Wireless Alerts to Reach More in DFW

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AT&T Inc. now says it is ready to deliver emergency alerts to its smartphone subscribers in the Dallas-Fort Worth area, months after an NBC 5 investigation revealed that the Dallas-based company was not ready to implement the new government-sponsored system in its hometown market.

"I am happy to report that, since your last report, we have completed our wireless emergency alert deployment in the Dallas area and are working aggressively to complete other areas as quickly as possible," AT&T spokeswoman Alejandra Arango said.

Besides the DFW metropolitan area, AT&T is currently ready to deliver emergency alerts in just three other major cities -- New York, Washington, D.C., and Portland, Ore.

The NBC 5 Investigates team started looking into the Wireless Emergency Alert System after seeing announcements from the Federal Emergency Management Agency and the National Weather Service this spring that claimed the system was ready to go nationwide.

The alert system is designed to send urgent weather warnings, Amber Alerts and presidential emergency alerts to smartphone users, using technology similar to text messages.

Under the original plan laid out by Congress, wireless carriers who agreed to take part in the program were supposed to have their end of the program up and running in April.

But this summer, NBC 5 Investigates found that AT&T was not able to deliver those alerts to its smartphone customers in the DFW area.

In June, AT&T told NBC 5 Investigates in a statement that: "We're not currently ready in Dallas, but we're working aggressively to get there."

FEMA, one of the agencies in charge of the system, told NBC 5 Investigates in June that it was ready to deliver on its part.

"The news release said that the FEMA portion of the system was established and running nationwide, and that's not a misstatement -- that's correct," Damon Penn, FEMA assistant administrator of national continuity programs, said in June. "Again, what part the carriers play and where the carriers are at in the process really depends on the carriers."

Wireless carriers Sprint Nextel Corp., Verizon Communications Inc. and T-Mobile USA Inc. told NBC 5 Investigates that they were ready to deliver alerts nationwide this summer to any smartphone capable of receiving them

Rep. Joe Barton, who was involved in creating the alert system, told NBC 5 Investigates that wireless companies would work quickly to close any gaps in coverage because customers would demand it.

"That's what will ultimately drive 100 percent implementation, is someone will say, 'Verizon has it all,' or, 'Sprint has it all,'" he said.

Smartphone users with phones capable of receiving WEA alerts whose wireless company participates in the program do not need to sign up for the alerts. The system works automatically; phone will receive an alert if it's turned on and is located in any city where an alert is issued.

AT&T offers 11 smartphones that can receive WEA alerts. The iPhone currently is not one of them. However, Sprint and Verizon say they can deliver alerts to their iPhone subscribers.

Smartphone customers can check with their wireless carrier for more information about service area coverage and whether their phone is WEA-ready.

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Museum Tower, Nasher Continue Feud Over Glare

Museum Tower officials say that a louver system similar to this one on a building in Germany is not a viable option.

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It appears that Museum Tower and the Nasher Sculpture Center are no closer to a solution for glare from the tower's glass.

The two are at odds over the sunlight that is reflected off the tower and into the sculpture center.

The Nasher has suggested that the tower install a louver system on the side of the 42-story building.

On Tuesday, Museum Tower released a study that says such a high-tech louver system is impractical and perhaps even dangerous. Tower officials said the louver slats would be too expensive to clean and maintain because they attract dirt and birds.

But Nasher leaders dismissed the study as a publicity stunt, and a meeting between the two sides set for Tuesday was canceled.

"The Nasher Sculpture Center remains committed to open communication in regard to a solution to the issues caused by the Museum Tower reflection," the Nasher said in a statement Tuesday afternoon. "However, it became apparent that today's hastily called meeting was not about solutions and is evidence of a continuing pattern of not working in good faith toward a resolution."

The Nasher director is also calling on Dallas residents to contact city leaders about the problem.

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Hostess to Liquidate After Failed Mediation

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Okla. Man Stockpiles Hostess Snacks

A Stillwater, Okla., man who collects Hostess snacks was on a Twinkie mission after hearing news of the company's shutdown.

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The Twinkie has lost its lifeline.

Hostess' stab at mediation with its bakers union has failed, the company said Tuesday. The Wall Street Journal reported that the company was planning to move ahead with plans to shut down all its plants and liquidate its assets.

