New Englanders slowly recover from weekend blizzard

NEWPORT, R.I. Travel eased and life slowly returned to normal for most New Englanders after a massive blizzard, but many remained without power in cold and darkened homes and a forecast of rain brought a new worry: Weight piling up dangerously on roofs already burdened by heavy snow.

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Powerful blizzard descends on Northeast

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Northeast sees record snow fall

The storm that slammed into the region with up to 3 feet of snow was blamed for at least 14 deaths in the Northeast and Canada, and brought some of the highest accumulations ever recorded. Still, coastal areas were largely spared catastrophic damage despite being lashed by strong waves and hurricane-force wind gusts at the height of the storm.

President Barack Obama declared a state of emergency for Connecticut, allowing federal aid to be used in recovery, and utilities in some hard-hit New England states predicted that the storm could leave some customers in the dark for days.

CBS News correspondent Miguel Bojorquez reports that Hamden, Conn., about 80 miles from New York City, experienced the deepest snow: 40 inches. The blizzard had dumped five inches of snow per hour.

Hundreds of people, their homes without heat or electricity, were forced to take refuge in emergency shelters set up in schools or other places.

"For all the complaining everyone does, people really came through," said Rich Dinsmore, 65, of Newport, R.I., who was staying at a Red Cross shelter set up in a middle school in Middletown after the power went out in his home on Friday.

Dinsmore, who has emphysema, was first brought by ambulance to a hospital after the medical equipment he relies on failed when the power went out and he had difficulty breathing.

"The police, the fire department, the state, the Red Cross, the volunteers, it really worked well," said the retired radio broadcaster and Army veteran.

Utility crews, some brought in from as far away as Georgia, Oklahoma and Quebec, raced to restore power to more than 300,000 customers -- down from 650,000 in eight states at the height of the storm. In hardest-hit Massachusetts, where some 234,000 customers remained without power on Sunday, officials said some of the outages might linger until Tuesday.

Driving bans were lifted and flights resumed at major airports in the region that had closed during the storm, though many flights were still canceled Sunday.

Boston recorded 24.9 inches of snow, making it the fifth-largest storm in the city since records were kept.

On eastern Long Island, which was slammed with as much as 30 inches of snow, hundreds of snowplows and other heavy equipment were sent in Sunday to clear ice- and drift-covered highways where hundreds of people and cars were abandoned during the height of the storm.

More than a third of all the state's snow-removal equipment was sent to the area, Gov. Andrew Cuomo said, including more than 400 plow trucks and more than 100 snow blowers, loaders and backhoes.

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Snow leaves Long Island Expressway commuters stranded

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Mass. town powerless after record snow storm

The National Weather Service was forecasting rain and warmer temperatures in the region on Monday -- which could begin melting some snow but also add considerable weight to snow already piled on roofs, posing the danger of collapse. Of greatest concern were flat or gently-sloped roofs and officials said people should try to clear them -- but only if they could do so safely.

"We don't recommend that people, unless they're young and experienced, go up on roofs," said Peter Judge, spokesman for the Massachusetts Emergency Management Agency.

Officials also continued to warn of carbon monoxide dangers in the wake of the storm.

In Boston, two people died Saturday after being overcome by carbon monoxide while sitting in running cars, including a teenager who went into the family car to stay warm while his father shoveled snow. The boy's name was not made public. In a third incident, two children were hospitalized but expected to recover.

A fire department spokesman said in each case, the tailpipes of the cars were clogged by snow.

Authorities also reminded homeowners to clear snow from heating vents to prevent carbon monoxide from seeping back into houses.

In Maine, the Penobscot County Sheriff's office said it recovered the body of a 75-year-old man who died after the pickup he was driving struck a tree and plunged into the Penobscot River during the storm. Investigators said Gerald Crommett apparently became disoriented while driving in the blinding snow.

Christopher Mahood, 23, of Germantown, N.Y., died after his tractor went off his driveway while he was plowing snow Friday night and rolled down a 15-foot embankment.

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Possible Dorner Sighting Leads to Store Evacuation

A Northridge, Calif., home improvement store was evacuated tonight because of a possible sighting of suspected cop-killer Christopher Dorner, just hours after police announced a $1 million reward for information leading to his arrest.

As helicopters hovered overhead and a command center was established, police searched the Lowe's store and eventually told shoppers they could leave, but could not take their cars out of the parking lot.

