Teen to Hero Teacher: 'I Don't Want to Shoot You'

A California teacher'sbrave conversation with a 16-year-old gunman who had opened fire on his classroom bullies allowed 28 other students to quickly escape what could have been a massacre.

Science teacher Ryan Heber calmly confronted the teenager after he shot and critically wounded a classmate, whom authorities say had bullied the boy for more than year at Taft Union High School.

"I don't want to shoot you," the teen gunman told Heber, who convinced the teen gunman to drop his weapon, a high power shotgun.

Responding to calls of shots fired, campus supervisor Kim Lee Fields arrived at the classroom and helped Heber talk the boy into giving up the weapon.

"This teacher and this counselor stood there face-to-face not knowing if he was going to shoot them," said Kern County Sheriff Donny Youngblood. "They probably expected the worst and hoped for the best, but they gave the students a chance to escape."

One student, who police say the shooter had targeted, was shot. He was airlifted to a hospital and remains in critical, but stable condition, Youngblood said. He is expected to undergo surgery today.

Two other students received minor injuries. One suffered hearing loss and another fell over a table while evacuating. Heber received a wound to his head from a stray pellet, police said.

Taft Midway Driller/Doug Keeler/AP Photo

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Police said the teen, whose name has not been made public because he is a minor, began plotting on Wednesday night to kill two students he felt had bullied him.

Authorities believe the suspect found his older brother's gun and brought it into the just before 9 a.m. on Thursday and went to Heber's second-floor classroom where a first period science class with 20 students was taking place.

"He planned the event," Youngblood said. "Certainly he believed that the two people he targeted had bullied him, in his mind. Whether that occurred or not we don't know yet."

The gunman entered the classroom and shot one of his classmates. Heber immediately began trying to talk him into handing over the gun, and evacuating the other students through the classroom's backdoor.

"The heroics of these two people goes without saying. ... They could have just as easily ... tried to get out of the classroom and left students, and they didn't," the sheriff said. "They knew not to let him leave the classroom with that shotgun."

The gunman was found with several rounds of additional ammunition in his pockets.

Within one minute of the shooting, a 911 call was placed and police arrived on the scene. An announcement was made placing the school on lockdown and warning teachers and students that the precautions were "not a drill."

The school had recently announced new safety procedures following last month's deadly shooting at a Newtown, Conn., elementary school in which 20 young children were killed. Six school staffers, including the principal, were killed as they tried to protect the children from gunman Adam Lanza.

The school employs an armed security guard, but he was not on campus Thursday morning.

Youngblood said the student would be charged with attempted murder, but the district attorney would decide if he was to be tried as an adult.

Some 900 students attend Taft Union High School, located in Taft, Calif., a rural community in southern California.

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Syria rebels seize base as envoy holds talks

BEIRUT/GENEVA (Reuters) - Rebels seized control of one of Syria's largest helicopter bases on Friday, opposition sources said, in their first capture of a military airfield used by President Bashar al-Assad's forces.

Fighting raged across the country as international mediator Lakhdar Brahimi sought a political solution to Syria's civil war, meeting senior U.S. and Russian officials in Geneva.

But the two world powers are still deadlocked over Assad's fate in any transition.

The United States, which backs the 21-month-old revolt, says Assad can play no future role, while Syria's main arms supplier Russia said before the talks that his exit should not be a precondition for negotiations.

Syria is mired in bloodshed that has cost more than 60,000 lives and displaced millions of people. Severe winter weather is compounding their misery. The U.N. children's agency UNICEF says more than 2 million children are struggling to stay warm.

The capture of Taftanaz air base, after months of sporadic fighting, could help rebels solidify their hold on northern Syria, according to Rami Abdelrahman, head of the pro-opposition Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.

TACTICAL, NOT STRATEGIC GAIN

But Yezid Sayigh, at the Carnegie Middle East Centre in Beirut, said it was not a game-changer, noting that it had taken months for the rebels to overrun a base whose usefulness to the military was already compromised by the clashes around it.