That plan, which the company had announced days earlier in bankruptcy court, comes on the heels of a strike by the Bakery, Confectionary, Tobacco and Grain Millers Union and will leave more than 18,000 people out of work, a spokesman said Tuesday, according to the Journal.

A bankruptcy judge had asked the parties to head to mediation on Monday, but the president of the union had not been hopeful about its prospects and didn't attend the session. "I'm not too optimistic," he told the Journal on Tuesday.

Hostess will be back in the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of New York on Wednesday to pursue its liquidation plan, after its earlier efforts to restructure while under Chapter 11 protection.

It declined to comment further Tuesday night, saying additional news would have to wait until its return to bankruptcy court at 11 a.m. ET on Wednesday.

In the meantime, Hostess snacks of all shapes and sizes have sold out of North Texas stores.

When people found out that Hostess might be going out of business, customers snapped up Twinkies, Donettes and other baked goods. Boxes of Twinkies even showed up on auction site eBay for hundreds of dollars.

"I think it's very, very sad -- a tragedy," Corrie Gould said. "We're really oging to miss the Hostess brand, for sure."

"I'll have to see what other brands are out there," Ty Gould said. "They're not as good as Hostess, I can tell you that."

That kind of brand loyalty is very valuable, and business insiders say the company could sell off certain brands to buyer.

But a Stillwater, Okla., man who is tracking down every Hostess treat he can says it may not be the same.

"The name will live on, but they won't be the same," Jefferson Bryant said. "They'll never be the same. You can't ship from Mexico and expect them to be fresh."

NBC 5's Omar Villafranca contributed to this report.

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1 Dead, 2 in the Hospital After Grand Prairie Wreck

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One person is dead and two people are in the hospital after a crash on state Highway 360 in Grand Prairie Wednesday morning.

Police responded to the wreck on the northbound lanes of 360 and Webb Lyn at about 3:10 a.m.

Drivers initially called police reporting debris in the roadway.

Authorities arrived to find an SUV off the road, upside down in a ditch. After searching the area, police discovered that two men were ejected from the vehicle.

Authorities believe the SUV had been speeding through a construction zone, lost control around a curve and hit cones, which caused the vehicle to flip over.

Officers say it appears the driver was the only person wearing a seatbelt. The driver, who lives in the area, walked away from the wreck toward his home, where officers were waiting for him. He was taken to the hospital.

One person was pronounced dead at the scene, but another was airlifted to the hospital with serious injuries.

Officers found an empty car seat and thoroughly searched the area, but don't believe a child had been thrown from the SUV at the time of the crash.

After the driver recovers from his injuries, he will need to answer to police for why he fled the crash.

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Ingenuity Deterring Third-Row Seat Thefts

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It can take less than a minute for thieves to pop the hatch of a sport utility vehicle and grab the third-row seats. Now business owners and law enforcement agencies believe they have come up with a solution to help prevent crooks from stealing the seats from SUVs.

Carrollton brothers Matt and Brian Verhalen, owners of The Seat Shop, have been working on way to protect third-row seats from theft. After a year and a half, they now have a patent-pending lock that they say will stop thieves.

"We worked so hard trying to come up with all these different designs and we finally had a design that works to where the seats are 100 percent functional," Matt Verhalen said. "It just disables the handle."

The $125 lock secures the seats in place, while making it easy for consumers to take it on and off.

"It won't let it release from the floor at all," explained Brian Verhalen, the younger brother. "You can still stow and go, so if you need to put up the groceries you can still flip the seat forward and you have the extra room for storage."

Niche Market

The Verhalen's know a lot about third-row seats since they've learned over the years how to build them from scratch. While the main focus of their business today is factory match leather seats, they started their business as a side job in 2006 in Matt's Frisco garage, originally rebuilding and refurbishing third-row seats they found in junk yards.

"As the economy kind of slowed and families were growing and they needed an extra row of seating, instead of buying a vehicle that had a third-row seat, they found they can actually just add a third-row seat to their existing vehicle," said Matt. "And that's kind of where we saw the niche. And we were going, 'Wow there's a big market for this.'"