LAPD spokesman Gus Villanueva said the major response to the possible sighting was a precaution, but couldn't say whether Dorner was in the area.

The announcement of the $1 million reward today came as authorities in Big Bear, Calif., scaled back their search for Dorner, the disgruntled ex-cop who is suspected in three revenge killings.

"This is the largest local reward ever offered, to our knowledge," Los Angeles Police Chief Charlie Beck said at a news conference today. "This is an act of domestic terrorism. This is a man who has targeted those that we entrust to protect the public. His actions cannot go unanswered."

The money for the reward was pooled by businesses, government, local law enforcement leaders and individual donors, Beck said.

PHOTOS: Former LAPD Officer Suspected in Shootings

The reward comes on the fourth day of a manhunt for Dorner, who has left Southern California on edge after he allegedly went on a killing spree last week to avenge his firing from the police force. Dorner outlined his grievances in a 6,000 word so-called "manifesto" and said he will keep killing until the truth is known about his case.

Irvine Police Department/AP Photo

Manhunt for Alleged Cop Killer Heads to California Mountains Watch Video

Christopher Dorner Search: Officials Search for Ex-officer in the Mountains Watch Video

Dorner's threats have prompted the LAPD to provide more than 50 law enforcement families with security and surveillance detail, Beck said.

Authorities are chasing leads, however they declined to say where in order to not impede the investigation.

Dorner's burned-out truck was found Thursday near Big Bear Lake, a popular skiing destination located 80 miles northeast of Los Angeles.

Investigators found two AR-15 assault rifles in the burned-out truck Dorner abandoned, sources told ABC News.

The truck had a broken axle, which may be the reason he decided to set fire to it, the police sources said.

Full Coverage: Christopher Jordan Dorner

Officers have spent the past couple of days going door-to-door and searching vacant cabins. The manhunt was scaled back to 25 officers and one helicopter in the resort town today, according to the San Bernadino Sheriff's Office.

On Saturday, Beck announced he would reopen the investigation into Dorner's firing but said the decision was not made to "appease" the fugitive ex-cop.

"I feel we need to also publicly address Dorner's allegations regarding his termination of employment, and to do so I have directed our Professionals Standards Bureau and my Special Assistant for Constitutional Policing to completely review the Dorner complaint of 2007; To include a re-examination of all evidence and a re-interview of witnesses," Beck said. "We will also investigate any allegations made in his manifesto which were not included in his original complaint."

Dorner is suspected of killing Monica Quan and her fiancé Keith Lawrence last Sunday in their car in the parking lot of their Irvine, Calif., condominium complex. Both were struck with multiple gunshot wounds.

Quan's father, Randal Quan, was a retired captain with the LAPD and attorney who represented Dorner before a police review board that led to Dorner's dismissal from the force in 2008.

On Wednesday, after Dorner was identified as a suspect in the double murder, police believe he ambushed two Riverside police officers, killing one and wounding the other.

The next day, Randal Quan reported he received a taunting call from a man claiming to be Dorner who told him that he "should have done a better job of protecting his daughter," according to court documents documents.

Anyone with information leading to the arrest of Christopher Dorner is asked to call the LAPD task force at 213-486-6860.

ABC News' Dean Schabner, Jack Date, Pierre Thomas, Jason Ryan and Clayton Sandell and The Associated Press contributed to this report.

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Sooty ships may be geoengineering by accident

GEOENGINEERING is being tested - albeit inadvertently - in the north Pacific. Soot from oil-burning ships is dumping about 1000 tonnes of soluble iron per year across 6 million square kilometres of ocean, new research has revealed.

Fertilising the world's oceans with iron has been controversially proposed as a way of sucking carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere to curb global warming. Some geoengineers claim releasing iron into the sea will stimulate plankton blooms, which absorb carbon, but ocean processes are complex and difficult to monitor in tests.

"Experiments suggest you change the population of algae, causing a shift from fish-dominated to jellyfish-dominated ecosystems," says Alex Baker of the University of East Anglia, UK. Such concerns led the UN Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) to impose a moratorium on geoengineering experiments in 2010.

The annual ship deposition is much larger, if less concentrated, than the iron released in field tests carried out before the moratorium was in place. Yet because ship emissions are not intended to alter ocean chemistry, they do not violate the moratorium, says Jim Thomas of the ETC Group, a think tank that consults for the CBD. "If you intentionally drove oil-burning ships back and forth as a geoengineering experiment, that would contravene it."

