Maryland

Racial animosity may have spurred arson

Racial animosity and revenge may have been motives in the fires that caused $10 million in damage in Maryland’s largest residential arson case, a spokesman for federal investigators said Sunday.

Four men have been charged with arson at the Hunters Brooke development in La Plata, where fires on Dec. 6 destroyed 10 houses and damaged 16 others. No one was hurt.

“Two typical motives for arson are revenge and race,” said Michael Campbell, a spokesman for the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives.

A federal law enforcement official speaking on the condition of anonymity said two of the four suspects in custody allegedly made racial statements to investigators during questioning.

New York City

Retailers see little late holiday buying

The nation’s retailers remained on edge Sunday, as the much-hoped for sales bonanza appeared not to materialize on the last weekend before Christmas, despite an abundance of deals on toys and apparel.

Merchants, who had a slow start to the holiday season that never picked up steam, needed a big sales surge this past weekend to recoup lost business. Now, they’ll have to rely even more heavily on the final days before and after Christmas to meet their holiday sales forecast.

“We are not getting the kind of lift we need. Traffic and sales were below expectations” on Saturday, said Michael Niemira, chief economist at the International Council of Shopping Centers, who was analyzing data late Sunday from ShopperTrak, which tallies sales results from 30,000 retail outlets.

Florida

Slain Marine’s father apologizes for van fire

A man has apologized for setting fire to the van driven by a team of Marines who had come to his house to tell him his son was killed in Iraq.

“Thank God they opened their hearts to see me,” Carlos Arredondo said after a private meeting with the Marines on Saturday at a Marine base in Hialeah, a Miami suburb.

Three Marines arrived Aug. 25 at his home in Hollywood and told him his 20-year-old son had been killed in combat.

Arredondo grabbed a propane torch and a gasoline can from his garage, smashed a window of their van, poured gasoline in the vehicle and climbed inside.

As his mother tried to pull him out, he said, he accidentally turned on the torch.

The Marines put out the flames on his body.

Pennsylvania

Crash closes I-80; dozens of cars involved

A tractor-trailer traveling an estimated 55 mph in whiteout conditions jackknifed Sunday across Interstate 80, setting off a chain-reaction pileup that wrecked up to 80 vehicles.

No deaths or critical injuries were reported, but the late-morning crash blocked the westbound lanes in western Pennsylvania for more than eight hours, state police said.

State police Trooper Ted Hunt said he was attending to disabled vehicles on the side of the highway in blowing snow when he heard a truck quickly pull into the passing lane and jackknife. He said two other rigs skidded sideways, blocking both lanes, and oncoming vehicles began crashing into them.

Hunt said the truck driver who started the crash was cited for driving at an unsafe speed.

Detroit

Four found slain in abandoned Jeep

Police discovered the bodies of four missing people inside a Jeep in an abandoned lot on Sunday and arrested a man suspected in their slayings, authorities said.

Police believed the bodies were those of four people who disappeared from their home Saturday: Alicia Jackson, 24, Gloria Pitts, 17, and Jackson’s two children, Jamon Wilmer, 6 or 7, and I’jannia Jackson, 4.

Authorities said a friend called police after suspecting something was wrong at the victims’ home. Officers found Pitts’ 1-year-old child unharmed in a closet, but the others were missing.

Police spokesman James Tate said the slayings might be the result of a domestic dispute based on evidence and a statement from the suspect, whose name was not released.