The war in Iraq brought more opportunity. A bullet-proofing company, which won a government contract to send SUV's overseas and had no need for the third-row seats, sold them to the brothers.

"Eighteen-wheelers started backing up to our shop and we had pallets of third-row seats. So gone were the days of crawling the junkyards in the heat in the summer," Matt said.

But Matt said they're constantly getting calls from residents, and even dealerships, who have had seats stolen.

"We had a dealership calling us, like, 'We got 10 sets of third-row seats stolen off of our lot," he said. "It's the biggest crime-theft ring, whatever is going on, in Dallas that we've seen in the history of the company."

Plano resident Pat Sayers learned about The Seat Shop after the third-row seats were stolen from her GMC Yukon over the summer. She said her son had borrowed the SUV to sleep at a friend's house in Dallas near the intersection of Inwood Road and Royal Lane. When he got home and they were preparing to take him to college, they noticed the back glass of the hatch didn't seem to close right. They both looked inside, and the seats were gone.

"I thought he had taken them out and he thought I had taken them out. They were nowhere to be found," Sayers said.

And likely, they were long gone.

Thieves Target GM Vehicles

Highland Park, University Park and Dallas have seen a spike in these thefts. According to police reports, General Motors vehicles like the Chevrolet Suburban and Tahoe, Cadillac Escalade and GMC Yukon are typical targets. Not only are consumers victims of third-row seat thefts, but according to police reports, the Sewell Buick GMC of Dallas on Lemmon Avenue was also hit.

Victims like Sayers said even if the seats are found by police, there's no identification, making it difficult to return to the rightful owner. And dealers cannot help if the seats are stolen.

"I called them and I said, 'I need to order a third-row seat.' And they said, 'We don't sell those.' The manufacturers don't sell those. They only sell parts for seats," Sayers said. "That's very frustrating."

Another problem when the back window is popped open, the alarm doesn't sound.

"The glass doesn't have any kind of alarm on it," Sayers said.

NBC 5 Investigates asked General Motors about the problem.

"GM is aware of the situation with an increase in thefts of third-row seats in some large utility vehicles in certain areas of the country," said Mike Meyerand, GM Communications Manager. "We don't have any plans to change designs at this time."

"The bigger the house, the bigger the vehicle"

Highland Park Department Public Safety spokesman, Lance Koppa, told NBC 5 that two suspects were caught in the act of stealing the seats in late August.

"One of the officers drove up on an in progress offense and caught the suspects and probably connected them to about 100 offenses," he said.

Those suspects detailed to police why they targeted the Park Cities and surrounding areas. In an arrest affidavit one suspect said, "The bigger the house, the bigger the vehicle," and goes on to say that they sell the seats to a third party.

"There's a market for it and whether its people that don't have a third-row seat or if it's unfortunately our victims whose third-row seats have been taken and they're just trying to replace their stolen merchandise -- which is in some cases what has happened," said Koppa.

Back Window Alarm

Highland Park police are testing another solution, using a separate vibration motion alarm for the back window of the vehicle. They cost less than $20 and are meant to deter would-be thieves with a loud alarm when the window is popped open.

"This alarm we've been trying out for a few weeks and we have not had any falses. We have had good success with it and we are going to distribute those alarm devices though out the town," Koppa said.

The goal is to create an audible deterrent and to alert residents to call 911.

Sayers said she wasn't taking any chances after spending $1,100 to replace her seats. She bought the third-row seat lock as well. It even came with a sticker for the back window to warn would-be thieves that her third-row seats are not for the taking.

NBC 5's Karin Matz contributed to this report.

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Main Street Bridge Over SH 114 Finally Opens

Kevin Cokely, NBC 5 News

After nearly three years of construction, all eight lanes of the Main Street bridge spanning State Highway 114 are opening.

Main Street Bridge in Grapevine Opens

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Getting into historic downtown Grapevine just got a lot easier.

After nearly three years of dodging orange barrels along the DFW Connector Project, all eight lanes of the Main Street bridge spanning State Highway 114 finally opened at 6 a.m. Tuesday.

"It's pretty huge, because we've been seeing this road closed for quite a while and now, to have that full access, it's going to allow people to be able to get to downtown Grapevine," said Perry Leonard of the Grapevine Chamber of Commerce.

