REAL-LIFE CAPT. PHILLIPS SAYS HE NEVER EMPATHIZED: WILLISTON, Vt. (AP) — The real-life ship captain being played by Tom Hanks in a Hollywood movie says he never felt feel empathy for the pirates who hijacked his vessel and took him captive four years ago.
Richard Phillips attended a screening of "Captain Phillips" near his home in Vermont on Tuesday night and spoke to The Associated Press as the event began.
Phillips spent five days as a hostage of Somali pirates on a lifeboat after the Maersk (mersk) Alabama was hijacked. He was rescued by U.S. Navy SEALs who shot three of the pirates.
He says it "never entered my mind" to feel empathy for the pirates. He says "I thought that was important for me and my survival. There was no Stockholm syndrome."
"Captain Phillips" is being released nationally Oct. 11.
SOME YOUNG MIGRANTS IN LAREDO PROTEST RELEASED: MCALLEN, Texas (AP) — Eight of the 34 young migrants who presented themselves to immigration officials at the U.S.-Mexico border without legal documents have been released from U.S. custody, a lawyer said Tuesday.
The others remained in detention, but U.S. authorities haven't said where, immigration attorney David Bennion said.
Nearly all of the group who marched across one of Laredo's international bridges Monday in colorful graduation gowns and caps say they spent long stretches of their childhoods in the U.S. after being taken there by their families at early ages and are demanding to be let back in.
Bennion said seven were released from an Immigration and Customs Enforcement office around noon Tuesday. He said they were paroled from removal from the U.S. for one year after requesting asylum and are to appear before immigration judges in the coming months.
TEXT MISTAKENLY SENT TO COP LEADS TO ARREST IN NJ: SPARTA, N.J. (AP) — Authorities say a New Jersey man mistakenly sent a text message to a police detective to set up a drug sale and now faces charges.
Authorities say a detective received the text message on his new cellphone Friday night. The sender had said he had a quarter pound of marijuana for sale and wanted to meet at a pizza parlor.
Nicholas Delear Jr., of Sussex, met later that night with an undercover police officer but fled when he became suspicious. Police soon stopped his vehicle, but the 33-year-old Delear refused to consent to his vehicle being searched.
Authorities obtained a warrant after a police dog detected drugs in the vehicle.
DEPUTY: DAD LIKELY SAVED GIRL IN DEADLY ROCK SLIDE: BUENA VISTA, Colo. (AP) — A 13-year-old girl said her father shielded her as boulders crashed down on them on a Colorado hiking trail — an action that authorities say probably saved her life even as her father and four other family members were killed.
Rescuers dug Gracie Johnson out of the rubble after Monday's slide, and she was airlifted to a Denver-area hospital with a broken leg, the Chaffee County Sheriff's Department said Tuesday.
"She told me at the last second when the boulders were coming down on top of them that he covered her up and protected her, which I believe it saved her life," said sheriff's Deputy Nick Tolsma.
Gracie's parents and sister from nearby Buena Vista were killed, as were two of her cousins from Missouri.
Monday's slide sent 100-ton boulders onto a popular viewing area that overlooks Agnes Vaille falls below 14,197-foot Mount Princeton in south-central Colorado.
HIKERS IN TROUBLE ON PACIFIC CREST TRAIL IN WASH. : SEATTLE (AP) — Rescuers were searching for four hikers Tuesday in remote parts of southwest Washington, including three people who walked all the way from Mexico on the Pacific Crest Trail only to run into early season snowfall on their trek to the Canadian border.
Skamania County Undersheriff Dave Cox says two of the Pacific Crest Trail hikers, Matt Margiotta and Kyla Arnold, wisely called for help Monday after snow obscured their route. Six ground searchers had obtained their GPS location and expected to reach the pair later Tuesday.
"The problem with all the snow on the ground is you can't even tell where the trail is," Cox said. "Some folks try to push on and wind up getting lost."