"This is a tactical rather than a strategic gain," he said.

In Geneva, U.N.-Arab League envoy Brahimi's closed-door talks began with individual meetings with U.S. Deputy Secretary of State William Burns and Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Mikhail Bogdanov. He later held talks with both sides together.

A U.S. official said negotiations would focus on "creating the conditions to advance a political solution - specifically a transitional governing body".

Six months ago, world powers meeting in Geneva proposed a transitional government but left open Assad's role. Brahimi told Reuters on Wednesday that the Syrian leader could play no part in such a transition and suggested it was time he quit.

Responding a day later, Syria's foreign ministry berated the veteran Algerian diplomat as "flagrantly biased toward those who are conspiring against Syria and its people".

Russia has argued that outside powers should not decide who should take part in any transitional government.

"Only the Syrians themselves can agree on a model or the further development of their country," Foreign Ministry spokesman Alexander Lukashevich said.

REFUGEE MISERY

But Syrians seem too divided for any such agreement.

The umbrella opposition group abroad, the Syrian National Coalition, said on Friday it had proposed a transition plan that would kept government institutions intact at a meeting with diplomats in London this week. But the plan has received no public endorsement from the opposition's foreign backers.

With no end to fighting in sight, the misery of Syrian civilians has rapidly increased, especially with the advent of some of the worst winter conditions in years.

Saudi Arabia said it would send $10 million worth of aid to help Syrian refugees in Jordan, where torrential rain has flooded hundreds of tents in the Zaatari refugee camp.

A fierce storm that swept the region has raised concerns for 600,000 Syrian refugees who have fled to neighboring countries, as well as more than 2.5 million displaced inside Syria, many of whom live in flimsy tents at unofficial border camps.

Opposition activists report dozens of weather-related deaths in Syria in the last four days. UNICEF said refugee children are at risk because conditions have hampered access to services.

Earlier this week, another United Nations agency said around one million Syrians were going hungry. The World Food Programme cited difficulties entering conflict zones and said that the few government-approved aid agencies allowed to distribute aid were stretched to the limit.

The WFP said it supplying rations to about 1.5 million people in Syria each month, far short of the 2.5 million deemed to be in need.

(Additional reporting by Alexander Dzsiadosz in Beirut and Raissa Kasolowsky in Abu Dhabi; Editing by Alistair Lyon)

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PSA International sees 5.2% increase in container throughput in 2012

SINGAPORE : PSA International has reported an increase in container throughput at its ports worldwide, despite the slowdown in global trade.

PSA handled 60.06 million Twenty-foot Equivalent Units (TEUs) of containers last year, a rise of 5.2 per cent from 2011.

Throughput at PSA's flagship Singapore terminals rose 6.4 per cent to 31.26 million TEUs.

Activity at its terminals elsewhere rose 3.9 per cent to 28.80 million TEUs.

Tan Chong Meng, Group CEO of PSA International, said: "2012 was another challenging year for shipping and port industries as global trade growth continued to be weak, undermined by volatile market conditions, including the ongoing sovereign debt crisis in Europe, sluggish recovery of the American economy, turmoil in the Middle East and the slowdown of economic growth in China.

"The PSA Group has pulled together well to weather the year with resilience."

PSA said it plans to continue to invest in new port projects and upgrade its current facilities.

- CNA/ms

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New intrigue on trail of cheaper iPhone

The mystery of whether Apple will come out with a lower-priced iPhone has taken a new twist.

The Reuters news agency this morning cryptically withdrew a story it had written yesterday pegged to remarks purportedly made by Apple's Phil Schiller in China. That story had been based on a report in the Shanghai Evening News, which Reuters now says, ever so tersely, "was subsequently updated with substantial changes to its content."

That's it -- "substantial changes," with no elaboration. Intriguing, yes. But also frustratingly vague.