The new study, by Akinori Ito of the Japan Agency for Marine-Earth Science and Technology, is the first to quantify how shipping deposits iron in parts of the ocean normally deficient in it. Earlier models had assumed that only 1 to 2 per cent of the iron contained in aerosols, including shipping emissions, is soluble in seawater, so the remaining 98 to 99 percent would sink to the bottom without affecting ocean life. But Ito found that up to 80 per cent of the iron in shipping soot is soluble (Global Biogeochemical Cycles, doi.org/kdj). As this soot rapidly falls to the sea surface, it is likely to be fertilising the oceans.

In the high-latitude north Pacific - a region that is naturally iron-poor and therefore likely to be most affected by human deposits - ship emissions now account for 70 per cent of soluble iron from human activity, with the burning of biomass and coal accounting for the rest. Shipping's share will rise as traffic continues to grow and regulations restrict coal and biomass emissions.

Can we learn anything from this unintentional experiment? Baker thinks not. "The process isn't scientifically useful," he says, because the uncontrolled nature of the iron makes it difficult to draw meaningful comparisons.

The depositions are unlikely to be harmful at current levels, he says, but "given the uncertainties, I just don't know how much these iron emissions would have to increase before there was demonstrable harm to an ecosystem, or benefit in terms of carbon uptake, for that matter".

This article appeared in print under the headline "Ships inadvertently fertilise the oceans"

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Taiwan's "King of the Trees" fights for the forests

TAICHUNG, Taiwan: With his blue stetson and thick grey jacket, Lai Pei-yuan looks like a modern-day cowboy, but rather than raising cattle, he grows trees.

The 57-year-old Taiwanese entrepreneur made his fortune in transportation and property, but his real mission in life is to reinstate at least some of the forests that once covered most of the island.

"It was just a simple idea I had," said Lai, meeting AFP on a hillside near his native Taichung city in central Taiwan. "If I was to safeguard Taiwan, I would have to plant trees."

For the past three decades, Lai has bought and planted thousands of trees every year, often with his own hands.

Today his efforts can be seen in the form of 130 hectares (320 acres) of mountainsides near Taichung covered with 270,000 deep-rooted trees, representing indigenous species such as Taiwan incense cedar and cinnamomum micranthum.

"He's a legendary person," President Ma Ying-jeou said during a recent visit to Taichung, when he met and sipped coffee with Lai. "No one else in Taiwan has planted so many trees."

It is an endeavour that has cost him hundreds of millions of New Taiwan dollars (millions of US dollars), but it has helped him achieve fame as "King of the Trees."

He said he was inspired by seeing how rapid industrialisation laid waste to Taiwan in the post-war era of super-high growth.

"Many, many trees growing in the mountains were cut down and exported," Lai said.

It had begun under Japanese colonial rule from 1895 to 1945, when ancient trees were cut down in the name of progress, a process that continued until the closing years of the 20th century.

Only in 1989 did the Taiwanese authorities ban the logging of primeval forests, but by that time it was almost too late.

The results were devastating. In the course of the 20th century, forest coverage fell from 90 percent to 55 percent, according to one government survey.

Lai nevertheless saw it as an opportunity to build something that would leave a legacy for posterity.

"I had seen how companies prospered and declined. I felt I wanted to do something which could last for generations to come," he said.

Lai began his crusade for the trees when he was about 30, setting out every morning to plant trees on plots of land that he owned. Often his family would only see him after sunset. His children were puzzled.

"When my brother and I were young, we had no idea what Dad was doing. Our impression was that he was on the mountains all the time," his elder son Lai Chien-chung said.

Today, Lai Chien-chung sells coffee beans, grown in his father's forests, under the brandname "Coffee & Tree". He also opened his first coffee shop in downtown Taichung last year.

Around 95 percent of the profits from the coffee sales have been used to finance the maintenance of the forests and the planting of trees, Lai Chien-chung said.

To ensure sustainable management of his forests, Lai Pei-yuan pledges no deforestation and sell-off. Nor will he give the forests to his family after his death, he said. They will instead be managed by a non-profit foundation set up by Lai.

Meanwhile, he can take pleasure in the fact that others are following in his footsteps.

