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Utah
An 18-month-old baby girl has been found alive in a car more than 14 hours after the vehicle plunged into Utah’s Spanish Fork river.
The little girl was discovered hanging upside down above water in her car seat by a fisherman on March 7, police said.
She was rushed to a hospital in Salt Lake City, where her condition has been upgraded from critical to stable.
The girl’s 25-year-old mother, named as Lynn Groesbeck from Springville, was found dead in the driver’s seat.
Investigators believe the car fell into the Spanish Fork River after striking a cement barrier at about 22:30 local time on March 6.
A fisherman raised the alarm at 12:30 local time on March 7, after he saw the toddler dangling above the water as it flowed through the car.
Three police officers and four firefighters who entered the river to rescue the child were later treated in hospital for hypothermia.
Police said they would not be releasing any further details unless the baby’s condition changed. The girl’s name was not released.
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This year’s Sundance Film Festival in Utah has opened with a documentary about famed jazz singer Nina Simone.
What Happened, Miss Simone? traces the singer’s life from her early days as a classically trained pianist to her later jazz and blues career.
Nina Somone’s struggles with mental illness and her involvement in the civil rights movement are also covered in the documentary.
The premiere, in Park City, Utah, was followed by a short concert by singer-songwriter John Legend.
“I’m so grateful to be here today honouring the legacy of the wonderful, powerful, dynamic, super-talented Nina Simone,” John Legend told the audience at Thursday’s event.
John Legend, who received an Oscar nomination last week for a song he co-wrote for Martin Luther King biopic Selma, went on to perform three numbers made famous by Nina Simone, who died in 2003.
The latest edition of the annual independent film showcase, which runs until February 1, will feature 118 feature-length documentary and narrative films in its program.
Festival co-founder Robert Redford makes an on-screen appearance himself this year in A Walk in the Woods, an adaptation of the Bill Bryson memoir that will have its premiere later.
Other titles in the line-up include Slow West, a 19th Century western starring Michael Fassbender; True Story, a fact-based crime drama starring James Franco and Jonah Hill; and Grandma, a comedy starring Lily Tomlin that will close this year’s event.
Festival director John Cooper said there had been “a lift in the quality” in submissions, adding that “the wild ride of the festival is going to be felt by the audiences.”
The opening of this year’s event follows the announcement that Sundance London, an offshoot of the festival that ran from 2012 to 2014, will not take place in 2015.
It also comes in the wake of the Charlie Hebdo terrorist attacks in Paris, something Robert Redford touched upon during a news conference on January 22.
“That was a sad event, it was a shocking event,” he told reporters.
“I also have a hunch it was a bit of a wake-up event.
“Freedom of expression seems to be in danger in a lot of areas,” Robert Redford continued.
“But as far as we’re concerned, we will do everything in our power to keep it alive here.”
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Damien Chazelle’s Whiplash has won the grand jury prize and the audience award at the Sundance Film Festival in Park City, Utah.
The opening night film, about an obsessive jazz drummer, has now been bought by Sony Picture Classics, which will bring it to a wider audience.
Rich Hill, about a group of teenagers living in a deprived area of rural America, won the documentary prize.
Sundance is the US’s leading indie film festival, backed by Robert Redford’s institute of the same name.
Whiplash‘s writer and director, Damien Chazelle, won the US fiction short film grand jury prize last year at Sundance for his original short version of Whiplash.
Damien Chazelle, 28, then expanded his short to make it into a feature film for this year’s festival.
Damien Chazelle’s Whiplash has won the grand jury prize and the audience award at the Sundance Film Festival 2014
“I remember my first time here was with a short, and the whole reason we made a short was because of my experiences as a drummer,” Damien Chazelle said.
“No-one wanted to finance the film because no-one wants to make a film about a jazz drummer – surprising,” he jokily added.
Rich Hill co-director Tracy Droz Tragos dedicated the win to the film’s subjects.
The documentary audience award went to Alive Inside: A Story of Music & Memory, which explores the effect of music on elderly patients suffering from Alzheimer’s disease.
The annual film festival, now in its 30th year, opened on January 16 in Park City, and will close on Sunday.
Other awards given out on Saturday included the short film audience prize, sponsored by YouTube and based on the number of online hits each entry had. This year’s prize went to Chapel Perilous, a comedy about a man who is visited by a salesman with nothing to sell.
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Criminal charges are being considered against US scout leader Glenn Taylor who toppled an ancient rock formation in Utah, sparking an international outcry.
Glenn Taylor was filmed by a colleague pushing the 170 million-year-old red rock in Goblin Valley State Park and celebrating afterwards.
The two scouts say they have received death threats after the video was posted online.
The two men argue the rock was loose and could have fallen on a passer-by.
Utah State Parks spokesman Eugene Swalberg said the state authorities were considering bringing the charges after the incident.
Criminal charges are being considered against US scout leader Glenn Taylor who toppled an ancient rock formation in Utah
“This is not behavior that is appreciated or should exist in state parks,” Eugene Swalberg told the Deseret News.
“This has been formed for literally millions of years, and it’s supposed to last for a long time. It doesn’t need individuals doing the work of Mother Nature.”
The Boy Scouts of America – who have millions of members across the country – also condemned the action, warning that it would take “appropriate” measures.
The scout leaders said the stone was pushed over because of safety concerns.
However, scout leader Dave Hall told the Salt Lake Tribune: “I think we made the right decision, but probably the wrong method.
“We take full responsibility for whatever mistake we made, and we’re open to whatever that means from the state, from the Boy Scouts’ office, etc.”
In the video, Glenn Taylor is seen congratulating a colleague after the mushroom-shaped sandstone rock – known as a “goblin” – was toppled.
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