Columbus, Ohio -- City residents caused headaches for firefighters when some opened fire hydrants to cool off amid midsummerlike temperatures on Tuesday. Firefighters shut off about 50 fire hydrants across the city, Battalion Chief Michael Fowler said. Open hydrants are a problem every summer, he said, but the situation came early this year as the high temperature on Tuesday hit 93 ...

LAS CRUCES, N.M. — A 47-year-old man's friends set his prosthetic leg on fire after he lost a drinking bet, causing him to suffer severe burns to his buttocks and lower back. Dona Ana County sheriff's deputies found the man naked on the side of U.S. Route 70 with his prosthetic leg in flames. Deputies learned that the man and his ...

MARTINEZ, Calif. -- A Northern California man accused of posing as a firefighter to kidnap and rape a teenage girl will likely spend the rest of his life behind bars. Thirty-three-year-old Daniel Alfredo Flores of Brentwood has been sentenced to 80 years to life in prison. The Contra Costa County judge who issued the sentence on Friday said Flores had shown ...

EAST WINDSOR, CT — A former volunteer firefighter in Connecticut has been charged with arson murder in a 1986 fire that killed a local couple. Police say 48-year-old Peter Waraksa set the fire that killed 59-year-old Orie Weeks and his 57-year-old wife, Assunta Weeks, on Oct. 7, 1986. Police Chief Edward DeMarco Jr. and prosecutors say the case file in the ...

JOPLIN, Mo. — The Jasper County prosecutor has charged one Kansas firefighter with stealing after the May 22 tornado. Prosecutor Dean Dankelson on Wednesday filed a misdemeanor charge of stealing against 25-year-old Matthew W. Page. Page was one of three Baxter Springs, Kan., firefighters dismissed in June for alleged misconduct while responding to the tornado. Fire Chief Les Page, the father ...

A prisoner had part of his ear cut off in a "calculated" sequence of events so he could escape from an ambulance in Greater Manchester, police have said. Michael O'Donnell, who had been sharing a cell with his brother, is on the run from HMP Salford after his ambulance was held up by masked men on Sunday. Greater Manchester Police believe ...