Apartment City

Kansas City firefighters now take two simple safety steps that might have saved the lives of two colleagues in a 2015 building collapse . The steps were among the recommendations in a federal report released Thursday . Emergency tones are sounded, as they were two years ago, when firefighters are ordered out of a collapse zone. But now heads are counted to make sure everyone got the message — which was not done before. Fire Chief Paul Berardi acknowledged those steps might have saved the lives of John Mesh and Larry Leggio, who perished at a fire scene on Independence Boulevard. The federal report cites a series of operational failures that contributed to the firefighters’ deaths. The report said the two men should not have been in an alley next to the three-story building after all personnel were directed to pull back because of fears the walls would collapse. Six minutes after that order was given, they died in an avalanche of bricks. Poor communication and the failure to establi...

Federal investigators said they found a disconnected vent pipe in the basement room where natural gas built up before a lethal explosion last year at a Silver Spring apartment complex . They have not determined when the pipe was disconnected, why or who did it, but the disconnect would have bypassed a safety feature meant to vent gas from the basement room of the building to the exterior, investigators with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives wrote in a preliminary report on the Aug. 10, 2016, explosion that killed seven people, injured more than 30 and left more than 100 homeless. “The person who disconnected the vent pipe, as well as his/her intentions in doing so, are as of yet to be determined,” investigators wrote in a preliminary report that was made public Tuesday . ATF investigators, who are working with the National Transportation Safety Board in its investigation of the incident, said that the cause of the explosion and fire that followed are undete...

TAMPA, Fla. (AP) — The friendship of the four young roommates — though cemented in the dark trappings of an obscure neo- Nazi group called Atomwaffen Division — never seemed destined for bloodshed. One was described as a former science nerd, serving in the Florida National Guard . Two others worked temp jobs at a recycling plant and talked about joining the military. The fourth caught flak from his roommates for wasting his days with video games. Now two of the young men are dead, the other two are in jail and authorities are left to answer this question: Was Atomwaffen Division plotting violent acts or were the four young men merely posers? Four days after police say one of the roommates shot and killed two others, Atomwaffen posted an ominous video on YouTube depicting members standing with arms extended in “Heil Hitler” salutes and posing with guns in front of a swastika flag, their faces obscured by images of skulls. It ended with a stark slogan, scrawled in red: “Join your...