All 110 passengers and 5 crew members are okay after plane crashes at DIA

Passengers attempting to fly to Texas for the holidays instead had to evacuate their burning airliner, engulfed in a smoke-filled ravine off of a runway with the fuselage partially split and one engine and part of its landing gear torn off.

The entire right side of the Boeing 737 was burned and melting plastic from overhead compartments dripped onto the seats underneath.

Denver Fire Department Division Chief Patrick Hynes described the scene as “surreal.”

Thirty-eight passengers received injuries including broken bones, and two were in critical condition suffering fractures resulting from the Saturday evening accident at Denver International Airport, according officials.

Everyone of the 110 passengers and five of the flight crew made it out on emergency slides, and firefighters put the flames out quickly, said airport spokesman Jeff Green.

The reason for the accident was not immediately known. The weather was cold but not snowy when Continental Flight 1404 took off on a flight to Houston around 6:20 p.m.

The plane careened off course about 2,000 feet from the end of the runway and never appeared to have gotten airborne, Day said. Debris was scattered on the runway, with the plane about 200 yards away.

Three of the airport’s six runways were shut down Sunday, according to its Web site. Manager of aviation Kim Day said travelers should expect delays.

Nevada judge sentences OJ Simpson to a minimum of 9 years in prison

O.J. Simpson has been sentenced to serve a minimum of nine years in prison by a Nevada judge on Friday.

Simpson, now 61-years-old, has a potential to serve a maximum sentence of 33 years, but will be eligible for parole after serving only nine.

The ex-NFL star was found guilty on 12 charges which included conspiracy and assault with a deadly weapon in October for his participation in the September 2007 robbery and kidnapping of two sports memorabilia dealers at gunpoint.

Clark County District Judge Jackie Glass read the sentence to Simpson, who arrived in court wearing a dark blue prison jumpsuit and wrist restraints.

“At a bail hearing, I said to Mr. Simpson that I didn’t know if he was arrogant, ignorant, or both,” Glass said. “During the trail I got my answer, and it was both.”

Simpson, was accused of entering a Las Vegas hotel room on September 13, 2007 along with five other men and robbing the memorabilia dealers Simpson said had stolen from him.

He told Glass that he often saw his stolen memorabilia show up in different places, including on the Internet, and he only was trying to get those items back.

“I wasn’t there to hurt anybody, I just wanted my personal things,” said Simpson before Glass gave him his sentence. “And I realize I was stupid and I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to steal anything from anybody and I didn’t know I was doing anything illegal.

“I thought I was confronting friends and retrieving my property. I’m sorry, sorry for all of it. I didn’t mean to hurt anybody and didn’t mean to steal from anybody.”

Clarence “C.J.” Stewart, Simpson’s co-defendant, was convicted of the same charges as well, and also received a sentence of a minimum of nine years. Both men had pleaded not guilty to all charges, including conspiracy, coercion and assault with a deadly weapon.

King of Pop sued for $7 million dollars by Arab prince

The son of an Arab monarch brought a suit against the King of Pop on Monday, alleging that Jackson accepted $7 million as an advance for an album and an autobiography that he never authored.

The claim that Sheikh Abdulla bin Hamad Al Khalifa’s legal team presented was their client paid for Jackson’s expenses as an advance on the book and a joint recording deal with the sheikh, who is an amateur songwriter. Jackson holds the position that the money was a gift.

A lawyer for Al Khalifa said the his client first spoke on the phone to Jackson, 50, while the singer was on trial in California after his 2003 arrest for child molestation. Attorney Bankim Thanki said that Al Khalifa wanted to help Jackson get his career back on track. Jackson’s finances dwindled after his arrest.

Al Khalifa’s first payment of $35,000, went to paying off the utility bills at Neverland Ranch, Jackson’s 2,500-acre ranch home and park in California, Thanki said. When Jackson was found innocent of the molestation charges in June 2005, Al Khalifa paid out $2.2 million in legal bills, according to the sheikh’s attorney.

According to lawyers, Jackson and the sheikh became close and at one time both were living in a palace in Abu Dhabi owned by Al Khalifa’s father, Bahrain’s king. The singer lived for nearly a year in Bahrain as a guest of the son, but the relationship went south when Jackson defaulted on a business deal the sheikh claims they had agreed upon.

Actress Charlize Theron sued for $20 million

Charlize Theron has reached a $20 million settlement in a lawsuit with the luxury watchmaker that accused her of breach of contract.

Executives at Swiss company Raymond Weil claimed they paid Theron the sum to wear its watches exclusively between October 2005 and December 2006.