Since 2008, Taiwanese individuals, companies and government bodies have jointly planted more than 23,000 hectares of trees, according to Taiwan's forestry bureau as part of President Ma's iTaiwan projects launched in 2009.

- AFP/al

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Almost famous: See celebs' early roles

By Henry Hanks, CNN

updated 5:05 PM EST, Thu February 7, 2013

Stars who started out like GoDaddy's geek

Jesse Heiman

Sylvester Stallone

John Travolta

Keanu Reeves

Courtney Cox

Matt LeBlanc

Tina Fey

Rainn Wilson

Megan Fox

Dean Winters

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New Yorkers tell of hours stranded on snowy roads

FARMINGVILLE, N.Y. Stranded for hours on a snow-covered road, Priscilla Arena prayed, took out a sheet of loose-leaf paper and wrote what she thought might be her last words to her husband and children.

She told her 9 1/2-year-old daughter, Sophia, she was "picture-perfect beautiful." And she advised her 5 ?-year-old son, John: "Remember all the things that mommy taught you. Never say you hate someone you love. Take pride in the things you do, especially your family. ... Don't get angry at the small things; it's a waste of precious time and energy. Realize that all people are different, but most people are good. "

"My love will never die — remember, always," she added.

Arena, who was rescued in an Army canvas truck after about 12 hours, was one of hundreds of drivers who spent a fearful, chilly night stuck on highways in a blizzard that plastered New York's Long Island with more than 30 inches of snow, its ferocity taking many by surprise despite warnings to stay off the roads.

Even plows were mired in the snow or blocked by stuck cars, so emergency workers had to resort to snowmobiles to try to reach motorists. Four-wheel-drive vehicles, tractor-trailers and a couple of ambulances could be seen stranded along the roadway and ramps of the Long Island Expressway. Stuck drivers peeked out from time to time, running their cars intermittently to warm up as they waited for help.

With many still stranded hours after the snow stopped, Gov. Andrew Cuomo urged other communities to send plows to help dig out in eastern Long Island, which took the state's hardest hit by far in the massive Northeast storm.

In Connecticut, where the storm dumped more than 3 feet of snow in some places, the National Guard rescued about 90 stranded motorists, taking a few to hospitals with hypothermia.

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Powerful blizzard descends on Northeast

The scenes came almost exactly two years after a blizzard marooned at least 1,500 cars and buses on Chicago's iconic Lake Shore Drive, leaving hundreds of people shivering in their vehicles for as long as 12 hours and questioning why the city didn't close the crucial thoroughfare earlier.

Cuomo and other officials were similarly asked why they didn't act to shut down major highways in Long Island in advance of the storm, especially given the sprawling area's reputation for gridlock. The expressway is often called "the world's longest parking lot."

"The snow just swallowed them up. It came down so hard and so fast," explained Suffolk County Executive Steven Bellone.

"That's not an easy call," added Cuomo, who noted that people wanted to get home and that officials had warned them to take precautions because the worst of the snow could start by the evening rush hour. Flashing highway signs underscored the message ahead of time: "Heavy Snow Expected. Avoid PM Travel!"

"People need to act responsibly in these situations," Cuomo said.

But many workers didn't have the option of taking off early Friday, Arena noted. The 41-year-old sales account manager headed home from an optical supply business in Ronkonkoma around 4 p.m. She soon found her SUV stuck along a road in nearby Farmingville.

"Even though we would dig ourselves out and push forward, the snow kept piling, and therefore we all got stuck, all of us," she recalled later at Brookhaven Town Hall, where several dozen stranded motorists were taken after being rescued. Many others opted to stay with their cars.

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Getting travel back to normal after blizzard

Richard Ebbrecht left his Brooklyn chiropractic office around 3 p.m. for his home in Middle Island, about 60 miles away, calculating that he could make the drive home before the worst of the blizzard set in. He was wrong.

As the snow came rushing down faster than he'd foreseen, he got stuck six or seven times on the expressway and on other roads. Drivers began helping each other shovel and push, he said, but to no avail. He finally gave up and spent the night in his car on a local thoroughfare, only about two miles from his home.

"I could run my car and keep the heat on and listen to the radio a little bit," he said.

He walked home around at 8 a.m., leaving his car.

Late-shifters including Wayne Jingo had little choice but to risk it if they wanted to get home. By early afternoon, he'd been stuck in his pickup truck alongside the Long Island Expressway for nearly 12 hours.

