Fan Heater Motor Caused North Carolina School Bus Fire

Fan Heater Motor Caused North Carolina School Bus Fire, A Charlotte-Mecklenburg school bus that caught fire Wednesday afternoon was the same make and model as other buses that have gone up in flames in North Carolina in the past two years, prompting state officials to send at least one cautionary memo to school systems.

State and local officials say they don’t think the cause of Wednesday’s fire in southeast Charlotte was the same as previous fires, but an inspector from Freightliner, the bus manufacturer’s parent company, is headed to Charlotte to determine the cause of the blaze.

Officials believe school bus No. 295 started emanating smoke and then caught fire because of a problem with a motor for a fan heater, according to Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools Associate Superintendent Guy Chamberlain.

No one was injured in the fire, which sent flames and black smoke high into the air. The bus driver, Lindora Richardson, and six students were on board. She moved the students to safety, lowering some out the back door. She was hailed as a hero on Thursday by CMS officials, even as video of the inferno was broadcast on national news stations.

The bus was a Freightliner FS-65 with a Thomas Built Buses body. Thomas Built, a Freightliner subsidiary, has a plant in High Point.

Seemingly spontaneous fires involving the buses have raised questions in other parts of the Carolinas in recent years. Television station WNCT in Greenville, N.C., investigated last year after a Thomas Built bus fire there. The station found that between 2010 and 2011, at least four of the five school buses that caught fire around the state were FS-65 buses.

Those buses were 10-12 years old. Bus No. 295 was 13 years old.

State officials told WNCT four of the fires were caused when wires in the engine compartment dropped onto the turbo manifold, an engine part that gets hot.

Amazing Rescues

Amazing Rescues, The dramatic rescue of 33 miners from Chile’s San José mine is being hailed as one of the most miraculous and riveting events of its kind. Below, a selection of other notable rescues that saved lives, brought together communities and captivated millions of well-wishers around the world.
Miracle on the Hudson (2009)
About a minute after taking off from New York’s La Guardia Airport on January 15, 2009, US Airways Flight 1549 collided with one of the aviation industry’s most threatening foes: a flock of geese. Crippled by the bird strike, both engines lost power and went quiet, forcing Captain Chesley Burnett Sullenberger III to make an emergency landing. When air traffic controllers instructed Sullenberger to head for nearby Teterboro Airport, the pilot calmly informed them that he was “unable” to reach a runway. “We’re gonna be in the Hudson,” he said simply, and then told the 150 terrified passengers and five crew members on board to brace for impact. Ninety seconds later, he glided the Airbus 320 over the George Washington Bridge and onto the chilly surface of the Hudson River, where it splashed down midway between Manhattan and New Jersey. As flight attendants ushered passengers into life jackets, through emergency exits and onto the waterlogged wings of the bobbing jet, a flotilla of commuter ferries, sightseeing boats and rescue vessels hastened to the scene. One survivor suffered two broken legs and others were treated for minor injuries or hypothermia, but no fatalities occurred during the incident, which Governor David Paterson dubbed “the miracle on the Hudson.” After walking up and down the aisle twice to ensure a complete evacuation, Sullenberger, a former fighter pilot with decades of flying experience, was the last to leave the sinking plane. His heroic actions propelled him into the public eye and earned him a slew of honors, including an invitation to Barack Obama’s presidential inauguration and resolutions of praise from the U.S. Congress.

MV Maersk Alabama (2009)
On April 8, 2009, in the crime-ridden waters off the coast of Somalia, a small band of Somali pirates hijacked the American cargo ship Maersk Alabama. It was the first attempted pirate seizure of a vessel flying the U.S. flag since the early 19th century. After a standoff with the crew, the rifle-toting pirates fled in a covered lifeboat, taking the ship’s captain, Richard Phillips, with them. Several days of tense and halting negotiations ensued between Phillips’ captors and the missile-armed destroyer USS Bainbridge, which had been dispatched to address the hostage situation. During this time, the U.S. Defense Department obtained permission from President Barack Obama to use force against the pirates if it appeared Phillips’ life was in imminent danger. When two of the pirates poked their heads out a back hatch and a third pointed an automatic rifle at Phillips, U.S. Navy SEAL sharpshooters took aim using night-vision scopes. Despite the darkness and choppy water, the expertly trained shooters were able to take out the three pirates with just three shots, setting the stage for Phillips’ rescue.

