Homes in Haddonfield, Camden County were evacuated due to a gas leak.

Officials say a plumber struck a gas line at a home on the 300 block of Carriage House Lane Tuesday around 5:30 p.m. Six homes were evacuated as a result and gas was shut off shortly after 6 pm. PSE&G crews responded to the scene. No injuries have been reported.

Barbara Bolton was lying in bed beside her husband, David, in their AirBnB in New Zealand when she realized they were in the middle of an earthquake.

“Perhaps [David] was having a leg cramp,” Bolton told NBC10. “But, I realized almost instantly that the entire bed was shaking, the pendulum light over the bed was swinging in circles and all the small items were rattling on the tables.”

Barbara and David Bolton, from Kennett Square, Chester County, were on the South Island about an hour away from Christchurch, when a 7.8 magnitude earthquake shook the region. David is an Associate Professor at West Chester University and the trip to New Zealand came about during a research sabbatical at Avondale—a private college in New South Wales, Australia. Barbra joined David mid-October to experience Australia and accompany him on a ten day road trip through New Zealand.

The quake triggered landslides and a small tsunami on Monday just after midnight, and continued to shake the region with strong aftershocks. The quake caused significant damage across the island, cracking apart homes and roads, and left two people dead.

“The first tremor lasted only about a minute, but it seemed like an eternity when the ground made you feel as though you were on a roller coaster ride,” said Bolton.

Their first thought was to run outside of the house after the tremor. As they reached the backyard, their hostess said they should actually remain inside, as the house was built to withstand the stress of earthquakes.

“Within minutes of the first earthquake, we felt another, not quite as strong, but still significant,” said Bolton, recounting the moments they walked back inside the home. “I happened to be standing up when it started and needed to grab hold of the wall for support… It felt like being at sea.”

Bolton said they continually checked the internet to stay on top of any updates. They were told that they might continue to experience shocks, but “trying to return to bed and get some sleep would be the best thing.”

“So, to bed we headed,” said Bolton. “Just after that, we felt a third shock, but definitely milder, and shortly after that, we fell asleep.”

“I was very impressed with the information that came quickly about the location of the earthquake, the number and size of the aftershocks and the damage reports,” said Bolton as she recounted the morning following the quake. “There was no observable damage anywhere in the area we stayed or traveled. We were surprised at the calm responsiveness of the people that we interacted with. One person said, “It’s New Zealand—you get used to it!’”

The couple had plans to leave New Zealand that day and head back to Australia, and were able to take off after a 45 minute delay at the airport. However, since they left, they have heard there has been more than 1000 aftershocks still shaking the island and have seen photos of the devastation.

“We saw pictures on the news of the landslides that had completely buried main roads in and out of Kaikoura and heard that everyone was completely cut off,” explains Bolton. "Wellington, capital of New Zealand and located on the North Island, is a much larger city and seemed to be having even a greater amount of damage and evacuation issues."

Despite the devastation in areas around New Zealand, Barbara and David admit they were both impressed by how the government was handling the situation.

“Kaikoura residents and tourists are being evacuated through helicopter lifts, or, if they are remaining in the area, are being provided with water and necessary supplies,” said Bolton. “I think that the government is doing an admirable job in keeping ahead of the situation as best they can!”

An elderly woman died after she was trapped inside a house during a fire in the Brewerytown section of Philadelphia.

The fire started at a home on the 1400 block of N. Hollywood Street Tuesday night. An 80-year-old woman was trapped inside the home. Her body was found in the living room.

Officials have not yet released the woman’s identity or the cause of the fire.

An Oklahoma resident linked to racist messages that were sent to African-American students at the University of Pennsylvania last week had been accepted to Penn but chose not to go to the school, according to Penn officials.

UPenn officials released the update Tuesday afternoon.

"We have learned that one of the individuals being investigated in Oklahoma had been offered admission to Penn, accepted the offer in May, but chose, ultimately, not to attend," they wrote in the release.

Officials say the person, who has not yet been identified, was still invited to join and access the private Facebook group created for Penn's Class of 2020.

"Utilizing this access, he obtained the contact information of some Black first-year students who had shared their information with the Facebook group," officials wrote. "He added those individual students to the racist GroupMe message thread without their permission or knowledge."

