Man Fatally Pushed in Front of Subway

Man Fatally Pushed in Front of Subway (ABC News)

Detectives in New York are searching for a female suspect who fled a subway station after a man was fatally pushed in front of a train on an elevated platform in Queens, N.Y.

At 8:04 p.m. on Thursday an unnamed male passenger was standing on the northbound platform of the 40th Street and Queens Blvd. in Queens, waiting for the 7 train. Witnesses told police that a woman was walking back and forth on the platform and talking to herself before she took a seat on a wooden bench on the platform.

As the 7 train approached the station, witnesses said the woman rose from the bench and pushed the man, who was standing with his back to her.

"They said that [she] pushed somebody to the tracks," Jiovanni Briones, who owns restaurant across the street from the station, told WABC. "Who knows, maybe it was a fight?"

Witnesses told police that the victim did not notice the woman behind him. He was struck by the first of the 11-car train, with his body pinned under the front of the second car as the train came to a stop, according to a statement from Deputy Commissioner Paul Brown.

After pushing the man onto the platform the woman then fled down two separate stair cases to Queens Blvd. She was described as wearing a blue, white and grey ski jacket, and grey and red Nike sneakers.

It is unclear if the two knew each other, or whether anyone on the platform attempted to help the man off the platform before he was struck by the train.

Police said that there was no video of the incident or suspect from the station itself, but detectives are now canvassing locations along Queens Blvd for witnesses and surveillance video.

Thursday's death marks the second incident this month of a man being killed after being pushed onto subway tracks and killed by an oncoming train.

On Dec. 3, 58-year-old Ki-Suck Han was tossed onto the subway track at 49th Street and Seventh Avenue around 12:30 p.m. after an altercation with a man who was later identified as 30-year-old Naeem Davis. Davis has been charged with murder in Han's death and was ordered held without bail.

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Iran begins naval maneuvers near Strait of Hormuz

TEHRAN, Iran (AP) — Iran's state TV is reporting the country's navy has begun maneuvers in the area of the Strait of Hormuz, where one-fifth of the world's oil passes.

It says the maneuvers began early Friday, involving warships, submarines jet fighters and hovercrafts.

The drills come as the West increases its pressure over Iran's nuclear program. The West suspects it may be aimed at producing nuclear weapons, a charge Iran denies.

Iran has threatened to close the straits over Western sanctions but has not repeated the threats lately.

The report says Iran warned ships to stay away from the site until Jan. 3. The maneuvers cover nearly 1 million sq. kilometers (400,000 sq. miles) from the Strait of Hormuz to northern part of Indian Ocean, including the Sea of Oman.

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More meth labs showing up in cities, suburbs

Not just a rural drug anymore: Experts say more meth labs showing up in cities, suburbs

Associated Press -

ST. LOUIS (AP) -- Methamphetamine lab seizures are on the rise in the nation's cities and suburbs, raising new concerns about a lethal drug that has long been the scourge of rural America.

Data and interviews from an investigation by The Associated Press found growing numbers of meth lab seizures in cities such as St. Louis, Kansas City, Mo., Nashville, Tenn., and Evansville, Ind.Authorities are also seeing evidence that inner-city gangs are becoming involved in meth production and distribution.

"No question about it — there are more labs in the urban areas," said Tom Farmer, coordinator of the Tennessee Methamphetamine and Pharmaceutical Task Force. "I'm seeing car fires from meth in urban areas now, more people getting burned."

The increase in labs is especially troubling because meth brought into the U.S. from Mexico also is becoming more pervasive in urban areas. The Associated Press reported in October that so-called Mexican "super labs" are upping production, making meth more pure and less expensive, and then using existing drug pipelines in big cities.

Data obtained by AP shows that homemade meth is on the rise in metropolitan areas, too.

— St. Louis County had just 30 lab seizures in 2009, but 83 through July 31, putting it on pace for 142 in 2012. The city of St. Louis had eight in 2009 and is on pace for 50 this year.

— Jackson County, Mo., (which includes Kansas City) had 21 seizures in 2009 and is on pace for 65 this year.

