Hasta La Gadget!

Police in Florida are searching for a man suspected of driving a vehicle involved in a fiery hit-and-run crash that killed three Tampa Bay-area women.

St. Petersburg Police spokesman Mike Puetz said Saturday that 27-year-old Marquice Lamonz Anderson is being sought on warrants that include charges of vehicular homicide, leaving the scene of an accident involving death, driving on a suspended license and violation of probation.

Authorities say Anderson was driving a four-door Chrysler 200 the wrong way down a street early Thursday morning when it crashed into a Saturn vehicle with three female occupants.

Two of the women — 23-year-old Briana Lequinda Campbell and 21-year-old Jamesia Chera Santoria Lang — remained in the burning car and were pronounced dead at the scene. A third, 25-year-old Grace Lashawn Collie, died at a Tampa hospital Friday.

Anderson has numerous past arrests on drug-related charges and was on probation at the time of the accident.

Efforts by police to locate him have been unsuccessful, and they believe he is hiding and knows officers are looking for him.

A cash reward is being offered for information that leads to his arrest.

BROWNSVILLE, Texas (AP) — President Barack Obama will seek more than $2 billion to respond to the flood of immigrants illegally entering the U.S. through the Rio Grande Valley area of Texas and ask for new powers to deal with returning immigrant children apprehended while traveling without their parents, a White House official said Saturday.

With Obama looking to Congress for help with what he has called an “urgent humanitarian situation,” House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi visited a Border Patrol facility in Brownsville that held unaccompanied children. More than 52,000 unaccompanied children, most from Central America, have been apprehended entering the U.S. illegally since October. “The fact is these are children — children and families,” Pelosi said. “We have a moral responsibility to address this in a dignified way.”

Obama plans to make the requests of Congress in a letter to be sent Monday, the White House official said. Details of the emergency appropriation, including the exact amount and how it will be spent, will come after lawmakers return from their holiday recess on July 7, said the official, who was not authorized to speak by name and discussed the requests on condition of anonymity.

Obama will also ask that the Homeland Security Department be granted the authority to apply “fast track” procedures to the screening and deportation of all immigrant children traveling without their parents and that stiffer penalties be applied to those who smuggle children across the border, the official said. Obama’s requests were reported first by The New York Times.

In Brownsville, Pelosi said she holds little hope that Congress will pass comprehensive immigration reform this year but that politics should be set aside.

“A few days ago I would have been more optimistic about comprehensive immigration reform,” Pelosi said. “I thought that we had been finding a way because we have been very patient and respectful of (Speaker of the House John Boehner) trying to do it one way or another. I don’t think he gives us much reason to be hopeful now, but we never give up. There’s still the month of July.”

U.S. House Majority Leader Eric Cantor’s surprise primary loss this month almost certainly doomed the chance for an immigration overhaul in the GOP-controlled House this year. Cantor, R-Va., had spoken in favor of citizenship for immigrants brought illegally to this country as youths. But he lost to a political novice who made immigration the race’s central issue, accusing Cantor of embracing “amnesty” and open borders.

This past week, a leading House supporter of policy changes said legislative efforts on the issue were dead. Rep. Luis Gutierrez of Illinois, who’s been one of the most bullish Democrats about the chances for action, said he had given up. Boehner’s office did not immediately respond to a request for comment Saturday.

Republicans have criticized Obama’s immigration policies, arguing they’ve left the impression that women and children from Central America will be allowed to stay in the United States. The administration has worked to send a clear message in recent weeks that new arrivals will be targeted for deportation. But immigrants arriving from those countries say they are fleeing pervasive gang violence and crushing poverty.

The Border Patrol in South Texas has been overwhelmed for several months by an influx of unaccompanied children and parents traveling with young children from Honduras, Guatemala and El Salvador. Unlike Mexican immigrants arrested after entering the U.S. illegally, those from Central America cannot be as easily returned to their countries.

The U.S. had only one family detention center in Pennsylvania, so most adults traveling with young children were released and told to check in with the local immigration office when they arrived at their destination. A new facility for families is being prepared in New Mexico.

Children who traveled alone, like those visited by Pelosi in Brownsville, are handled differently. By law, they must be transferred to the custody of the Health and Human Services Department within 72 hours of their arrest. From there, they are sent into a network of shelters until they can be reunited with family members while awaiting their day in immigration court.

Also Saturday, Dallas County Judge Clay Jenkins said up to 2,000 unaccompanied immigrant children could be transferred from overcrowded facilities in McAllen, Texas, to his county by the end of next month. He said the plan is to have youngsters spend about three weeks in the North Texas county before hopefully being placed with relatives who are elsewhere in the U.S. The federal government will cover the costs, Jenkins said.

Meanwhile, Pelosi said immigrants’ cases should be handled on a case-by-case basis.

“We don’t want our good nature abused by those who would misrepresent what’s happening in the United States on the subject of immigration to affect how we deal with a refugee problem,” she said.

The situation is drawing attention and politicians from both parties to South Texas. While Pelosi was speaking in Brownsville, U.S. Rep. Henry Cuellar, D-Laredo, appeared with the first lady of Honduras, Ana Garcia de Hernandez, in McAllen.

Next week, House Judiciary Committee Chairman and Virginia Republican Bob Goodlatte is scheduled to lead members of that panel to the Rio Grande Valley, and House Homeland Security Committee Chairman Michael McCaul, R-Texas, is scheduled to hold a field hearing Thursday in McAllen.