The person was one of three Oklahoma residents, including a University of Oklahoma student, linked to the racist texts. The University of Oklahoma also announced the student was no longer enrolled at their school.

Black students at Penn received the texts Friday from an account on an app called GroupMe, with the messages and images causing fear among the student body.

"The account contains violent, racist and thoroughly repugnant images and messages," university spokesman Ron Ozio said in an email. "The University is taking every step possible to address both the source of the racist material and the impact it has had on Black students on campus."

More than 100 students were placed into a group "N----- Lynching" and sent a series of racial epithets and photos of African-Americans hanging from trees by nooses from users like "Daddy Trump." An event invitation called "Daily Lynching" also went out to the students added to the group message.

"I just felt uncomfortable," said freshman Nate Morris, one of the students who received the messages. "What was said was 'We're going to find and hunt down all African-Americans at this college."

Early Saturday morning, University of Oklahoma president David Boren posted a message on Twitter stating a student at his school was involved in the texts and was suspended as a result. He also said, however, the messages originated from somewhere other than the University of Oklahoma.

Sunday afternoon, the University of Pennsylvania announced that three Oklahoma residents, including the University of Oklahoma student, were linked to the messages. They also said no students at Penn were involved in the messages.

Penn Police, the FBI and authorities in Oklahoma continue to investigate the incident.

Students posted on social media about the fear and sadness that they felt upon reading the texts.

The Penn College Republicans called the incident "absolutely despicable" while university President Amy Gutmann called the messages "simply deplorable."

There has been a rash of hate speech and rhetoric across the country in the wake of the presidential election, according to the Southern Poverty Law Center, which tracks hate crimes. President-elect Donald Trump spoke out against such incidents in a "60 Minutes" interview that aired Sunday.

A group gathered on the University of Pennsylvania campus Friday afternoon to support each other. Students then filed into Huntsman Hall for a town hall discussion. Media were not allowed to attend the event.

Following the town hall, dozens of students marched through campus in protest of the hate speech and white extremism. They were one of several groups that protested across Philadelphia Friday night connected with the presidential election.

The students marched over to Franklin Field where the Quakers hosted Harvard in a football matchup. They were allowed to enter the field and protest around halftime along the sidelines.

In their statement to students Sunday, Penn officials said that staff members are working with the students who received the messages and providing them the support they need.

Mayor Jim Kenney said in a statement that he "condemns in the strongest possible terms the racist activity taking place at the University of Pennsylvania."

"It is heartbreaking to see this type of activity here in the birthplace of our democracy and the city of brotherly love," Kenney said. "I urge the Philadelphia Commission on Human Relations to investigate and hold all responsible parties accountable for this disgusting behavior."

A petition from UPenn alumni was created on change.org calling for Trump, who graduated from the Wharton School at Penn in 1968, to speak on the incident. It had nearly 5,000 supporters; Trump's interview was not aired until Sunday night.

The racist messages came one day after students in Bucks County's Council Rock High School North reported swastikas and threats linked to Trump to school officials.

And on Wednesday, pro-Trump graffiti was spraypainted in Queen Village while Nazi graffiti was found in another South Philadelphia neighborhood.

An African-American student at Villanova University reported she was attacked by a group of men who yelled, "Trump," as they ran towards her Thursday.

Chad Dion Lassiter, a leading race relations expert with the group Black Men at Penn, said the disturbing incident at the West Philadelphia Ivy League school appears to be "a microcosm of what we've been seeing in the larger democracy."

"It is no surprise this is occurring on the heels of the victory by President-elect Trump, who didn’t create this environment, but certainly stoked the flames," Lassiter said.

He said black students and white students should come together to support each other in the aftermath of this "very disappointing" episode.

One of the six victims beaten during a flash mob attack in Center City is speaking out for the first time.

"They could've killed people," Joe Quaid told NBC10 in an exclusive interview. "Like, they were aiming to seriously harm us."

Quaid, 21, and a friend who was visiting from out of town were on the 1600 block of Walnut Street Saturday around 6:10 p.m. Suddenly a large group of teens rushed towards them and began to attack.

