California: Police rescue child in washing machine

A 2-year-old girl was rescued from a locked, running washer at a coin laundry and her mother was arrested after a surveillance tape allegedly showed her putting the child into the machine, police said.

An officer smashed the window of the machine with his baton to rescue the girl, who was “submerged in water,” Pomona Police Sgt. Matt Stone said.

The child was unconscious when she was pulled from the washer Saturday but breathing. She was expected to survive, Stone said.

Her mother, Erma Osborne, 35, of Pomona, later was arrested for investigation of child endangerment and held on $10,000 bail.

Surveillance camera footage showed that the woman placed her daughter in one washer, then removed her and placed her in a second front-loading washer, which turned on when she closed the door, Stone said.

Efforts by the girl’s mother and bystanders to unlock the door failed.

New Hampshire: House explosion kills child, injures six

Investigators found the body of a young girl Sunday after a series of explosions destroyed a three-story house, jolting a lakeside neighborhood and injuring six family members.

Authorities said Sunday that the fire was started by propane gas and that the home’s propane tank had ruptured.

Investigators were working to find out if the tank was involved in the initial blast, or was damaged and exploded afterward, fire marshal’s investigator William Clark said.

Neighbors along Lake Winnipesaukee said the house was engulfed in flames after the first explosion.

Neighbor Paul Sampson said he and two others rushed to the home where they found the injured family members. The child’s body was found Sunday morning.

Virginia: Sailor presumed dead; second said missing

A sailor returning from the war in Iraq fell from his ship into the Atlantic Ocean about 900 miles off the Virginia coast and was presumed dead, military officials said.

A search was under way Sunday for a second sailor reported missing in a separate incident on the same ship.

Petty Officer 3rd Class Dwayne Williams, 23, of Philadelphia, fell from the amphibious assault ship USS Nassau on Friday.

Cmdr. Ernest Duplessis, a spokesman for the Navy’s Second Fleet, confirmed Sunday that the Navy had ended its search and that Williams’ body had not been recovered.

The second sailor did not report for the Sunday morning roll call, CNN and Fox News reported.

Capt. Terry O’Brien said it was possible he had been injured or incapacitated and was still on the ship.

Iraq: Exploding missile kills three in Baghdad

A surface-to-air missile left over from Saddam Hussein’s regime fell off a trailer and exploded Sunday, killing three people and injuring at least two others, residents of a poor Baghdad neighborhood said.

They said the accident happened at about 10 a.m. in the al-Thawra slum as Iraqi contractors were removing four unexploded Iraqi missiles left over from the war.

Army Lt. Col. Joel Armstrong identified the rockets as SA2 surface-to-air-missiles. But he said he had no information on the explosion or the number of casualties. No U.S. soldier was involved in the destruction of the missiles, he said.

Philippines: Passenger ferry sinks, killing 25; 203 rescued

Rescue teams searched past nightfall Sunday for any remaining survivors from a ferry that collided with a much larger boat at the mouth of Manila Bay and sank. At least 25 people drowned.

Search teams rescued 203 people after the 11 a.m. accident but didn’t know exactly how many more they were looking for. The M.V. San Nicolas had far more people on board than the 193 who appeared on the passenger and crew list.

Details were sketchy, but survivors and witnesses said the wooden-hulled San Nicolas hit the larger, steel-hulled Superferry 12. Panicked passengers rushed to one side of the stricken vessel, causing it to capsize.