Pelosi said she came to Brownsville at the invitation of local U.S. Rep. Filemon Vela to find out what Congress can do to help.

___

AP White House Correspondent Julie Pace in Washington and AP writer Will Weissert in Dallas contributed to this report.

The surprisingly little-known series known as Space Hulk is back with a vengeance, this time taking on the world with Unreal Engine 4. Everything we’ve seen with the UE4 stamp of approval on its back thus far has looked fantastic, and Space Hulk: Deathwing is no exception to the rule. What you’re going to see here is what the developers … Continue reading

Late last month LG finally took the wraps off its new flagship smartphone called the LG G3. It went on sale in South Korea immediately after the announcement but potential customers in the West have had to wait for almost a month now. No one would be surprised to see all major U.S. carriers offer this new flagship. There’s chatter about the expected release date for the G3 on Magenta. Rumor has it that the T-Mobile LG G3 release has been slated for next month, July 16th to be precise.

“Inside sources” who spoke to TmoNews claim that the smartphone will land on T-Mobile retail stores shelves on July 16th. Verizon is also believed to roll out its G3 that same week. If this rumored date for Magenta is true then T-Mobile would beat Verizon to the market by one full day, as Big Red is expected to release the new flagship on July 17th.

T-Mobile is mum about the release date so there’s still no official confirmation about the LG G3 release. Though it doesn’t look like the release timeframe would stretch beyond July, even if the chatter is wrong on the concrete release date.

It is definitely possible that more information about the LG G3 release will make its way online in the coming days, we’ll certainly welcome it, like all those LG fans who just can’t wait to get their hands on the latest flagship.

T-Mobile LG G3 Release Expected On July 16th , original content from Ubergizmo. Read our Copyrights and terms of use.

BAGHDAD (AP) — Iraqi helicopter gunships struck suspected insurgent positions in Tikrit on Sunday as part of a government offensive to retake the northern city from Sunni militants led by the al-Qaida breakaway Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, residents and officials said.

The Iraqi military opened its campaign to wrest back Tikrit, the hometown of former dictator Saddam Hussein, on Saturday with a multi-pronged assault spearheaded by ground troops backed by tanks and helicopters. The predominantly Sunni city, a hotbed of antipathy toward Iraq’s Shiite-led government, is one of two major urban centers that fell to insurgents earlier this month during their lightning offensive across the country’s north and west.

The insurgents appeared to have repelled the military’s initial push for Tikrit, and remained in control of the city on Sunday, but clashes were taking place in the northern neighborhood of Qadissiyah, two residents reached by telephone said.

Muhanad Saif al-Din, who lives in the city center, said he could see smoke rising from Qadissiyah, which borders the University of Tikrit, where troops brought by helicopter established a bridgehead two days ago. He said many of the militants in Tikrit had deployed to the city’s outskirts, apparently to blunt the military attack.

Military spokesman Qassim al-Moussawi told reporters Sunday that the military was in full control of the university and had raised the Iraqi flag over the campus.

A provincial official reached by telephone confirmed that the insurgents retained control of most of Tikrit, and that the fighting was concentrated in Qadissiyah. He also reported clashes northwest of the city around an air base that previously served as a U.S. military facility known as Camp Speicher.

He spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to brief the media.

The government is eager to make progress in Tikrit after weeks of demoralizing defeats at the hands of the Islamic State and its Sunni allies. The militants’ surge across the vast Sunni-dominated areas that stretch from Baghdad north and west to the Syrian and Jordanian borders has thrown Iraq into its deepest crisis since U.S. troops withdrew in December 2011.

More ominously, the insurgent blitz, which prompted Kurdish forces to assert long-held claims over disputed territory, has raised the prospect of Iraq being cleaved in three along sectarian and ethnic lines.

For embattled Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, success in Tikrit could help restore a degree of faith his ability to stem the militant tide. Al-Maliki, a Shiite who has been widely accused of monopolizing power and alienating Iraq’s Sunni and Kurdish minorities, is under growing pressure to step aside. But he appears set on a third consecutive term as prime minister after his bloc won the most seats in April elections.

The government received a boost in its battle with the militants with the arrival in Baghdad late Saturday of five Sukhoi 25 warplanes purchased secondhand from Russia. The aircraft is designed to provide close air support to ground forces and to destroy mobile targets.

Iraqi air force commander Lt. Gen. Anwar Hama Amin said the military is “in urgent need of this type of aircraft during this difficult time.”

“These jets will enter service within a few days — the coming three or four days — in order to support the units and to fight the terrorist ISIL organization,” he said, referring to the al-Qaida breakaway Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, which has spearheaded the Sunni militant offensive.

The planes could be deployed in the fight for Tikrit, a predominantly Sunni city of more than 200,000 some 130 kilometers (80 miles) north of Baghdad, where anger toward Iraq’s Shiite-led government runs deep.

The Islamic State, which already controls vast swaths in northern and eastern Syria amid the chaos of that nation’s civil war, aims to erase the borders of the modern Middle East and impose its strict brand of Shariah law.

In Iraq, the group has formed an alliance of sorts with fellow Islamic militants as well as former members of Saddam’s Baath party, with all of them hoping to overthrow al-Maliki’s Shiite-led government.

The militants have tapped into deep-seated discontent among Iraq’s Sunnis, who largely dominated the country until the U.S.-led overthrow of Saddam brought the Shiite majority to power. Since then, Sunnis have complained of discrimination and said they are unfairly targeted by the country’s security forces.

___

Associated Press writer Qassim Abdul-Zahra contributed to this report.