"It was a large group of people beating us for like no reason," Quaid said. "It was like so quickly done you couldn't really react. While one person was distracting me in the front, someone else was hitting me in the back."

Quaid told NBC10 the 10 to 15-minute attack was like a slow-moving scene out of a horror movie.

"We were off on the curb when they attacked when random people were jumping out of the crowd and hitting us and no one was doing anything," he said. "Everyone was just walking by quietly."

A 55-year-old Philadelphia police detective, who was off-duty at the time and with his 53-year-old wife, spotted the teens attacking Quaid and his friend. He jumped in and tried to help them.

"I was grateful that he did that because I don't know what would've happened if we were out there longer," Quaid said.

As the detective walked toward them, the teens fled the area. The detective began walking back to where his wife was when he spotted more teens randomly attacking people, according to investigators.

The detective announced he was a police officer and tried to arrest one of the teens who was kicking the two men. As the detective grabbed the teen he was punched from behind by several other attackers, police said. The detective's wife splashed water on the teens in order to stop them. One of the attackers then punched the woman in the face, police said. All of the teen attackers then fled the area.

The detective suffered an orbital fracture to his right eye. The man and his wife, who also suffered minor injuries, were both taken to Jefferson Hospital for treatment. Quaid, his friend and another victim also suffered minor injuries.

Immediately following the attack on 1600 Walnut Street a 28-year-old man was attacked by several teens on 100 S. 16th Street. Responding police officers then arrested two 16-year-old boys.

More arrests could come as investigators pour over surveillance video, said Philadelphia Police Commissioner Richard Ross, who noted that the teens are old enough to know right from wrong.

"Some people want to indict the parents but I talk about personal responsibility, these are kids old enough to know better and not do something like that," said Ross.

"They should be absolutely held accountable for what they did and there's no excuse for it."

Ross said he hopes the incident was an "anomaly" but that police would "respond accordingly" with Center City patrols.

Quaid also had a message for the teens responsible.

"I just want them to know that if they feel that attacking people from a crowd and then dashing away and punching people from behind and kicking them when they're down is okay then they're cowardly," he said. "Those are all cowardly actions."

The sister of a man who was beaten to death at a gas station in Philadelphia’s Olney section last year is reliving her pain after a website used the tragic story to tell a false news report.

“Our family is outraged,” Diane Barnes told NBC10. “We lived through the pain back last year when this happened to my brother. To see this back on the Internet and everywhere and people comment and what scares me is that some people don’t know the truth.”

Barnes’ brother, Robert Barnes, 51, died in November, 2015; seven months after he was beaten by a group of adults and teens at a Philadelphia gas station. Police said Barnes was pumping gas for spare change on April 7, 2015 outside the Sunoco Gas Station at 5th Street and Somerville Avenue in Philadelphia’s Olney section. A teen falsely accused Barnes of hitting him and told his family which prompted a brutal attack that was caught on surveillance video, according to investigators.

The video shows a group of people jump from a minivan and rush towards Barnes as he stands outside the gas station. They then punch him, stomp on him and strike him with a hammer before jumping back into the minivan and speeding off. The attack left Barnes in a coma for seven months. He died from his injuries on November 25, 2015. Three teens pleaded guilty in Barnes’ murder. Three women are also facing murder charges.

While Barnes died nearly a year ago, the story of his death resurfaced just last week after it was picked up by the website Christian Times News. Instead of reporting the truth however, the website used an image from the surveillance video of the beating to report a fake story, falsely claiming the people in the video were anti-Donald Trump protesters who beat up a homeless veteran. The fake story was also posted on the Facebook Page “Rep. Trey Gowdy for Speaker of the House.”

Both posts, which were taken down Tuesday, linked to several real reports on the incident, including one from NBC10, causing the story to trend over the weekend. It confused many readers who were learning about the story for the first time. Diane Barnes told NBC10 she found out about the fake reports Sunday when her friend shared it on her Facebook page.

“I just couldn’t believe it,” she told NBC10 Tuesday night. “I was in disbelief. I just could not believe what I was reading.”

Barnes admits she has mixed feelings about the story of her brother’s murder resurfacing.

