Washington, D.C.

House approves new gold coins

The House on Wednesday approved a new gold-colored coin bearing the faces of presidents to join the unpopular $1 Sacagawea coin in circulation, hoping a new design will spur use of dollar coins.

By a 422-6 vote, the House approved a plan for the U.S. Mint to begin selling the coins early next year. The Senate is expected to vote on a similar measure.

The bill also creates what would be the nation’s first investment-grade 24-karat gold bullion coin. Intended for collectors, it would carry portraits of first ladies and a have a face value of $10 but sell for many times that amount at fluctuating prices based on the price of gold.

Virginia

Police kill father to end hostage standoff

An armed man who held his 9-year-old son hostage for 20 hours was killed Wednesday after police said he came out from his home and threatened officers with a gun. The boy was not harmed.

Officers opened fire on Lewis Barber, 48, when he emerged. Barber did not shoot. Police then stormed the house and found the boy. Barber was pronounced dead about an hour later at an Alexandria hospital.

The standoff began Tuesday night, police said, when Barber abducted the boy at gunpoint as the boy and his mother left a restaurant. Barber took the youngster to the family home and kept police at bay.

Police said Barber’s estranged wife, Robin, and son had moved out of the home on Saturday.

Washington, D.C.

False alarm sends Bush to bunker

President Bush was rushed to a secure underground White House bunker and Vice President Dick Cheney was whisked outside the compound Wednesday because of a “radar anomaly” — perhaps a flock of birds or pocket of rain — that was mistaken for a plane flying in restricted airspace.

The late morning scare, apparently the first time Bush had been taken to the secure area since 9-11, was determined within minutes to be a false alarm, and business quickly returned to normal.

Philadelphia

Wayward whale returns in different river

A beluga whale that spent a week in the Delaware River earlier this month has returned — but not to the Delaware.

Nine days after the whale named Helis was spotted swimming back to the ocean, the Coast Guard said it received reports of the 12-foot white whale beneath the Girard Point Bridge on Philadelphia’s smaller Schuylkill River — about 65 miles from the Atlantic Ocean.

A Philadelphia police boat was providing an escort Wednesday night as the whale headed farther up the Schuylkill.

Authorities believe the whale, originally from Canada’s St. Lawrence River and estimated to be about 30 years old, swam up the Delaware for a week earlier this month to feed on shad making their spring spawning run upriver. The Delaware forms an eastern boundary for the city of Philadelphia and is about 3 miles from the Schuylkill, which forms the city’s western boundary.