on her refusal of the vaccine. EMPLOYMENT NJ court rules for nurse in vaccine-refusal firing A doctor convicted of raping a Flor- ida woman at gunpoint in 1986 had his medical license in Maryland sus- pended Thursday after two women patients complained he molested them at a walk-in clinic this year. The Maryland Board of Physicians in suspending the license also re- vealed that Dr. William T. Dando dis- closed on his 1996 license application that he had been incarcerated for a criminal conviction but didn't spec- ify the crime. He "stated that he had 'assaulted someone' while under the influence of alcohol," Christine Far- relly, the board's acting executive di- rector, wrote in the summary suspen- sion order. The Maryland board doesn't rou- tinely run criminal background checks on applicants. Farrelly said the board is discussing making such checks for both applicants and licens- ees part of a legislative proposal this fall. Farrelly declined to say what, if any, further inquiry the board made into Dando's criminal past. MEDICAL PRACTICE Maryland suspends doctor with 1987 rape conviction By Greg Keller The Associated Press C O L L E V I L L E - S U R - M E R , FRANCE Ceremonies to commemorate the 70th anni- versary of D-Day are draw- ing thousands of visitors to the cemeteries, beaches and stone-walled villages of Normandy this week, includ- ing some of the few remain- ing survivors of the larg- est sea-borne invasion ever mounted. World leaders and digni- taries including President Barack Obama and Queen Elizabeth II will gather to honor the more than 150,000 American, British, Canadian andotherAlliedD-Dayveter- answhoriskedandgavetheir lives in the battle to defeat Adolf Hitler's Third Reich. Formanyvisitors,theNor- mandy American Cemetery and Memorial with its 9,387 white marble tombstones on a bluff overlooking the site of the battle's bloodiest fight- ing at Omaha Beach is the emotional centerpiece of pil- grimages to honor the tens of thousandsofmenkilledonD- Day and the months of fight- ing afterward. D-Day veteran Clair Mar- tin, 93, said he's come back to Omaha Beach three times in the last 70 years — "four if you count the time they were shooting at me." The San Diego resident landed on D-Day with the 29th Infantry Division and said he kept fighting until he reached the Elbe River in Germany the following April. "I praise God I made it and that we've never had another World War," he said. D-DAY ANNIVERSARY Veterans, visitors flock to Normandy to remember WASHINGTON TheObamaadministra- tion told senators it didn't notify Con- gress about the pending swap of Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl for five Taliban offi- cials because of intelligence the Tali- ban might kill him if the deal was made public. That fear — not just the stated con- cerns that Bergdahl's health might be failing — drove the administration to quickly make the deal to rescue him, bypassing the law that lawmakers be notified when detainees are released from the U.S. prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, congressional and adminis- tration officials said Thursday. They spoke only on condition of an- onymity because they were not autho- rized to comment publicly. Since Bergdahl's release on Satur- day, administration officials including President Barack Obama, Defense Sec- retary Chuck Hagel and National Secu- rity Adviser Susan Rice have said pub- licly that the key reason for the secret prisoner swap was evidence that Berg- dahl's physical health was deteriorat- ing after five years in captivity. But on Wednesday night, administration offi- cials told senators in a closed session that the primary concern was the death risk if the deal collapsed. At a news conference in Brussels on Thursday, Obama said he makes no apologies for recovering Bergdahl, and he said the furor in Washington over the exchange has made the mat- ter a "political football." He appeared to be referring to potential danger to Bergdahl's life when he said that "be- cause of the nature of the folks that we were dealing with and the fragile nature of these negotiations, we felt it was important to go ahead and do what we did." There was no overt threat by the Tal- iban but rather an assessment based on intelligence reports that Bergdahl's life would be in jeopardy if news of the talks got out and the deal failed, said two se- nior U.S. officials familiar with the ef- forts to free the soldier. In public comments, State Depart- ment spokesman Marie Harf told re- porters Thursday, "There were real concerns that if this were made public first, his physical security could be in danger." The risks, she said, included "someone guarding him that possibly wouldn't agree and could take harmful action against him. So as we needed to move quickly, all of these factors played into that." POLITICS Threat to Bergdahl led to US action, officials say THIBAULTCAMUS—THEASSOCIATEDPRESS People walk on the beach where remnants of the artificial port of Arromanches, still stand in western France on Thursday. World leaders and veterans prepare to mark the 70th anniversary of the invasion this week in Normandy. FRIDAY, JUNE 6, 2014 REDBLUFFDAILYNEWS.COM | NEWS | 7 A