— Meth lab seizures have tripled in the Nashville area over the past two years. In one case in late 2011, a man and his girlfriend were accused of recruiting more than three dozen people, including some who were homeless, to visit multiple pharmacies and purchase the legal limit of cold pills containing pseudoephedrine, a key meth ingredient. The couple and 37 others were indicted.

— The Evansville, Ind., area has seen a more than 500 percent rise in meth seizures since 2010, with 82 in 2011.

Authorities cite numerous reasons for meth moving into cities, but chief among them is the rise in so-called "one-pot" or "shake-and-bake" meth.

In years past, meth was cooked in a makeshift lab. The strong ammonia-like smell carried over a wide area, so to avoid detection, meth had to be made in backwoods locations.

As laws limited the availability of pseudoephedrine, meth-makers adjusted with a faster process that creates smaller batches simply by combining ingredients — mixing cold pills with toxic substances such as battery acid or drain cleaner — in 2-liter soda bottles. Shake-and-bake meth can be made quickly with little odor in a home, apartment, hotel, even a car.

"Bad guys have figured it out," said Rusty Payne of the federal Drug Enforcement Agency. "You don't have to be as clandestine — you don't have to be in rural country to lay low."

Niki Crawford, who heads the meth suppression team in Indiana, said that with shake-and-bake labs, "the odors are not as strong. And they're just so portable. We find them in backpacks and gym bags."

And inside stores: A woman was arrested inside a St. Louis County Wal-Mart earlier this year with a meth-filled soda bottle in her coat pocket.

Another reason for the rise in urban meth is a process known among law enforcement as "smurfing" —the abundance of pharmacies in cities attracts meth-makers from surrounding rural areas, who can bring in friends to help purchase pseudoephedrine pills.

"We know the fuel for domestic labs is pseudoephedrine," Farmer said. "The source for that is pharmacies and the majority of pharmacies are in urban areas."

Farmer also has seen an increase in meth activity involving inner-city Tennessee gangs, which tend to be better-organized than rural cookers when it comes to marketing and selling the drug. For the most part, the gang members work as smurfers, though Farmer worries they'll eventually become involved in the manufacture and distribution of the drug. Sometimes, gang members and meth-makers first connect while in prison.

"They see there's a market there to make money off of pseudoephedrine," Farmer said. "Pseudoephedrine has become as good as currency."

Missouri State Highway Patrol statistics are indicative of the growing urban concern: All four of the top meth counties in Missouri were in the metropolitan St. Louis area — Jefferson, St. Charles, St. Louis and Franklin.

Ed Begley, a St. Louis County meth detective, said the drug is attracting users from all socio-economic levels.

"Lower class all the way up to upper middle class," Begley said. "We've even had retired folks who have become addicted. It's a brutal drug."

National Rifle Association vows to fight arms trade treaty at U.N.

UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - The leading U.S. pro-gun group, the National Rifle Association, has vowed to fight a draft international treaty to regulate the $70 billion global arms trade and dismissed suggestions that a recent U.S. school shooting bolstered the case for such a pact.

The U.N. General Assembly voted on Monday to restart negotiations in mid-March on the first international treaty to regulate conventional arms trade after a drafting conference in July collapsed because the U.S. and other nations wanted more time. Washington supported Monday's U.N. vote.

U.S. President Barack Obama has come under intense pressure to tighten domestic gun control laws after the December 14 shooting massacre of 20 children and six educators at an elementary school in Newtown, Connecticut. His administration has since reiterated its support for a global arms treaty that does not curtail U.S. citizens' rights to own weapons.

Arms control campaigners say one person every minute dies as a result of armed violence and a convention is needed to prevent illicitly traded guns from pouring into conflict zones and fueling wars and atrocities.

In an interview with Reuters, NRA President David Keene said the Newtown massacre has not changed the powerful U.S. gun lobby's position on the treaty. He also made clear that the Obama administration would have a fight on its hands if it brought the treaty to the U.S. Senate for ratification.

"We're as opposed to it today as we were when it first appeared," he said on Thursday. "We do not see anything in terms of the language and the preamble as being any kind of guarantee of the American people's rights under the Second Amendment."

The Second Amendment of the U.S. Constitution protects the right to bear arms. Keene said the pact could require the U.S. government to enact legislation to implement it, which the NRA fears could lead to tighter restrictions on gun ownership.