He'd left his job around midnight as a postal worker at Kennedy Airport and headed home to Medford, about 50 miles east. He was at an exit in Ronkonkoma — almost home — around 1:45 a.m. when another driver came barreling at him westbound, the wrong way, he said. Jingo swerved to avoid the oncoming car, missed the exit and ended up stuck on the highway's grass shoulder.

He rocked the truck back and forth to try to free it, but it only sank down deeper into the snow and shredded one of his tires. He called 911. A police officer came by at 9:30 a.m. and said he would send a tow truck.

At 1 p.m. Saturday, Jingo was still waiting.

"I would have been fine if I didn't have to swerve," he said.

In Middle Island, a Wal-Mart remained unofficially open long past midnight to accommodate more than two dozen motorists who were stranded on nearby roads.

"We're here to mind the store, but we can't let people freeze out there," manager Jerry Greek told Newsday.

Officials weren't aware of any deaths among the stranded drivers, Cuomo said. Suffolk County police said no serious injuries had been reported among stuck motorists, but officers were still systematically checking stranded vehicles late Saturday afternoon.

While the expressway eventually opened Saturday, about 30 miles of the highway was to be closed again Sunday for snow removal.

Susan Cassara left her job at a Middle Island day care center around 6:30 p.m., after driving some of the children home because their parents couldn't get there to pick them up.

She got stuck on one road until about 2:30 a.m. Then a plow helped her get out — but she got stuck again, she said. Finally, an Army National Guardsman got to her on a snowmobile after 4 a.m.

"It was so cool. Strapped on, held on and came all the way here" to the makeshift shelter at the Brookhaven Town Hall, she said. "Something for my bucket list."

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LAPD Reopens Case of Suspected Cop-Killer's Firing

The Los Angeles Police Department announced today it will reopen the case of the firing of Christopher Dorner, but said the decision was not made to "appease" the fugitive former cop suspected of killing three people.

Dorner, a fired and disgruntled former Los Angeles police officer, said in the so-called "manifesto" he released that he was targeting LAPD officials and their families and will keep killing until the truth is known about his case.

"I have no doubt that the law enforcement community will bring to an end the reign of terror perpetrated on our region by Christopher Jordan Dorner and he will be held accountable for his evil actions," LAPD Chief Charlie Beck said in a statement released tonight.

He spoke of the "tremendous strides" the LAPD has made in regaining public trust after numerous scandals, but added: "I am aware of the ghosts of the LAPD's past and one of my biggest concerns is that they will be resurrected by Dorner's allegations of racism within the Department."

To do that, he said, full re-investigation of the case that led to Dorner's firing is necessary.

"I feel we need to also publicly address Dorner's allegations regarding his termination of employment, and to do so I have directed our Professionals Standards Bureau and my Special Assistant for Constitutional Policing to completely review the Dorner complaint of 2007; To include a re-examination of all evidence and a re-interview of witnesses," he said. "We will also investigate any allegations made in his manifesto which were not included in his original complaint.

Irvine Police Department/AP Photo

Christopher Dorner Search: Officials Search for Ex-officer in the Mountains Watch Video

Hundreds of Officers on Hunt for Alleged Cop Killer Watch Video

"I do this not to appease a murderer. I do it to reassure the public that their police department is transparent and fair in all the things we do."

PHOTOS: Former LAPD Officer Suspected in Shootings

As police searched for Dorner today in the San Bernardino Mountains, sources told ABC News that investigators found two AR-15 assault rifles in the burned-out truck Dorner abandoned.

The truck had a broken axle, which may be the reason he decided to set fire to it, the police sources said.

A man identifying himself as Dorner taunted the father of Monica Quan four days after the former LAPD officer allegedly killed her and just 11 hours after he allegedly killed a police officer in Riverside, Calif., according to court documents obtained by ABC News

A man claiming to be Dorner called Randall Quan and told him that that he "should have done a better job of protecting his daughter," according to the documents.

In his 6,000-word "manifesto," Dorner named Randal Quan, a retired LAPD captain and attorney who represented him before a police review board that led to Dorner's dismissal from the force.

"I never had an opportunity to have a family of my own, I'm terminating yours," Dorner wrote, and directed Quan and other officials to "[l]ook your wives/husbands and surviving children directly in the face and tell them the truth as to why your children are dead."