We've spent a good part of the morning scouring the Web for further details. We've turned Google Translate loose on the Shanghai Evening News site. But so far, it's been an exercise in futility.

We put the question to Reuters, too, about what exactly changed in the report out of Shanghai. When we hear back, we'll let you know.

So what is it that Schiller, Apple's SVP of worldwide marketing, is supposed to have said in his interview with the Shanghai Evening News? This, as related by The Next Web: "Despite the popularity of cheap smartphones, this will never be the future of Apple's products. In fact, although Apple's market share of smartphones is just about 20 percent, we own 75 percent of the profit."

The comments attributed to Schiller came in the wake of reports this week suggesting that Apple, whose popular iPhone is pricey compared to many alternative smartphones and less powerful feature phones, may in fact be considering adding a lower-cost iPhone to its product lineup for emerging markets.

Just yesterday as well, Piper Jaffray analyst Gene Munster mused that a lower-priced iPhone -- set at, say, $199 -- could open up a vast new market for Apple, on the scale of tens of millions of potential new buyers.

"We believe the opportunity for Apple is too large to miss as the low-end market is growing significantly faster than the high-end smartphone market," Munster added.

"We note that the cheapest iPhone, the
iPhone 4, currently costs $450 off contract and more in many countries where additional taxes are levied," the analyst said in a separate note this week. "We note that an off contract iPhone 4 is ~$490 in China and $750 in Brazil, thus the sub-$199 price would be a significant discount. Historically, we believe lower-priced products have had a measurable positive impact on overall revenue (iPad Mini,
iPod Nano,
iPad)."

The Bloomberg news agency earlier in the week reported, citing sources, that Apple could set a price as low as $99 for a budget-minded iPhone. Both Bloomberg and Munster indicated that Apple could come out with said new iPhone sometime later this year.

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Costa Concordia survivors talk life 1 year later

(CBS News) This weekend marks one year since the Costa Concordia disaster off the tiny island of Giglio, Italy. The cruise liner ran aground and capsized while sailing too close to land, and 32 people were killed.

Complete coverage: Italian cruise disaster

In the year since the Costa Concordia ran aground, the more than 4,000 survivors have looked to move on in various ways. However, CBS News spoke with five passengers about the memories that still haunt them from the ordeal.

Benji Smith recalled, "People were screaming. It was really -- this was the most scared we had been at this point, and we're finally -- we felt like, 'Now we're going to die'."

Smith and his wife Emily Lau were on their honeymoon when the Costa Concordia struck a rock off the coast of Tuscany, Italy, and began to sink.

Lau said, "When we went up with our life jackets, there were so many people. And people were crying, old people, young people. And I looked at Benji. I said, 'Hey -- I don't want to push. Is that OK with you?' And he said, 'Yeah, I don't want to push either.' So I said, 'OK, if we don't push, we will be at the end of the line. That means we definitely won't get on a lifeboat and then we might die, is that OK with you?' ... And he said, 'Yeah. That's OK with me.' And I knew at that moment that I had married my soul mate."

On the other side of the ship, Brian Aho, his wife Joan Fleser and their daughter Alana were scrambling for a lifeboat.

Brian Aho said, "Everybody was pushing and shoving to get aboard it. But they wouldn't let anyone on until they blew the actual 'abandon ship' signal."

Alana Aho said she was thinking she was just happy to have made it to a lifeboat. "I was the last one on and I got separated from my parents. And my mom actually grabbed my ankles and like, pulled me into the boat. ... There were two younger guys that didn't make it onto our lifeboat and they were just screaming and yelling."

Brian Aho added, "It was heartbreaking to see people that were left behind, but there was nothing we could do."

Benji Smith said he found a rope that he and his wife used to repel down the side of the ship. "We were holding onto the rope for three hours," he said. "Helicopters were coming overhead, there were Coast Guard boats (that spotted us.) There's infrared imagery of the people on the side of the ship waving to helicopters. And so you can see us as these tiny dots in the infrared imagery when the helicopter was flying overhead."