According to court documents, Theron violated the agreement when she “was actually photographed wearing a watch from the Christian Dior line” at a press event in Austin on March 14.

A month later, Theron modeled a Montblanc watch on a sign at a Swiss trade show.

Company executives said the breaches “demonstrate a total disregard by (Theron) for any of her obligations under the agreement.”

The settlement follows her lawyers’ unsuccessful tries to have the case thrown out.

New documents filed in Manhattan Federal Court reveal the suit will be tossed when it is finalized within 30 days.

Former NFL Quarterback plans to plead guilty in Virginia

Next week, former Atlanta Falcons quarterback Michael Vick plans to enter a guilty plea on the state dogfighting charges he is accused of in Virginia, according to his attorneys.

The attorneys filed a motion with the Surry County Circuit Court on Oct. 17, “asking the Court to allow Mr. Vick, pursuant to the Virginia Rules, to enter a plea of guilty to the pending state charges via videoconference,” his attorney said in a statement to the Atlanta press on Tuesday. “Together with his motion, Mr. Vick filed a waiver in which he forgoes his right to personally appear at the plea hearing and agrees to be bound by the decision of the court.”

There has been a hearing scheduled for Oct. 30. The Virginia indictment charges Vick with one count of torturing and killing dogs and one count of promoting dogfighting. Each charge has a maximum of five-year prison term.

Vick is scheduled to be released from federal prison on July 20, 2009.

45 associates and partners were layed off from Chicago lawfirms this week

Two Chicago firms laid off a total of 45 lawyers and 80 support staff this week.

Sonnenschein Nath & Rosenthal released 24 of its 680 lawyers as well as partners. 80 additional support staff were also layed off. In May, the firm also dismissed 37 lawyers and 87 staff. The firm’s chair blames the cuts to the upheaval in the financial markets and a drastic reformatting of transaction, finance, restructuring and litigation mandates in the financial services sector.

Katten Muchin Rosenman laid off 21 of its 650 lawyers. However, all the released individuals were associates.

There were cuts at Clifford Chance, Cadwalader Wickersham & Taft, and Thacher Proffitt & Wood earlier this year, most recently Clifford Chance let go 20 litigation associates from its New York and Washington offices.

Desperate Housewives co-star recovering after a motorcycle accident on Tuesday

Desperate Housewives actor Gale Harold’s condition is improving Thursday after suffering serious injuries in a motorcycle accident on Tuesday, hospital officials said. Harold was under observation in the intensive care unit at Los Angeles County USC Medical Center.

Harold, who plays Jackson, the boyfriend of Teri Hatcher’s character Susan Mayer on the ABC show, had swelling in his brain and a fractured shoulder but is expected to make a full recovery.

According to hospital officials, the actor will be transferred to Cedars-Sinai Medical Center when space becomes available.

10 dead and dozens injured in a bus crash in Northern California

A bus on its way to a casino flipped over 10 miles from its destination, ejecting passengers and crushing others as it rolled into a ditch. Ten people died as a result, and many others were injured.

According to CHP officials, the bus crashed at about 6:10 p.m. Sunday on a rural road near Williams — about 60 miles north of Sacramento — as it headed to the Colusa Casino Resort from Sacramento.

CHP Commander Fran Clader said on Monday that 10 people were dead and believed that close to 35 others sustained injuries.

“It looks like they were going up to the casino to have a good time,” Clader said. “Unfortunately, it resulted in tragedy.”

Firefighters used tools such as flashlights and infrared sensors to search the tall grass near the overturned bus Sunday night for more possible victims, but were confident early Monday that they had accounted for all the bodies. The mud-covered bus was pulled from the ditch and was on a large tow truck.

Just before the accident, the bus drifted to one side of the road for nearly half a mile before the driver  swerved back. The bus rolled, sending some of its passengers flying from the bus before it landed right side up in a ditch, CHP spokesman Patrick Landreth said.

“The roof was collapsed down, the windows were broken out, and the bus was not only rolled over onto its side, it rolled completely over,” Landreth said. “It was facing the opposite direction and it was on its wheels.”

Authorities had not found out the name of the charter company by early Monday morning, and they had not released the name of the driver.

CHP spokesman Robert Kays said the bus had a Texas license plate that was “not valid”, he also said other registration serial numbers came up invalid during their check.

“There are still several pieces of this puzzle that’s missing,” Kays said. “We will find out who owns the bus.”

CHP dispatcher Terry Troth said that there were no other cars involved in the crash.

Troth said he did not know the extent of the injuries, emergency responders were having trouble communicating with the passengers because many spoke Lao.