Monica Quan and her fiancé Keith Lawrence were gunned down last Sunday in their car in the parking of their Irvine, Calif., condominium complex. Both were struck with multiple gunshot wounds.

The call, according to court records, was traced to Vancouver, Wash., but law enforcement officials do not believe Dorner was there at the time at the call.

Dorner is believed to have made the call early Thursday afternoon, less than half a day after he is suspected of killing a police officer and wounding two others early that morning, sparking an unprecedented man hunt involving more than a thousand police officers and federal agents spanning hundreds of miles.

FULL COVERAGE: Christopher Jordan Dorner

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Data-wiping algorithm cleans your cellphone

Paul Marks, chief technology correspondent

Mailing your cellphone to a recycling company might make you a few pounds, but it can leave you at risk of identity theft. The deletion techniques recycling companies use are meant for hard discs, and so don't work on the solid-state flash memory used in mobile phones. That means personal data like banking info, texts, contacts and pictures can end up in the hands of, well, anyone the phone ends up with.  

To remedy the problem, British company BlackBelt Smartphone Defence of Skelmersdale, Lancashire claims to have developed a software algorithm that can securely delete data on cellphone memory chips. The trouble with data in a flash memory chip is that it is protected by an on-chip protection algorithm called the wear leveller. This hard-coded routine does its best to ensure the chip's lifetime is maximised so that each memory cell's ability to store charge is not worn out.

"The problem is that the wear-levelling algorithm ends up working
against the data wiping technique used for hard drives, which tries to
overwrite all the data,"
says the company's Ken Garner.

What the firm has done is write their own algorithm, called BlackBelt DataWipe, that works with,
rather than against, the leveller routine to render data
irrecoverable. "It is like having a shredder for personally identifiable
data," says Garner.

However, they don't yet know if their method is proof against sophisticated, nation-state level attacks - which might use electron microscopes
to read the last vestiges of the zeros and ones on a memory chip. "I imagine
if you're GCHQ you'll probably have technology that could get around
this and recover it in some way," says Garner.

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Kite-flying regaining popularity in Singapore

SINGAPORE: An old hobby is once again being picked up in Singapore. Its soaring popularity can be seen dotting the country's skyline, especially at weekends, as more and more people come out to fly kites.

At the Marina Barrage Green Roof in downtown Singapore, people do not seem to mind the heat as they wrestle to keep their kites in the sky.

On weekends, hundreds of kite flyers head there, as interest in the activity grows in Singapore.

Wing Lee, president of Singapore Kite Association said: "Definitely, kite-flying is getting more and more popular in Singapore, especially if you come around to Marina Barrage on the weekend, you'll see tons of people flying kites. If you look at the crowd around you, you'll find (people of all ages), from babies to grandfathers. So basically, kite flying is for every generation."

Kite enthusiast Brahmawan Riyadi has joined many kite competitions as a kite flyer, and conducted kite workshops for young children and adults.

The 19-year-old prefers outdoor activities to the Internet and computer games.

Mr Riyadi said: "I fly kites because... in the sky, they look so free, while we're all down here... we have a lot of things to do."

Mr Riyadi first held a kite string at the age of three and he has been hooked on kite-flying ever since.

For him, this hobby can be relaxing as well as challenging at the same time.

He said: "You put so much effort into making it fly. And if it doesn't fly, you know you are going to be be sad. But if it does fly, you feel like you have achieved something, especially if it's a big kite and it looks very nice in the sky... It's more of competing with yourself."

According to Mr Lee, kites were first invented for military purposes.

But nowadays, kites are used for enjoyment, and the kite market has grown along with the interest.

Wendy Goh, the co-owner of Passion Kites said: "We have more walk-in customers as well as online orders. Previously we were home-based. And now, because of the inventory and lots of customers, we can't possibly accommodate lots of customers in the house."

- CNA/xq

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Rogue ex-cop is armed, trained, out there somewhere

Ex-cop at center of California manhunt

Ex-cop at center of California manhunt

Ex-cop at center of California manhunt

Ex-cop at center of California manhunt

Ex-cop at center of California manhunt

Ex-cop at center of California manhunt

Ex-cop at center of California manhunt

Ex-cop at center of California manhunt

STORY HIGHLIGHTS

• As darkness and snow falls, police scale back manhunt until Saturday


• "The possibility exists that he is here, somewhere in the forest," official says


• Christopher Dorner may have as many as 30 guns with him, a source says


• Dorner is trained in counterinsurgency and intelligence, the source says

Big Bear Lake, California (CNN) -- The ex-cop suspected in the killings of an officer and two others remained at large Friday as darkness fell over a mountain forest and police suspended their manhunt until Saturday morning.