“They’re reading the story and those people that weren’t aware of what really happened may believe this story and that’s upsetting to me,” she said. “Then there’s the other side of me that says, you know, it’s back on the frontlines, my brother’s story, which is a good thing. But I just don’t know who’s going to believe the real story. So I’m happy it’s back on the frontline but not in this way. Not in this form.”

Barnes said many of her friends helped to clear up the confusion by commenting on social media.

“A lot of my friends, they took it upon themselves to comment and say that this happened last year, this was a friend of ours, this was a phony story,” she said. “There’s a real story, another story to this video you’re watching.”

Kelly McBride, the Vice President of the Poynter Institute, told NBC10 since the election many false stories with a political angle are appearing online.

“If this allows you to make an argument that dismisses all the Trump protesters or all the Trump supporters then it probably is too good to be true,” McBride said.

McBride says companies like Facebook and Google are working to stop the false stories. Red flags for spotting false news reports are an unfamiliar website, a story that appears to be vague or a story that isn’t reported on by two or three other outlets.

“Yeah it’s frustrating but I also feel like it’s a challenge that we have to deal with in an age of technology,” McBride said.

You can also visit the websites Fact Check and Politifact to check the authenticity of a story.

Firefighters battled a massive house fire in Aston, Delaware County overnight.

The two-alarm fire started Tuesday night at a townhouse on the intersection of Birney Highway and Linda Lane.

Firefighters were eventually able to bring the flames under control.

One firefighter suffered a leg injury battling the blaze and she is expected to be OK, said first responders. [[401459005, C]]

In total four hoses were damaged -- two badly, said firefighters. Smoke continued to rise from the scene Wednesday morning.

The American Red Cross responded to help 11 people from six families displaced by the fire.

Police hoped surveillance images would help them track down a pair of purse snatchers targeting shoppers in Montgomery County.

Hatfield Township Police showed images Friday from a ShopRite at 170 Fort Road.

Police investigation revealed that both entered the store and walked around with a shopping cart before the female suspect -- sunglasses on top of her head -- approached the victim and took her purse from a shopping cart. The purse contained an unknown amount of cash and credit cards.

The couple left the store in a light-colored Hyundai Tiburon, police said.

It wasn't the first time police said the duo struck. Police also thumbed the man and woman in an attempted purse theft on Nov. 8 at the same ShopRite. Police say they targeted an elderly female, but were unsuccessful.

If you recognize the duo contact Hatfield Township Police Department Detective Division at 215-855-0903 or policetips@hatfield-township.org

A University of Maryland student from New Jersey last seen boarding a Greyhound bus last week was found safe, university police said Wednesday.

The Houston Police Department found Kaitlyn George, 21, alone at a Texas fast food restaurant Wednesday morning, said police. She was alone and unharmed.

Surveillance footage captured George leaving her College Park apartment late Thursday afternoon, said University of Maryland police. She then got into a taxi on her own accord, said police.

She was supposed to meet a friend to go on a hiking trip but she never showed so that friend went to police to report her missing, said investigators.

George -- who hails from Toms River, New Jersey, according to student newspaper The Diamondback -- was last seen wearing carrying a black and white camping backpack and a pink bag when she left her on-campus apartment.

The cab driver told police he dropped her off in Baltimore's Federal Hill neighborhood. Surveillance video then captured her boarding Greyhound bus bound for Norfolk, Virginia Friday.

Investigators do not suspect foul play. It wasn't clear how or why George wound up in Texas.

When it comes to tracking and forecasting winter weather, the technology and experience of the First Alert Weather Team leads the way. Our experienced team of Meteorologists utilizes the most cutting-edge technology available in the industry, both inside the studio and out here in the field, to provide you the viewer with the most reliable and accurate neighborhood forecast. 

Storm Ranger is the latest - and certainly the greatest addition to NBC10’s ability to bring you the best in weather coverage. Storm Ranger is a MOBILE doppler radar unit, which utilizes a technology called dual polarization radar or 'dual-pol' radar for short. Why is that important? Well it’s our ability to transport the ENTIRE mobile radar system to where the weather is affecting us that makes Storm Ranger so important...and unique to NBC10. 

Radar itself has been around since World War II, and was originally used to detect planes in the sky. Forecasting weather was an accidental discovery with radar, but we have since perfected its use, and the latest evolution in radar technology is the X-band, dual pol, Storm Ranger platform-exclusive to NBC 10. 

