News Brief: April 15-19

International:

On the one year anniversary of a $14.77 million dollar gold heist, police made nine arrests and obtained search warrants for another three suspects. 

“On April 17, 2023, an air cargo container carrying more than 22 million Canadian dollars’ worth of gold bars and foreign currency was stolen from a secure storage facility using fake paperwork, police say. The gold and currency had just arrived on an Air Canada flight from Zurich, Switzerland,” CNN reported. 

At least two of the heist participants were Air Canada employees. 

“They needed people inside Air Canada to facilitate this theft,” Detective Sgt. Mike Mavity of Peel Regional Police said. 

Police have only recovered six pure gold bracelets worth over $65,000. The items still at large include: 6,600 bars of pure gold weighing over 400 kilograms and foreign cash amounting to around $1.8 million. Police “believe that the thieves melted down the gold, sold it and then used the profits to purchase illegal firearms as part of a trafficking operation,” ABC news reported. 

Police uncovered melting pots and molds which they believe were used to reform the gold bars for redistribution. 

National:

Four states experienced an 911 emergency service outage on Wednesday night. Parts of Nebraska, Texas and Nevada, and all of South Dakota were all affected. 

The first outage was reported around 10pm and restored by midnight. 

The City of Del Rio Police Department said their outage was caused by an unidentified “major cellular carrier.” 

In Las Vegas, dispatchers reported they were able to see calls come in despite not being able to answer them. They were able to place outgoing calls to the incoming callers and send needed services. Text messages to the 911 line were also still functioning. 

Affected areas were able to reach their non-emergency service lines. 

While attempts were made to reach those in need, an investigation is underway as to why the outage occurred. 

Local:

The Oklahoma City Science Museum will begin updating its planetarium next week. The last show of its current planetarium will be April 20, and it will reopen in the fall.

The planetarium has been a part of the museum since 1958. It will get a state-of-the-art technological update “with only one other with similar capabilities located in Shanghai, China,” KOCO reported. 

“We intend to continue and grow the incredible vision of our founder, Admiral John Elson Kirkpatrick, and improve the planetarium for our visitors to enjoy for the next 60-plus years,” Sherry Marshall, John E. Kirkpatrick President and CEO, said.

The renovation will include a fully hybrid system with a combination of optical and digital projectors, high-intensity LEDs and fiber optic equipment. This new technology will provide high-resolution images of a realistic Milky Way, including 8 million detailed stars, 88 constellations, the sun, moon and planets.

Until the renovations are finished, Science Museum Oklahoma will host laser light shows on Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays beginning May 9 and ending June 15. 

“We are incredibly grateful for the support and enthusiasm that updating the planetarium has received from all of our community. We are excited to bring Love’s on as a partner to continue to spark an interest in space exploration and science with a new level of technology and real-time, interactive educational opportunities from across the universe,” Marshall said.