AP - Six members of a Texas family apparently opened Christmas presents just before a relative dressed as Santa Claus showed up, opened fire and killed them before killing himself, police said Monday.
AP - Two Mayo Clinic employees and a pilot flying to a University of Florida hospital to retrieve a heart for a transplant were killed when their helicopter crashed Monday in north Florida, officials said.

FBI joins search for missing Indiana girl (AP)

Posted on 27 December, by under
AP - The FBI joined the search for a missing 9-year-old Indiana girl with physical and emotional problems Monday as agents descended on the mobile home park where she lived and that's a known haven for registered sex offenders.
AP - Police in a quiet Fort Worth suburb worked Monday to piece together a family history after a man dressed in a Santa Claus suit apparently shot six relatives and himself on Christmas.
AP - The email that arrived at Virginia Tech's health center in November 2007 was detailed and unmistakably ominous. It concerned a Tech senior named Daniel Kim and came from an acquaintance at another college.
AP - A heart surgeon from a Mayo Clinic in Florida flying across the northern corner of the state to retrieve a heart for transplant was killed Monday when his helicopter crashed, officials said.
AP - A man who played Santa Claus at Saks Fifth Avenue and died with his wife and three grandchildren in a Christmas house fire in Connecticut worked to prevent fires as safety chief at a company in Kentucky.
AP - Police on Monday arrested a suspect in a shooting that critically wounded a soldier at his Southern California homecoming party after he survived a suicide bombing attack in Afghanistan.

Civil War's 150th stirs a trove of memories (AP)

Posted on 27 December, by under
AP - A diary with a lifesaving bullet hole from Gettysburg. An intricate valentine crafted by a Confederate soldier for the wife he would never see again. A slave's desperate escape to freedom.
AP - Authorities say a missing 9-year-old Indiana girl has been found dead, and a family friend who had been watching the girl is facing murder charges.

Conn. fire victim had career as safety chief (AP)

Posted on 27 December, by under
AP - As former co-workers and neighbors mourn the loss of five family members killed in a house fire, the severely damaged home has been torn down.
AP - The neighbor who was babysitting a 9-year-old Indiana girl when she went missing last week will be formally charged with murder Tuesday, a heartbreaking turn for the girl's relatives who considered him a family friend.