He added that such a treaty was unlikely to win the two-thirds majority in the U.S. Senate necessary for approval.

"This treaty is as problematic today in terms of ratification in the Senate as it was six months ago or a year ago," Keene said. Earlier this year a majority of senators wrote to Obama urging him to oppose the treaty.

U.N. delegates and gun-control activists say the July treaty negotiations fell apart largely because Obama, fearing attacks from Republican rival Mitt Romney before the November 6 election if his administration was seen as supporting the pact, sought to kick the issue past the U.S. vote.

U.S. officials have denied those allegation.

The NRA claimed credit for the July failure, calling it at the time "a big victory for American gun owners."

NRA IS 'TELLING LIES'

The main reason the arms trade talks are taking place at all is that the United States - the world's biggest arms trader, which accounts for more than 40 percent of global transfers in conventional arms - reversed U.S. policy on the issue after Obama was first elected and decided in 2009 to support a treaty.

Supporters of the treaty accuse the NRA of deceiving the American public about the pact, which they say will have no impact on U.S. domestic gun ownership and would apply only to exports. Last week, Amnesty International launched a campaign to counter what it said were NRA distortions about the treaty.

"The NRA is telling lies about the arms treaty to try to block U.S. government support," Michelle Ringuette of Amnesty International USA said about the campaign. "The NRA's leadership must stop interfering in U.S. foreign policy on behalf of the arms industry."

Jeff Abramson of Control Arms said that as March approaches, "the NRA is going to be challenged in ways it never has before and that can affect the way things go" with the U.S. government.

The draft treaty under discussion specifically excludes arms-related "matters which are essentially within the domestic jurisdiction of any State."

Among its key provisions is a requirement that governments make compliance with human rights norms a condition for foreign arms sales. It would also have states ban arms transfers when there is reason to believe weapons or ammunition might be diverted to problematic recipients or end up on illicit markets.

Keene said the biggest problem with the treaty is that it regulates civilian arms, not just military weapons.

According to the Small Arms Survey, roughly 650 million of the 875 million weapons in the world are in the hands of civilians. That, arms control advocates say, is why any arms trade treaty must regulate both military and civilian weapons.

Keene said the NRA would actively participate in the fight against the arms trade treaty in the run-up to the March negotiations. "We will be involved," he warned, adding that it was not clear if the NRA would address U.N. delegates directly as the group did in July.

The NRA has successfully lobbied members of Congress to stop major new gun restrictions in the United States since the 1994 assault weapons ban, which expired in 2004. It also gives financial backing to pro-gun candidates.

EXPLOSIVE ISSUE

European and other U.N. delegates who support the arms trade treaty told Reuters on condition of anonymity they hoped Newtown would boost support for the convention in the United States, where gun control is an explosive political issue.

"Newtown has opened the debate within the United States on weapons controls in ways that it has not been opened in the past," Abramson said, adding that "the conversation within the U.S. will give the (Obama) administration more leeway."

Keene rejected the idea of bringing the Newtown tragedy into the discussion of an arms trade treaty.

"I find it interesting that some of the folks that advocate the treaty say it would have no impact whatever within the United States but that it needs to be passed to prevent another occurrence of a school shooting such as took place in Newtown," he said. "Both of those positions can't be correct."

Obama administration officials have tried to explain to U.S. opponents of the arms trade pact that the treaty under discussion would not affect domestic gun sales and ownership.

"Our objectives for the ATT (arms trade treaty) have not changed," a U.S. official told Reuters. "We seek a treaty that fights illicit arms trafficking and proliferation, protects the sovereign right of states to conduct legitimate arms trade, and meets the concerns that we have articulated throughout."

"In particular, we will not accept any treaty that infringes on the constitutional rights of U.S. citizens to bear arms," the official added.

Supporters of the treaty also worry that major arms producers like Russia, China, Iran, India, Pakistan and others could seek to render the treaty toothless by including loopholes and making key provisions voluntary, rather than mandatory.

The United States, like all other U.N. member states, can effectively veto the treaty since the negotiations will be conducted on the basis of consensus. That means the treaty must receive unanimous support in order to be approved in March.

But if it fails in March, U.N. delegations can put it to a vote in the 193-nation General Assembly, where diplomats say it would likely secure the required two-thirds majority.