About 45 minutes later, a returning lifeboat rescued Smith and Lau.

Smith said, "I think for us, this story is really about islands of compassion in this sea of indifference. That the institutions that were supposed to look after us all failed, one after another."

And that, they say, includes the U.S. government.

Fleser said, "When I called the embassy, I said, you know, 'Can you send someone? Can you send an ambassador?' 'Oh, no. That's not gonna happen. We don't send anybody.' 'Can you send a car for us?' 'No. No car.' 'You know, just take a taxi and come on down.' 'Can you get us the money for a taxi?' 'No, we will not give you any money'."

A year after the incident, Fleser said she and her husband have been focusing on crew safety. She said, "We've been to congressional hearings, we've met with representatives. We're working with an attorney to help change cruise laws."

Since the wreck, the cruise industry has tried to change some safety policies, and many cruise lines now do lifeboat drills before their ships ever leave the dock. But it's not a rule. And throughout the industry, other issues that plagued the Costa Concordia's crew, such as standardized language requirements and cross-training with lifeboat operations and firefighting, have generally not been improved.

Brian Aho said he has issues with flashbacks, among other things. Lau said she's had intense post-traumatic stress disorder treatment. She said, "We were told that, 'You guys must go through this, otherwise you will be messed up for the rest of your life'."

Watch CBS News travel editor Peter Greenberg's full report in the video above.

Smith added, "Emily and I both took this experience and we wanted to create something meaningful from this. I wrote a book about the experience, a book that I'm really, really proud of. And Emily composed a CD of original compositions about the experience -- just beautiful, haunting pieces about those moments on the ship and off the ship."

Lau said, "I'm a classical musician, and my whole life I've been trying to you know, perfect something, make it better, make it so perfect. And it has been an obsession my whole life. And fear comes with being a perfectionist. And I think the emotional take for me, you know, after being almost dead, was that I don't have to be so scared any more."

These days cruise liners continue to pass Giglio -- although not so close now -- and what was the biggest shipwreck of its kind has now become the biggest salvage effort ever undertaken.

Watch Allen Pizzey's full report from Giglio in the video below.

The rusting white hull of the once-luxury liner has been overwhelmed by the massive equipment needed to refloat it. Most of the 450 workers live in a blue housing complex moored alongside the wreck. Their job is well underway, and reportedly on-schedule, but it's hard to tell.

The bulk of the work is out of sight, amid eerie debris that still drifts out of the wreck. More than 100 divers are the preparing gigantic anchor points to hold cables that will roll the ship off the rocks. An underwater platform will stabilize the nearly 1,000 feet long liner when it is rolled over. Massive flotation tanks -- some as high as 11 stories -- will be welded to the sides, in effect making a steel life preserver to keep the Costa Concordia afloat.

The 96-ton rock that ripped the hull open has been removed. A piece of it sits in the church that sheltered scores of survivors on the fatal night.

On Sunday, exactly one year after the accident, a memorial service will be held. Rev. Lorenzo Pasquatti, the affable local priest, says the 32 people who died will always be remembered, but the islanders want the wreck gone, so they can get back to what he calls "the natural rhythm of their lives".

"The people would like this to end as soon as possible," he said. "It is becoming too heavy."

The Costa Concordia will be there at least until the fall. However, the lawsuits will undoubtedly drag on even longer. The judicial inquiry into the wreck runs to some 50,000 pages, which will make the trial of Capt. Francesco Schettino on charges of multiple manslaughter and abandoning his ship one of the biggest in Italian legal history. It's scheduled to begin next month.

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Whales Trapped Under Sea Ice Free Themselves

The killer whales trapped under ice in a remote Quebec village reached safety after the floes shifted on Hudson Bay, according to the mayor's office in Inukjuak.

Water opened up around the area where the orcas had been coming up for air and the winds seemed to have shifted overnight, creating a passageway to the open water six miles away.

