Open Fire

A fish takes to fire like a fish takes to water. Swimming through smoke, bubbling and popping, it swells until it can plump no more. Surrendering in a mass of flakes, its thin skin parched and cracked as the single layer of lacquer on a Chinese vase, it succumbs to the palate - a regal meal that asks for nothing but a bit of lemon to crown it. Though fish cooked over an open fire has become common fare during summer months, most of us are forced...

Four men were injured yesterday afternoon when two people opened fire in an Atlantic City neighborhood, police said. Three of the injured - Trevor Traver, 20; Michael Allen, 22; and Tyrone Griffin, 19, all of Atlantic City - were treated at Atlantic City Medical Center for minor gunshot wounds to the legs and abdomen. The fourth victim, Malcolm Johnson, 21, of Pleasantville, sustained a gunshot wound to his buttocks. He declined medical attention, police said. The shootings occurred about 1 p.m. in the 300 block of Rosemont Avenue in the Stanley Homes Village housing project, an area targeted recently by a citizens' anti-drug crusade, Police Detective Joseph LaTorre said.

A customer in the Tioga cell-phone store where the owner and an employee were shot to death in June testified yesterday that she had seen the gunman take his first shot as the owner lay on the floor. Erica McDonald, 22, backed up, as the gunman told her to do, and was running out of the SK Wireless store on the 3700 block of North Broad Street when she heard at least eight more shots fired, including in her direction, she said. Prosecutors say the gunman was Carlton Robinson, 33, of the 3800 block of North Darien Street.

During the candlelit funeral walk on Good Friday, officials of St. Demetrios Church in Upper Darby carried the Epitafio, the tomb representing Jesus, which is decorated with flowers by the Ladies Philoptihos Society. During the weekend the Greek Orthodox neighborhood was redolent with the savory odors of another tradition - cooking lamb over an open fire.

Three police officers who fatally shot a man at a Germantown playground in April have been cleared of wrongdoing, the District Attorney's Office said Tuesday. Vincent Parsons, 26, took aim at an officer and fired two rounds from a 9mm handgun before the officers returned fire, District Attorney Seth Williams said. "The three officers acted properly in this situation," Williams said. "Vincent Parsons fired first, and the officers had no other choice but to fire back. " Officers James Allan, Bryan Outterbridge, and Oronde Watson had been working a plainclothes detail around midday April 2 with another officer when they spotted Parsons on the front porch of a house on the 200 block of West Clapier Street.

The carnage on the hijacked Pan Am jetliner last week started when a Pakistani sharpshooter wounded the leader of the gunmen, prompting him to order his gang to open fire on passengers, Pakistani officials said yesterday. The officials said three jailed gunmen told authorities that their leader, identified only as Mustafa, ordered the shooting in the final minutes of the hijacking that left 20 people dead and 150 injured. They told investigators that when the jet's lights began to fade as a generator ran out of fuel, Mustafa went out onto a wing of the plane to see what was happening.

The apple sizzled, the butter melted, the cinnamon and raisins softened. Tracie Levin, 11, held the skewered apple, covered in tinfoil, over the fire carefully. "I had to take the core out, but it was easy," she said, looking over what would become her dessert, after a lunch of pita bread with cheese. "We've made tacos, soup, rice, chicken and doughboys," added Tracie, who had never cooked out before. For her and about a dozen other girls, such cookouts over open fires are one of their favorite activities at Camp Magar.

Chestnuts may roast on an open fire. Jack Frost may nip at your nose. But Christmas trees on an open fire? That's against the law, as Radnor Township is learning. The state Department of Environmental Protection plans to send a letter of warning to Radnor ordering it to cease its longtime practice of burning trees collected at the curb. The state watchdog sent an inspector to Skunk Hollow Park, the burn site, yesterday to check on a resident's complaint lodged last week.

ROME - In the very moments as Italy's new coalition government was being sworn in, ending months of political paralysis in a country hoping to revive a bleak economy, a middle-aged unemployed bricklayer opened fire Sunday in the square outside the premier's office, seriously wounding two policemen, authorities said. The alleged gunman from Calabria, a southern region plagued by joblessness and organized crime, told investigators he wanted to shoot politicians. But finding none in the square, he shot at Carabinieri paramilitary police.