"Once it gets dark out there and the snow keeps falling and they have no air support, I don't know how effective they would be in that situation," spokeswoman Cindy Bachman of the San Bernardino County Sheriff's Department said.

Throughout Friday, more than 100 officers searched through fresh snow for clues to the whereabouts of Christopher Jordan Dorner, 33, a fired Los Angeles Police Department officer and former Navy lieutenant suspected in the three killings.

Dorner allegedly wrote a manifesto declaring a war of revenge on police, authorities said.

By Friday night, police were expected to have completed a search of vacant cabins in the snowpacked forest of the San Bernardino Mountains near the resort town of Big Bear Lake, Bachman said.

Police on Thursday searched 400 homes in the Big Bear Lake area and were completing searches of 200 more on Friday, she said. Overnight patrols in the town were to be beefed up with 12 extra two-officer teams, she said.

"The search is continuing," Bachman said. "First of all, they have to rest. They have been going at this for two days."

Police teams were dressed in snow gear, holding the trigger guards on their assault-style rifles while scouring eight square miles near Big Bear Lake, a popular skiing area two hours east of Los Angeles.

The mountains were the focus of Friday's search effort because police had found Dorner's burned-out pickup truck a day earlier near the resort community.

The truck had a broken axle, which would have prevented the vehicle from moving, and footprints appear to show that Dorner doubled back into the community, said a source with knowledge of the investigation.

It was unclear where Dorner may have gone from there or by what means, the source said.

But Bachman told reporters Friday: "The possibility exists that he is here, somewhere in the forest, so we're going to keep looking...until we determine that he's not here."

Guns found in the truck were also burned, but authorities believe Dorner may have as many as 30 guns with him, the source said. Dorner was in the Navy and is trained in counterinsurgency and intelligence, the source said.

Two inches of snow Friday coated the mountaintop pine trees and roads around Big Bear Lake, leading motorists to use tire chains. Up to six more inches were expected. But the snow was regarded as a godsend because tracking a man on the run would be easier, authorities said.

Despite the intense search, authorities allowed nearby ski resorts to remain open Friday because they don't believe Dorner is in Big Bear Lake. At one point, a smiling snowboarder whizzed by police and media, seemingly oblivious to an ongoing news conference and the seriousness of the manhunt.

Jay Obernolte, mayor of Big Bear Lake community, described Friday as having "a beautiful winter morning." Residents weren't fearful, he said, adding that "many of the people here are armed."

"Is there panic in our community?" Obernolte asked reporters rhetorically. "No, there is no panic. We're a hardy people in the San Bernardino Mountains."

San Bernardino County Sheriff John McMahon said the snowfall slowed some searching done by foot, but police pushed onward.

"The snow is great for tracking folks, as well as looking at each individual cabin to see if there's any sign of forced entry," McMahon said.

"We're going to continue searching until we either discover he left the mountain or we find him," he added. "It's extremely dangerous."

Related: Manhunt leaves LAPD officers 'tense'

The county jail in downtown Los Angeles was in lockdown Friday as a precaution after a civilian female employee of the Twin Towers Correctional Facility spotted someone fitting Dorner's description, said Los Angelese County sheriff's spokesman Steve Whitmore.

U.S. Navy installations throughout California and Nevada were "maintaining a heightened security posture," a U.S. military official told CNN.

"Security personnel are on the lookout" for Dorner, the official said. The measure was ordered overnight by Rear Adm. Dixon Smith, commander of the Navy's southwest region.

The official declined to discuss security procedures, but said the move was made after it became clear that Dorner earlier this week gained access to the Naval Base at Point Loma and stayed in a motel there.

Two sailors reported that he approached them Wednesday and spoke with them for about 10 minutes. The conversation took place at a coastal "riverine" unit in San Diego where Dorner served in 2006. As a Navy reservist, Dorner held security jobs with that unit.

The Navy is not certain whether Dorner still possesses any military identification he might try to use to enter a facility. The official said an investigation is under way to determine what military identification he might have.