"This is great news," Johnny Williams, a resident who works for the mayor's office, told ABC News.

Williams said he was unsure how far the whales have moved, but that they were definitely not under the ice hole.

Residents in the remote village of Inukjuak had been watching helplessly as at least 12 whales struggled to breathe out of a hole slightly bigger than a pickup truck in a desperate bid to survive.

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The community had asked the Canadian government for help in freeing the killer whales, believed to be an entire family. The government denied a request to bring icebreakers Wednesday, saying they were too far away to help. Inukjuak, about 900 miles north of Montreal, was ill-equipped to jump into action.

Joe Gaydos, director and chief scientist at the SeaDoc Society in Eastsound, Wash., said that although the whales can go a long time without food, the length of time they can hold their breath, which they must do underwater, was the question.

"The challenge [was] to figure out where the next hole is," he told ABCNews.com before the whales found freedom. "If that lake freezes over, it's an unfortunate situation. It's a very limited chance. It's a matter of luck."

Inukjuak residents posted a video online to show the whales' struggles. In the clip, the whales are seen taking turns breathing. They can't bend their necks so they do a "spy-hopping" maneuver, Gaydos said, in order to look for another hole in the ice.

A hunter first spotted the pod of trapped whales Tuesday. It is believed that the whales swam into the waters north of Quebec during recent warm weather.

ABC News' Bethany Owings contributed to this report

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Syria denounces peace envoy who hinted Assad must go

BEIRUT (Reuters) - Syria denounced international envoy Lakhdar Brahimi as "flagrantly biased" on Thursday, casting doubt on how long the U.N.-Arab League mediator can pursue his peace mission.

The Syrian Foreign Ministry was responding to remarks by Brahimi a day earlier in which he ruled out a role for President Bashar al-Assad in a transitional government and effectively called for the Baathist leader to quit.

"In Syria...what people are saying is that a family ruling for 40 years is a little bit too long," Brahimi told the BBC, referring to Assad, who inherited his post from his father Hafez al-Assad, who seized power in 1970 and ruled for 30 years.

"President Assad could take the lead in responding to the aspiration of his people rather than resisting it," the veteran Algerian diplomat said, hinting the Syrian leader should go.

The Foreign Ministry in Damascus said it was very surprised at Brahimi's comments, which showed "he is flagrantly biased for those who are conspiring against Syria and its people".

Brahimi has had no more success than his predecessor Kofi Annan in his quest for a political solution to a 21-month-old conflict in which more than 60,000 people have been killed.

British Foreign Secretary William Hague warned that violence in Syria might worsen and said the international community must "step up" its response if it does.

So far regional rivalries and divisions among big powers have stymied any concerted approach to the upheaval, one of the bloodiest to emerge from a series of revolts in the Arab world.

Russian and U.S. diplomats, who back opposing sides of the war, will meet Brahimi in Geneva on Friday.

"MASK OF IMPARTIALITY"

Syria's al-Watan newspaper daily said Brahimi had removed his "mask of impartiality" to reveal his true face as a "a tool for the implementation of the policy of some Western countries".

On Sunday Assad, making his first public speech in six months, offered no concessions and he said he would never talk to foes he branded terrorists and Western puppets.

As peace efforts floundered, rebels battled for a strategic air base for a second day, pursuing a civil war that had briefly receded for some Damascus residents who set aside their differences to play in a rare snowfall that blanketed the city.

For a few hours, people in the capital dropped their weapons for snowballs and traded hatred for giggles.

"Last night, for the first time in months, I heard laughter instead of shelling. Even the security forces put down their guns and helped us make a snowman," Iman, a resident of the central Shaalan neighborhood, said by Skype.

There was no respite on other battlefronts, with heavy fighting around the Taftanaz base in northwestern Syria, which insurgents are trying to capture to extend their grip on Idlib province and weaken Assad's control of the skies.