AUCKLAND, New Zealand - A shark possibly 14 feet long killed a swimmer near a popular New Zealand beach Wednesday, then disappeared after police trying to save the man fired gunshots at the enormous predator. Muriwai Beach near Auckland was closed after the fatal attack, one of only about a dozen in New Zealand in the last 180 years. Police recovered the body of Adam Strange, 46, a television and short-film director, the New Zealand Herald said. Strange won a Crystal Bear award for best short film at the 2009 Berlin Film Festival, according to his company's website.

A gunman opened fire in a Wilmington, Del. courthouse, this morning, leaving five people shot and three of those dead in what law enforcement described as a targeted shooting based on a child custody dispute. The gunman was among the dead. Two women were also killed. Two law enforcement officers were among those shot in the barrage. Delaware Attorney General Beau Biden said in a short press conference at 3:15 p.m. that the shooting "was not a random act of violence. " "This was the result of a custody dispute that has lasted in our court system for several years," Biden said.

NEWPORT BEACH, CALIF . - A suspect who fired about 50 shots in the parking lot of a crowded Southern California shopping mall, sending shoppers sprinting for safety, was cooperative when officers took him into custody, authorities said Sunday. Witnesses said people ran, screaming and ducking for cover, when Marcos Gurrola, 42, fired into the air and onto the ground Saturday afternoon near the Macy's store at the open-air Fashion Island mall in Newport Beach. Then Gurrola put the gun down and offered no resistance when bicycle officers arrested him about 4:30 p.m., said Lt. John Lewis.

BIRMINGHAM, Ala. - Police in Alabama fatally shot two suspects Saturday following separate shooting incidents 75 miles apart that left several others, including two officers, wounded. Authorities said Jason Letts, 38, of Jemison, opened fire early Saturday morning at a hospital in Birmingham, wounding a police officer and two employees before being shot and killed by another officer. Police were sent to St. Vincent's Hospital around 4 a.m. to check on a report of an armed man inside the facility.

  GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip - Israeli troops fired on Gazans surging toward Israel's border fence Friday, killing one person but leaving intact the two-day-old cease-fire between Hamas and the Jewish state. The truce, which calls for an end to Gaza rocket fire on Israel and Israeli air strikes on Gaza, came after eight days of cross-border fighting, the bloodiest between Israel and Hamas in four years. Hundreds of Palestinians approached the border fence Friday in several locations in southern Gaza, testing expectations that Israel would no longer enforce a 300-yard-wide no-go zone on the Palestinian side of the fence that was meant to prevent infiltrations into Israel.

SOUTHFIELD, Mich. - A 64-year-old man who was killed after walking into a suburban Detroit police station and opening fire on officers without saying a word was a military veteran who had health issues, authorities said Monday. Officers fatally shot Harold Joseph Collins on Sunday afternoon in the lobby of the police headquarters in Southfield, and a sergeant was hurt in the exchange of fire. Authorities were investigating what might have prompted the shootout, which happened on Veterans Day. A preliminary investigation indicates Collins had medical problems, but it is not clear if that had any bearing on his actions, Southfield Police Chief Eric Hawkins told reporters.

KABUL, Afghanistan - An Afghan police officer killed at least 10 of his fellow officers Saturday, a day after six U.S. service members were gunned down by their Afghan partners in summer violence that has both international and Afghan forces questioning who is friend or foe. Attacks on foreign troops by Afghans working with the alliance are on the rise and, while cases of Afghan security forces killing within their own ranks are less frequent, together...

PITTSBURGH - A shooting Thursday in the lobby of a psychiatric hospital at the University of Pittsburgh left two people, including the gunman, dead and several others wounded, the mayor said. Mayor Luke Ravenstahl said the gunman was carrying two semiautomatic handguns. One of the injured was a police officer who Ravenstahl said was grazed by a bullet. The hospital, Western Psychiatric Institute and Clinic, is in the city's Oakland neighborhood, a couple of miles east of downtown.

BEAUFORT, S.C. - Newt Gingrich angrily denied that he asked his second wife for an "open marriage" and denounced the moderator in last night's Republican presidential debate for raising the issue in the leadoff question. Gingrich blasted what he called the "destructive, vicious, negative nature of much of the news media. " The former House speaker slammed CNN moderator John King during the debate, saying that he was "appalled" that King would begin a presidential debate with the topic.