Dorner underwent flight training in 2009 at Naval Air Station Fallon in Nevada before serving in San Diego.

In La Palma, California, about 22 miles southeast of Los Angeles, police searched Friday the home of Dorner's mother, where she and a daughter were cooperating with investigators, said Lt. Bill Whalen of the Irvine Police Department.

Related: Dorner's grudge dates back to 2007

The 270-pound former Navy lieutenant promised to bring "unconventional and asymmetrical warfare" to police officers and their families, calling it the "last resort" to clear his name and retaliate at a department that he says mistreated him.

Dorner is wanted in the killings on Sunday of two people in Irvine and in the shooting of three Los Angeles-area police officers Thursday, one of whom died.

One of the victims of the Irvine killings, Monica Quan, was the daughter of the retired police officer who represented Dorner in his efforts to get his job back, police said.

"My opinion of the suspect is unprintable," Riverside police Chief Sergio Diaz said, hours after one of his officers was killed. "The manifesto, I think, speaks for itself (as) evidence of a depraved and abandoned mind and heart."

Related: Timeline of events

Here's what is known so far:

-- Dorner, who worked as an LAPD officer from 2005 to 2008, is accused of killing Quan and her fiance Sunday in Irvine, then shooting two Riverside police officers and an LAPD officer Thursday. Police say he unleashed numerous rounds at the Riverside officers, riddling their car with bullets and killing a 34-year-old officer. The second officer in the car was seriously wounded, and the LAPD officer suffered only minor injuries, police said.

-- In a lengthy letter provided by police, Dorner said he had been unfairly fired by the LAPD after reporting another officer for police brutality. He decried what he called a continuing culture of racism and violence within the department, and called attacks on police and their families "a necessary evil that I do not enjoy but must partake and complete for substantial change to occur within the LAPD and reclaim my name."

-- Leads have taken police from Los Angeles to San Diego to Las Vegas to Big Bear Lake, where police found the charred carcass of Dorner's gray pickup. Police had found no trace of him Friday, the San Bernadino County sheriff said. Trackers lost footprints believed to be Dorner's in a wooded area near the truck.

-- The LAPD and other agencies have gone to extremes to protect officers. Forty teams of officers were guarding people named as targets in Dorner's letter. On Thursday, one of the teams shot at a pickup that resembled Dorner's but turned out to be a Los Angeles Times newspaper delivery vehicle.

-- Despite Dorner's statement in the letter that "when the truth comes out, the killing stops," Los Angeles police Chief Charlie Beck said authorities don't plan to apologize to Dorner or attempt to clear his name. Dorner's firing, Beck said Thursday, had already been "thoroughly reviewed."

-- In Nevada on Thursday, FBI agents searched Dorner's Las Vegas home. The search forced some of Dorner's neighbors out of their homes for several hours, CNN affiliate KLAS reported.

"It's too close to home. It's kind of scary," neighbor Dan Gomez told KLAS.

A message to the media

In addition to posting his manifesto online, Dorner mailed a parcel to AC360 Anchor Anderson Cooper's office at CNN in New York.

The package arrived on February 1 and was opened by Cooper's assistant. Inside was a hand-labeled DVD, accompanied by a yellow Post-it note reading, in part, "I never lied" -- apparently in reference to his 2008 dismissal from the LAPD.

The package also contained a coin wrapped in duct tape. The tape bears the handwritten inscription: "Thanks, but no thanks, Will Bratton." It also had letters that may be read as "IMOA," which could be a commonly used Internet abbreviation for "Imagine a More Open America," or possibly "1 MOA," which means one minute of angle, perhaps implying Dorner was accurate with a firearm.

The coin is a souvenir medallion from former LAPD Chief William Bratton, of a type often given out as keepsakes. This one, though, was shot through with bullet holes: three bullet holes to the center and one that nicked off the top.

The editorial staff of AC360 and CNN management were made aware of the package Thursday. Upon learning of its existence, they alerted Bratton and law enforcement.

Bratton headed the LAPD at the time Dorner was dismissed.

CNN's Michael Pearson, AnneClaire Stapleton, Deborah Feyerick, Sara Weisfeldt, Barbara Starr, Pete Janos, Mallory Simon, Brad Lendon, Deanna Hackney, Greg Botelho and Dana Ford contributed to this report. Paul Vercammen reported from Big Bear Lake and Michael Martinez reported and wrote in Los Angeles.

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