Clader said helicopters took victims to several area hospitals, which included Colusa Regional Medical Center, Enloe Medical Center in Chico and UC Davis Medical Center.

Laura Hennum, a spokeswoman for Enloe Medical Center, said 12 victims were admitted to the hospital. According to Hennum, one died, three were in critical condition and two were in serious condition. An additional six other patients were being evaluated Sunday night.

“We activated our disaster response center, so we have been calling in additional staff,” she told the San Francisco Chronicle.

Los Angeles Metrolink Accident: Worst Train Disaster in 15 Years

A commuter train engineer was blamed Saturday for the nation’s deadliest rail disaster in 15 years. The train accident between a Metrolink commuter train and a Union Pacific freight train killed 25 people and left such an incredibly large amount of wreckage that it took nearly a day to recover all the bodies.

A preliminary investigation found that “it was a Metrolink engineer that failed to stop at a red signal and that was the probable cause” of Friday’s collision with a freight train in Los Angeles’ San Fernando Valley (specifically Chatsworth), Metrolink spokeswoman Denise Tyrrell said. That Metrolink engineer was Robert Martin Sanchez, a resident of La Crescenta. National Transportation Safety Board investigators have found that the conductor of the Metrolink train, Robert Martin Sanchez, did not apply the brakes. The conductor of the Union Pacific train did apply the brakes, leaving people to wonder why didn’t Sanchez (who died upon impact) apply the brakes?

Many of the 25 people killed had been in the front car of the Metrolink train, which was crushed like an accordion in the wreck. A total of 135 people were injured, with 81 transported to hospitals in serious or critical condition. Many of those hospitalized were described as having crush injuries.

Firefighters who extricated the dead from the wreck were rotated in and out of the scene to prevent emotional exhaustion.

The collision occurred on a horseshoe-shaped section of track in Chatsworth at the west end of the San Fernando Valley, near a 500-foot-long tunnel underneath Stoney Point Park. There is a siding at one end of the tunnel where one train can wait for another to pass.

Investigators don’t know exactly how the accident happened but it is alleged that the train conductor had been sending text messages and that may have played a part in the train wreck, prompting California regulators to ban train conductors from using cell phones while on duty. The National Transportation Safety Board requested the cell phone records of engineer Sanchez after two teenagers said they exchanged text messages with him just before the crash in the San Fernando Valley neighborhood of Chatsworth.

Two data recorders from the Metrolink train and one data recorder and one video recorder from the freight train were recovered and are currently being examined. The video has pictures from forward-looking cameras and the data recorders have information on speed, braking patterns and whether the horn was used.
Investigators also will test the signals on the track and the brakes on the trains as well as interview Metrolink dispatchers.

Florida Mother Charged In Daughter’s Abduction

Casey Marie Anthony, 22, was charged with one felony and one misdemeanor offense, in addition to the child neglect charge she already faced. She will be arraigned on the criminal charges.

The test results from DNA samples taken from a car driven by Anthony came in and were turned over to the investigation.

The evidence was gathered from the trunk of a vehicle that Anthony was using when her 2-year-old daughter Caylee Marie Anthony vanished in mid-June.

Other DNA samples were taken from the backyard of Anthony’s parents’ house, where she lived with her little daughter until about the time the girl disappeared. It took Casey Anthony more than a month to report the child missing, which she did on July 15. Caylee was last seen on or around June 15.

Detectives reported smelling a strong odor of human decomposition in the car trunk after cadaver dogs led them there. They said they also found hair samples similar to those of Caylee Marie Anthony.

Casey’s mother Cindy Anthony, the child’s grandmother, said the trunk in question smelled like a dead body when she called 911 to report her granddaughter missing. She also asked for her daughter to be taken into custody.

Authorities from the Florida Department of Law Enforcement were analyzing the DNA results, but the media was told Monday that they won’t necessarily be guaranteed immediate access to the data.

Orange County Sheriff’s Office spokesman Carlos Padilla said police will decide what results to release and when.

Casey Anthony remains jailed on a $500,000 bond, charged only with child neglect, false statements to police and obstructing an investigation. She is considered a person of interest in the case. She claims that Caylee was taken by a babysitter, who also vanished.

Dozens attended a weekend vigil for the missing Orlando tot, who turns 3 on Friday.

Caylee’s mom has promised that her little girl would be home by her birthday on Aug. 9.

Last week, a judge denied another petition to lower Anthony’s bond. Her attorney, Jose Baez, will file another appeal to the state Supreme Court, according to MyFOXOrlando.com.

Police say that little Casey Anthony has told them has proven to be true. Her friends have described her as a “habitual liar.”

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