Baby Jessica (1987)
On October 14, 1987, an 18-month-old girl named Jessica McClure was playing with a group of children in her aunt’s backyard when she fell into an abandoned well, becoming wedged in a narrow crevice 22 feet below the surface. As rescue operations began, reporters and television crews descended upon Midland, Texas, the recession-stricken city where Jessica’s teenage parents were struggling to eke out a living. Glued to their televisions, people around the world learned that “Baby Jessica,” as she became known, spent her time underground sleeping, crying, singing songs and calling for her mother. They watched as emergency workers piped fresh air down the well, burrowed through solid rock to create a rescue shaft and, more than 58 hours after her ordeal began, hauled the frightened but alert toddler out of her cramped, dark prison. The photographer Scott Shaw won a Pulitzer Prize for capturing the moment on film. Despite undergoing multiple surgeries and losing part of her foot due to circulation loss, Jessica went on to live a happy childhood, sheltered from her parents from the media circus that accompanied her rescue. The drama ended on a more tragic note for Robert O’Donnell, the paramedic who extricated Jessica from the well and appeared with her in Shaw’s famous photograph. Plagued by depression and post-traumatic stress-ostensibly due to the strain of the rescue and the resulting glare of the spotlight-he committed suicide in 1995.

Andes Flight Disaster (1972)
On October 13, 1972, a chartered flight carrying a Uruguayan rugby team and a group of their friends and family members slammed into an unnamed peak in the Argentine Andes. Of the 45 passengers on board Uruguayan Air Force Flight 571, 12 died in the crash, and half a dozen others succumbed to injury or the freezing mountain temperatures in the days that followed. The remaining survivors took refuge in the plane’s fuselage, where they subsisted on a dwindling supply of snacks, chocolate bars and wine. On October 29, an avalanche struck their shelter, killing an additional eight people. Meanwhile, rescue parties from three countries halted their search for the missing plane after little more than a week, citing the passengers’ minuscule chances of survival. As the days wore on, with no food left and no end in sight to their nightmarish situation, the survivors resorted to eating their dead teammates and acquaintances. By December, 16 passengers were still alive; two of them, Nando Parrado and Roberto Canessa, set out on a 12-day trek across the mountains to seek help in Chile. Thanks to the duo’s bravery and determination, the last 14 survivors were rescued after 72 days on a remote mountaintop. The 1993 film “Alive,” directed by Frank Marshall and starring Ethan Hawke, was inspired by their story.

Apollo 13 (1970)
When an explosion rocked the Apollo 13 spaceship on April 13, 1970, the third lunar landing mission quickly became a fight for survival for the three men on board, an intense rescue operation for mission control in Houston and a drama unfolding in real time for millions of people around the world. The craft had left Cape Kennedy, Florida, two days earlier, carrying astronauts James A. Lovell, John L. Swigert, and Fred W. Haise. If all went as planned, Apollo 13 would enter the moon’s orbit and land in its uncharted Fra Mauro highlands; soon after, Lovell and Haise would become the fifth and sixth people to walk on its surface. Instead, an oxygen tank blew up, disabling the spaceship’s electrical system and prompting Lovell to utter the immortal words: “Houston, we’ve had a problem.” With the command module hemorrhaging oxygen, mission control instructed the three men to move to the attached lunar module, a separate craft designed to ferry astronauts to the moon’s surface and back again. Its power supply could support two people for 45 hours. But for the crew of Apollo 13 to make it home alive, it would have to support three men for at least 90 hours and successfully navigate more than 200,000 miles of space. Guided and monitored by mission control, the astronauts conserved supplies, adjusted the lunar module’s trajectory and spent three days huddled in its increasingly cold confines. Meanwhile, engineers on the ground scrambled to develop a procedure that would allow the astronauts to restart the command module for reentry. Miraculously, their solution worked, and the crew splashed down safely into the Pacific Ocean on April 17.

Cult Comedy Actresses

Cult Comedy Actresses, A cult film, also commonly referred to as a cult classic, is a film that has acquired a highly devoted but specific group of fans. Often, cult movies have failed to achieve fame outside the small fanbases; however, there have been exceptions that have managed to gain fame among mainstream audiences.