The significance of Dual-pol radar is that it is able to not just detect precipitation itself in the sky, but it also gives us several other types of scan products such as the type of precip, the total amount in a given area over time and the speed of winds in the storm. These are all CRITICAL for providing you with the most accurate and reliable local (neighborhood) reports and hour-by-hour forecasts you expect from us at NBC10. 

So how does it work? Simply put, Storm Ranger’s radar dish sends out microwaves in a horizontal and vertical direction into the atmosphere, and works similar to the way an MRI does when scanning organs and other structures inside the human body, only Storm Ranger is scanning the sky! Just like an MRI of your body, the scans are processed by very powerful computers, giving us these amazing, accurate, real-time images you see on your TV screen or mobile device. 

The National Weather Service has an array of 160 radar sites around the country. These sites work together to provide a network of coverage, and in the Philadelphia area the NWS sites local to us are in Mount Holly, NJ Dover, DE and Sterling, VA. 

However-The real advantage of Storm Ranger is that we can position it in the 'gaps' between these radar sites, as distance from the radar and changes in elevation reduce the fixed radar sites ability to see that last few hundred of sky closest to the surface. When it comes to winter weather in particular that can be all the difference between who sees rain, who sees ice and who sees snow! Storm Ranger is a durable and complete broadcasting platform, with it’s own mini-studio cabin and uses state-of-the-art broadcast technology to beam all of this great information back to the studio. With long range diesel motor chassis, and a ten-year expected life before maintenance, Storm Ranger can be counted on for bringing you the best local storm coverage in our area for years to come.

Yesenia Vásquez gave a blunt assessment of the feelings among Hispanic immigrants these days in Norristown: "We are afraid and nervous."

Fears are on the rise in this small, struggling Montgomery County city since last week's election of Donald Trump as the next president, said Vásquez, who is an undocumented immigrant.

She and other Hispanic immigrants met Tuesday night with the Norristown Police Department and City Council to plead with officials to designate the municipality a sanctuary city -- as others like Philadelphia are.

Trump has threatened to cut federal funding to any municipality that declares itself as such. Law enforcement in sanctuary cities do not cooperate with federal agencies when dealing with undocumented immigrants in local courts.

"We have made a lot of progress and managed projects," said Vásquez, adding that the Hispanic community in the area represents a third of the population, while in schools the students represent 36 percent of the local district's population.

The group, along with pro-immigrant activists of the Philadelphia-based organization Juntos, is trying to mobilize before measures are implemented on the national level, or more locally, that undermine their stay in that city.

"We want to prevent before we have to regret. This city must be a sanctuary," said Denise Agurto of Juntos.

Police Chief Mark Talbot said his mission is to keep all citizens safe, and that  not too interfered with their documentation.

"If I want to be aware of their documentation, I'll be a federal agent," he said. "But that is not the case."

Talbot also promised not to make decisions that correspond to politicians.

The meeting culminated with an applause and a handshake, but some of the immigrant community said uncertainty will remain until they reach a concrete resolution.

New Jersey took a step toward becoming the first state in the nation to ban declawing cats.

The Assembly Agriculture and Natural Resources Committee advanced a bill Monday that would add declawing to the list of criminal "animal cruelty" offenses. There would be exceptions for medical purposes in the legislation proposed by Burlington County Democratic Assemblyman Troy Singleton.

"Declawing is a barbaric practice that more often than not is done for the sake of convenience rather than necessity," said Singleton in a news release. "Many countries worldwide acknowledge the inhumane nature of declawing, which causes extreme pain to cats. It's time for New Jersey to join them."

Cats are typically declawed to prevent them from damaging furniture and household items. The Humane Society of the United States is against declawing -- calling the act inhumane. They suggest keeping feline claws trimmed and providing scratching posts to minimize damage to household items.

Veterinarians and cat owners could face fines of up to $1,000 and six months in jail under Bill A-3899, which bans "onychectomy - or declawing - and flexor tendonectomy procedures," said Assembly Democrats. Violators could also face civil penalties up to $2,000.

No word yet on when the full assembly would vote on the bill, which NJ.com reports would be the first statewide ban in the United States.

