The following stories have been hand-selected by the Assignment Desk at News4:
VIRGINIA EMERGENCY COMMUNICATION
Eight years after staring into the smoking inferno of the Pentagon, Virginia State Police Superintendent W. Steven Flaherty still is trying to solve one of the biggest problems faced that day—rescuers who couldn’t talk to one another. At the Pentagon in Arlington County and the World Trade Center in New York City, heroic efforts were made by firefighters, police and rescue workers who weren’t always able to communicate because they used different radio systems. (InsideNOVA.com)
POLICE LOOKING FOR HIT AND RUN DRIVER
Prince George's County police say a Riverdale man was hit by a vehicle and killed. Officers were called to the 7900 block of Annapolis Road in Riverdale around 8 p.m. Thursday for a report of a pedestrian that had been hit by a vehicle that took off. Police say 36-year-old Jose Perez-Simental was found lying in the road and was taken to a local hospital where he was pronounced dead. (AP/WTOP.com)
WOMAN SUES OVER FLOWER POT
A Hagerstown woman on Tuesday filed a $150,000 lawsuit against the Maugansville Goodwill Volunteer Fire Co., saying she was injured when she tripped over a flower pot at the fire hall in December 2006, Washington County Circuit Court records show. (The Herald-Mail)
WHERE'S THE MONEY
More than two weeks after the end of the federal Cash for Clunkers program, auto dealers still haven't been paid for all their transactions, but they say the speed of reimbursements is improving. "It's night and day," said J. Theodore "Ted" Linhart, chairman and CEO of Dominion Auto Group, which owns nine Richmond-area franchises. The Car Allowance Rebate System gave owners of older gas-guzzling cars and trucks $3,500 or $4,500 toward a new, more fuel-efficient vehicle. Old vehicles were then disabled and scrapped. The program ended Aug. 24. (Richmond Times Dispatch)
RUNAWAY SNAKE RETURNS HOME
After more than a month on the run, a pet snake that escaped from its owner's Gaithersburg apartment is back home. A friend pet-sitting for Evie Crocker while she was on vacation noticed that the snake, a 3- to 4-foot Columbian red-tailed boa, had gotten out of its cage July 24. It exited the apartment, in Rosewood Condominiums on Streamside Drive, through a sliding door left cracked for a cat, and neighbors snapped pictures as it slithered out on a vacation of its own. Crocker put up flyers around the neighborhood when she got back and the reported sightings started coming in. Someone called Saturday to say they spotted the boa, a female named Eothen, crossing Emory Grove Road in Gaithersburg, and watched the snake until Crocker came to capture it with a sleeping bag. Two days earlier someone else reported seeing the snake sunning itself on their porch. (Gazette)