Rebels assaulted the airport's main buildings and armory using heavy guns, tanks and other weapons and appeared to have overrun half the area of the base, said Rami Abdelrahman, director of the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a pro-opposition group that monitors the conflict from abroad.

"Now, it's serious," he said.

The air base has been used to launch helicopter attacks in the region, and its loss would be a blow to the government's ability to defend its positions there, Abdelrahman said.

MISSILE LAUNCH

Insurgents have tried to take the base for months, but have been bolstered by the recent arrival of Islamist fighters including the al Qaeda-linked al-Nusra Front, he added.

There was no immediate government account of the fighting, which could not be confirmed independently.

Opposition forces have seized swathes of territory in northern Syria in recent months, but remain vulnerable to attack by the military's planes and helicopters - hence their strategy of trying to capture air bases such as the one at Taftanaz.

There was no word on whether the firing of a short-range ballistic missile inside Syria on Wednesday, reported by a NATO official, was linked to the fighting at Taftanaz.

NATO could not confirm the type of missile used, but the description fit the Scuds that are in the Syrian military's armory, the official added, describing the latest launch and similar ones last week as "reckless".

A NATO official said that since the start of December 2012, the alliance had detected at least 15 launches of unguided, short-range ballistic missile inside Syria.

Neither side has gained a clear military advantage in the war pitting mostly Sunni Muslim rebels against security forces dominated by Assad's minority, Shi'ite-linked Alawite sect.

The Observatory also reported fighting between rebels and troops in the Sayyida Zeinab area of Damascus, and air raids were reported in the capital's Maleiha area and eastern suburbs.

Despite some support from Sunni regional powers including Turkey, Saudi Arabia and Qatar, the rebels remain largely disorganized, fragmented and ill-equipped. Poor discipline, looting and insecurity in some insurgent-held areas have also eroded their support from civilians.

Gloom has gripped Damascus for months, as the rebellion edges closer to the capital, but the snowfall offered a rare break from gunfire and shelling echoing from its outskirts.

"We felt a smile that has been missing from our faces for almost two years and we were all just Syrians," said Amin, a resident of central Damascus, speaking on the internet.

"For a few hours our hearts were as pure as the snow."

(Additional reporting by Oliver Holmes and Erika Solomon in Beirut and Mohammed Abbas in London; Editing by Alistair Lyon)

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Football: Adebayor included as Africa Cup squads named

JOHANNESBURG: Emmanuel Adebayor will play at the 2013 Africa Cup of Nations after he was included in Togo's squad as the 16 sides finalised their 23-man squads.

Mahamadou Diarra will meanwhile miss the tournament, and a late-minute change left Brown Ideye thrilled and Nigeria team-mate Raheem Lawal devastated.

It was all part of the drama ahead of the January 19-February 10 tournament that will be played in five South African cities.

Tottenham striker and Togo captain Adebayor said last year he would shun the competition, citing security concerns after being part of the squad attacked in Angola ahead of the 2010 finals.

A player and an official were killed by separatists seeking independence for the oil-rich Cabinda enclave and Adebayor escaped injury by cowering under a bus seat.

As Tottenham, the Togo president and national football officials became involved in the saga, Adebayor refused to reveal his plans, and his inclusion became official only when the 23-man squad was named by coach Didier Six.

Perennial underachievers Togo are in the Rustenburg-based 'group of death' with title favourites Ivory Coast and other former champions Algeria and Tunisia and are given little hope of survival.

Mali, third last year and considered likely quarter-finalists after being drawn with the Democratic Republic of Congo, Ghana and Niger, suffered a late setback when Fulham midfielder Diarra pulled out injured.

A recurring knee injury failed to heal, meaning the veteran will miss a second consecutive Cup of Nations, although the blow was cushioned by the return of another experienced midfielder, Mohamed Lamine Sissoko.

Turkey-based midfielder Lawal was included in a Nigerian squad leaked to the media a day before the final-squad deadline, only to be replaced by striker Ideye when it was officially announced.