Local businesses, many of them hit hard by the massive DFW Connector project, are cheering the fully opened bridge.

"We need it, and we've needed it for a long time," said Merry Hodgkiss, the owner of Merry's Christmas and Clowns on Main Street Grapevine. "It's really been a slam on business."

Crews worked nonstop over the last two months finish the bridge in time for Thanksgiving and the holiday shopping season.

"The heart and soul of Grapevine is Main Street and to have that bridge open and to have the full capacity into the historic district and into historic Main Street is just so important to us," City Manager Bruno Rumbelow said.

The entire $1.02 billion DFW Connector project is a year ahead of schedule and is now on target to be finished by mid-summer of 2013.

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4 Calif. Men Charged in Alleged Terror Plot

NBCSanDiego

The suspects were plotting to kill Americans living overseas and in the U.S.

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Four men from California face charges for their roles in an alleged terrorist plot, according to an FBI statement released Monday.

The suspects, named in the U.S. District Court's criminal complaint as Sohiel Omar Kabir, Ralph Deleon, Miguel Alejandro Santana Vidriales and Arifeen David Gojali, were plotting to kill Americans living overseas and in the U.S. by joining al-Qaida and the Taliban in Afghanistan, according to federal authorities.

All four men are from metropolitan southern California, and they told an informant that they planned to engage in "violent jihad," referring to armed combat against Americans abroad, the FBI statement read.

The complaint describes their plans over about a two year period, beginning in 2010, when Kabir introduced Deleon and Santana to extremist essays and lectures by Anwar Al-Awlaqi, a now deceased al-Qaida operative.

According to the Associated Press, Kabir is a naturalized U.S. citizen who was born in Afghanistan and served in the U.S. Air Force from 2000 to 2001.

In 2012, Deleon and Santana recruited Gojali, who took part in much of the planning of an attack targeting U.S. military personnel and bases, according to the complaint.

Much of the information was gathered by an informant working for the FBI, according to the statement.

The three suspects kept in contact, and made plans to travel to Afghanistan to attend terrorist training. In preparation for the training, they practiced at various firearms and paintball facilities around southern California.

Deleon, Santana and Gojali were all apprehended Friday by the Joint Terrorism Task Force. They appeared before a U.S. District Court judge in Riverside Monday. Kabir was taken into custody in Afghanistan. If convicted, the men face up to 15 years in prison.

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Amber Alert Issued for 11-Year-Old From Houston Area

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The Texas Department of Safety has issued an Amber Alert for a missing 11-year-old girl from the Houston area.

Investigators say 11-year-old Savannah Hurley was abducted by her mother, Shelly Jean Hurley.

The Trinity County Sheriff's Office said Shelly Jean Hurley took the girl from a Child Protective Services worker. Authorities said Hurley, a known drug user, had a violent confrontation with the CPS worker.

An Amber Alert in the Woodlands area was canceled earlier Monday, but the Trinity County Sheriff's Office said it had requested the alert be reissued for North Texas because the mother and daughter may be on their way to the Dallas-Fort Worth area. 

An Amber Alert for the DFW area had not been issued as of 10 p.m. Monday.

DPS later issued a statewide Amber Alert for Savannah Hurley at about 10:25 p.m., but the alert did not mention North Texas.

Savannah Hurley is 11 years old. She is white, is about 4 feet 10 inches tall and weighs 120 pounds.

Authorities initially said the girl may be traveling with her mother in a 2006 Ford F-150 with Texas license plate number 58NZM4.

Melissa Russell, East Texas Amber Alert Plan coordinator, received information from the Trinity County Sheriff's Office stating that Shelly Jean Hurley switched vehicles at her mother's home in Garland. The Ford was reportedly found in Garland just before midnight at the home of Shelly Jean Hurley's mother. 

DPS is now searching for a maroon 1996 Subaru Legacy station wagon with Alabama license plate number 48738AZ.

Shelly Jean Hurley also has a daughter living in North Texas. The search for the pair is now focused on the Garland/Dallas area.

If you have any information, please contact the Trinity County Sheriff's Office at 936-642-1424.

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