Associated Press
Strong winds cause power outages in Reno-Sparks
RENO — A fierce winter storm packing winds in excess of 100 mph (160 kph) and predicted to bring as much as 8 feet (2.4 meters) of snow to the Sierra Nevada barreled into the West Coast on Monday, toppling trucks, triggering power outages and temporarily closing the major highway near Reno.
Winds gusting to 110 mph (177 kph) were recorded at the summit of the Squaw Valley ski resort near Lake Tahoe, and up to 84 mph (135 kph) in the valleys along the Sierra’s eastern front where Interstate 580 was closed off and on between Reno and Carson City.
Two trucks overturned on I-580 and another on nearby U.S. 395 in the Washoe Valley, where one non-life threatening injury was reported.
At one point as many as 6,000 NV Energy customers were without power in the Reno-Sparks area, but power had been restored to about half by Monday afternoon.
Police: Mom killed 2-year-old, stabbed self in Vegas home
LAS VEGAS — A 21-year-old mother who was described by family members as depressed since giving birth two years ago fatally stabbed her young son and wounded herself with a knife Monday, Las Vegas police said.
The boy’s father and a cousin broke through a door to a bedroom where the woman refused to come out and found the child dead on a bed moments before patrol officers arrived, said Lt. Ray Spencer.
The woman’s name wasn’t immediately released. She was hospitalized in serious but stable condition.
“If she lives, she’s going to be facing a charge of open murder,” Spencer said.
He said the female cousin also lived in the house south of McCarran International Airport. She told police she hadn’t seen the child since Sunday and had been talking to the woman through the door until about 15 minutes before police arrived.
Attorney to challenge murder charge in 1986 missing boy case
LAS VEGAS — A defense attorney says he’ll challenge a murder charge against a 60-year-old woman arrested last month in Boca Raton, Florida, after police in Nevada reopened their probe of the disappearance of her 3-year-old son in 1986.
Amy Elizabeth Fleming is due in court Thursday for her lawyer, Nicholas Wooldridge, to ask a judge to reduce her $1 million bail.
Wooldridge said Monday he plans in coming days to also seek dismissal of the case.
He says there’s new evidence, and North Las Vegas police and prosecutors have improperly gone public with details about the investigation.
Fleming’s son, Francillon Pierre, was never found after Fleming and then-fiance Lee Luster said he wandered away from a swap meet.
Prosecutors now say letters Fleming wrote in 1986 and new witness accounts support the murder charge.
Rare snowfall in Las Vegas sees drop in school attendance
LAS VEGAS — Rare snowfall in Las Vegas caused a sizable drop in public school attendance on Thursday even though schools remained open.
The Las Vegas Review-Journal reports that only 74 percent of Clark County School District’s students showed up Thursday, down from 92 percent the day before.
Some parents apparently thought the weather rarity in the desert city was too much to be missed.
Lifelong Las Vegas resident Jennifer Warnick said she was stunned by the snowfall and couldn’t have her five children miss the experience of having snow in their backyard.
The district late Thursday ordered schools closed Friday because concerns about driving conditions due to black ice forming on roads, so the Warnicks went sledding and had a snowball fight at a park Friday.
Reno suspect in death of Sparks man at Tahoe suicide victim
RENO — Sheriff’s deputies in Northern California say a 52-year-old Reno man who was a suspect in a fatal shooting in Tahoe City last weekend has died of an apparent suicide.
The Placer County sheriff’s office said Thursday they had identified Salvador Murillo Cabrera as a suspect in the killing of 33-year-old Octavio Villa Villanueva of Sparks Saturday evening at the Boatworks Mall in Tahoe City, California.
The sheriff’s office says investigators were awaiting ballistic results when they determined Cabrera was deceased and apparently committed suicide.
Detectives say the victim and the suspect were former co-workers at a restaurant in Tahoe City.
They say the suspect believed the victim was having an affair with his wife but investigators don’t know if that was true.
KRNV-TV reported Cabrera was found dead Sunday in a church in Sun Valley north of Reno.
4-hour SWAT standoff at Reno apartment ends with arrest
RENO — Reno police arrested a 32-year-old man armed with a knife who barricaded himself inside an apartment with a woman during a four-hour standoff with a SWAT team.
Police say they were called to the apartment southeast of downtown on a report of a domestic disturbance at about 6:50 a.m. Thursday.
Officers were able to rescue the woman through the back of the residence before the suspect, Donald Thomas, was arrested when he tried to flee the scene at about 11 a.m.
Thomas was taken to a local hospital for an evaluation and later booked into the Washoe County Jail on charges of kidnapping, domestic battery, obstructing and resisting and preventing a 911 call.
It wasn’t clear if he had a lawyer or would be appointed one at a pending court appearance.
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