Home-based players have traditionally been ignored by Super Eagles coaches, but Stephen Keshi has chosen six, including goalkeeper Chigozie Agbim and strikers Sunday Mba and Ejike Uzoenyi from Enugu Rangers.

Shock absentees from the 2012 tournament, Nigeria face defending champions Zambia and outsiders Burkina Faso and Ethiopia in Group C and are expected to make the knock-out phase at least.

Debutants Cape Verde made a couple of last-minute changes with injured midfielder Odair Fortes and unavailable striker Ze Luis replaced by Portugal-based pair Platini and Rambe.

Cape Verde face hosts South Africa in the January 19 opening fixture at the 90,000-seat Soccer City stadium in Soweto and also confront former champions Morocco and Angola in the first round.

- AFP/de

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Microsoft: Yep, we bought R2 Studios

It's official. Microsoft has purchased ID8 Group R2 Studios, the home automation startup, for an undisclosed amount.

The Wall Street Journal reported last week that Microsoft had beat Google and Apple to the punch in the quest to buy R2 Studios. But it wasn't until Microsoft issued the confirmation today that the 'Softies confirmed the deal was done.

R2 Studios founder Blake Krikorian will be corporate vice president of Microsoft's Interactive Entertainment Business (IEB), which is the home of the
Xbox. Krikorian will report to Marc Whitten, chief product officer for IEB, Microsoft said. Krikorian was the co-founder, chairman and CEO of Sling Media, inventor of the Slingbox.

Microsoft's press release didn't detail how or when R2 Studios' technologies and patents will fit into Microsoft's product lineup. But Microsoft, like R2 Studios, has been active in the home-automation technology space.

GeekWire unearthed late last week some interesting patent information about R2 Studios. GeekWire noted:

Krikorian's company acquired more than two dozen patents and patent applications last year covering a wide range of automation technologies in the home. One of them is a broad patent for using a central server in conjunction with a portable remote as a master control for everything in the home -- including televisions, computers, stereos, lights, ovens, alarm clocks and more.

Microsoft is in the process of evolving the Xbox from a gaming console to a home entertainment hub. Adding home automation technologies to the platform would seem to fit right in with this effort.

This story originally appeared at ZDNet under the headline "Microsoft buys home-automation startup R2 Studios.

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Locals: Trapped whales freed with sea ice shift

Updated at 11:01 a.m. ET

MONTREAL About a dozen killer whales that were trapped under sea ice appeared to be free after the ice shifted, a leader of a northern Canada village said Thursday.

The animals' predicament in the frigid waters of Hudson Bay made international headlines, and locals had been planning a rescue operation with chainsaws and drills.

5 Photos

Killer whales trapped in Quebec ice

Tommy Palliser said two hunters from Inukjuak village reported that the waters had opened up around the area where the cornered whales had been bobbing frantically for air.

"They confirmed that the whales were no longer there and there was a lot of open water," said Palliser, a business adviser with the regional government.

"It's certainly good news — that's good news for the whales," he said.

The Canadian Department of Fisheries and Oceans said it would send a helicopter to locate them, Isabelle Dubois of the Nunavik Tourism Association told CBS News.

Locals said the whales had been trapped around a single, truck-sized breathing hole for at least two days. A recent sudden drop in temperature may have caught the whales off guard, leaving them trapped under the ice.

Palliser said the winds seemed to shift overnight, pushing the floating ice further away from the shore.

The cornered animals were first seen Tuesday and appeared to have less energy by late Wednesday, Palliser said.

Inukjuak Mayor Peter Inukpuk has said Canada's Department of Fisheries and Oceans informed him that government icebreakers were too far from the area to smash the ice to free the whales.

Palliser said locals had agreed to try to enlarge the existing breathing hole and cut a second opening using chainsaws and drills.

"We certainly had our prayers with them last night during our meeting," he said.

Ice-trapped marine mammals are not unusual in the region.

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