Many cult movies have gone on to transcend their original cult status and have become recognized as classics; others are of the “so bad it’s good” variety and are destined to remain in obscurity. Cult films often become the source of a thriving, obsessive, and elaborate subculture of fandom, hence the analogy to cults. However, not every film with a devoted fanbase is necessarily a cult film.

Usually, cult films have limited but very special, noted appeal. Cult films are often known to be eccentric, often do not follow traditional standards of mainstream cinema and usually explore topics not considered in any way mainstream-yet there are examples that are relatively normal. Many are often considered controversial because they step outside standard narrative and technical conventions.

Gun Range ‘pansies Billboards Pulled

Gun Range ‘pansies Billboards Pulled, The pop-pop-pop of gunfire echoes in the background as Betty Ashby sits behind a desk, explaining that she doesn’t hate liberals. Or gays. Or any other groups that might be offended by the controversial billboards advertising ProShots Indoor Range and Training, a shooting range and gun shop in Rural Hall that she runs with her husband, Lonnie Ashby, a retired Winston-Salem police officer who worked nine years as an instructor at the department’s shooting range.

“We’re definitely not trying to offend anyone,” she said. “We’re just trying to be lighthearted about a serious subject. They’re always done tongue-in-cheek.”

You may have seen them as you’re traveling on Business 40 or northbound on U.S. 52. One of the billboards near Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center for months featured a purple background and a hippie van with the tagline “Liberals Welcome” — as in liberals, who are often anti-gun, are invited to give guns a try.

That billboard now says “Occupy ProShots,” with an arrow sweeping toward a bullet-ridden target. The reference is to Occupy groups that have sprung up across the country since the Occupy Wall Street group began its protests of corporate greed and the growing divide between the rich and poor.

Another one on westbound Business 40 featured a rifle next to a flower with a headline reading “Pansies Converted Daily.” ProShots removed that billboard two months ago after getting complaints from gays and lesbians and their straight allies.

The billboard has since been replaced with another ProShots tongue-in-cheek billboard, playing off the popular bumper sticker in which religious symbols — including a cross, a Star of David and a crescent — act as letters spelling out the word “coexist.” The purpose is to call for more understanding between Christians, Jews and Muslims.

In the ProShots billboard, drawings of handguns and rifles take the place of religious symbols to spell out the word “coexist.”

The Rev. Angela Yarber, a minister at Wake Forest Baptist Church, said she first noticed the coexist billboard as she walked in the Martin Luther King Day parade last month.

Yarber, speaking for herself and not the church, said she and other marchers found the billboard offensive, and worried that it sends a message that promotes gun violence.

“I don’t think it’s funny; I think it’s something that shouldn’t be joked about,” she said. “The rhetoric isn’t helpful. It doesn’t unite people.”

Imam Khalid Griggs of the Community Mosque of Winston-Salem said he finds the billboard “appalling.”

“Minimally, it’s inappropriate to use a symbol of peaceful coexistence among the world’s religions, to exploit that representation for the purpose of selling weapons,” he said. “We don’t need this kind of symbol.”

Rabbi Josh Brown of Temple Emanuel in Winston-Salem said he has seen the billboard but declined to comment.

ProShots Billboard

ProShots Billboard, A North Carolina-based shooting range billboard is being removed after lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) advocates and allies objected to what they deemed as the use of homophobic language.

ProShots, a North Carolina indoor shooting range, has put up the billboard — which reads “Pansies Converted Daily” and includes an image of a pansy flower — just outside of Winston-Salem.

According to the Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation (GLAAD), the billboard is coming down after being brought to the attention of Equality North Carolina and the National Shooting Sports Foundation (NSSF). “Words and images have a powerful effect on all people, including the LGBT community, and it is important that companies using homophobic euphemisms in their advertisements are held accountable,” a GLAAD statement reads.

A ProShots official also confirmed the ad’s removal on its Facebook page. “To be clear, when we realized the potential offensive implications, we decided to take down the board,” the official writes. “Yes, the NSSF asked us to take the board down, but our management group had already decided to take it down. Our aim (no pun intended) was NEVER to offend anyone. Some of you who have visited our range know that we are a fun-loving, professional group of folks who take gun knowledge and gun safety very seriously.”

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