A married, suburban Philadelphia mother who worked as a teacher's aide had sexual contact with two students, getting one drunk, said the Chester County District Attorney’s Office and Pennsylvania State Police.

Sheri Maufort, 42, worked as a substitute teacher’s aide at Unionville High School. She engaged in off-campus sexual acts with two teens – one who was under 18 – who were in her classes, said District Attorney Tom Hogan.

One victim told Pennsylvania State Police that Maufort texted him on Aug. 20 and told him to come outside. She then drove him out of his neighborhood and supplied him with liquor and beer, telling the boy to "drink up," said state police in a criminal complaint.

The West Chester woman then drove the boy, who said he felt intoxicated, to a restaurant parking lot in Birmingham Township where Maufort kissed him and performed oral sex on the boy, said police. The boy asked Maufort to stop out of fear that someone may see them and she asked him not to tell anyone, said police.

Maufort’s husband arrived at the restaurant and offered to drive the boy home. Before leaving, Maufort told the boy to let her know when he turns 18.

Another student, who is of age, told police that Maufort picked him up from a friend’s house in Marlborough Township after a football game on Sept. 16. She then kissed the student and touched his penis before driving him back to the party, said police.

"I have said it before and will say it again: Rule No. 1 for school staff is 'DO NOT HAVE SEXUAL CONTACT WITH A STUDENT,'" said Hogan in a news release Wednesday. "If you break this rule you will be fired, sent to jail and never work in school again."

A judge arraigned Maufort on five felony counts including sexual intercourse with a student, child endangerment and sexual contact with a minor as well as a misdemeanor count of giving alcohol to a minor. She is due back in court on Nov. 28 and cannot have contact with the teens, said Philadelphia-based attorney Lloyd Long, who is representing Maufort.

Long told NBC10 that the mother of two intended to "vigorously" defend the allegations. He also questioned why it took months for the allegations to come to light.

The Unionville-Chadds Ford School District reported the incidents to police on Friday. Maufort, contracted with an outside firm, had worked occasionally in the district since 2015, said police.

"The Unionville-Chadds Ford School District will not stand for this type of behavior," said Superintendent John Sanville. "We immediately reported this incident to law enforcement and are grateful for the rapid response. We now begin the difficult task of addressing this incident with our students, parents and teachers."

State Police asked anyone with more information on the case to call Trooper Jason Pennington at 610-268-2022.

Authorities think that a missing 26-year-old Hofstra graduate who went missing was stabbed to death in a fight at a Manhattan apartment before being dumped in New Jersey, a law enforcement official told NBC 4 New York. 

The official said that Joey Comunale of Stamford, Connecticut, appears to have been stabbed to death in some sort of dispute after he, two other men and three women returned from a nightclub on 14th Street late Saturday or early Sunday. 

The official said that Comunale was stabbed sometime after the three women left the luxury apartment building. Authorities aren't sure how the body was removed from the apartment.

What is thought to be the 26-year-old's partially burned body was found Monmouth County's Oceanport on Wednesday morning, according to two law enforcement sources.

Chopper 4 showed an extensive law enforcement presence at the scene where the body was found, in a wooded area behind an old police department that had to relocate due to Sandy devastation. NYPD vehicles were spotted in addition to local law enforcement. 

Police had said there were signs of foul play in the disappearance of Comunale, who was last seen on surveillance video entering the Grand Sutton building near the corner of East 59th Street and First Avenue Sunday morning.

Stamford police said on Wednesday that the man had gone to New York City with friends on Saturday night and separated from them at some point. Police in Connecticut have not yet contacted the friends, but are aiding the NYPD in its investigation.

He was reported missing by his father Tuesday.

Crime scene investigators were later seen carrying out bags of evidence from the apartment building. Law enforcement sources said they found bloody clothing and bloody sheets, along with a luggage cart that had evidence of blood on it.

Video captured exclusively by NBC 4 New York shows a man being apprehended at the scene and placed into the back of a police vehicle. He was taken in for questioning in Comunale's disappearance. Sources say another man is also being questioned in New York in connection with the case. 

One of the two men gave police information that helped authorities locate the body in Monmouth County, the sources said. 

Comunale's family has been asked to come to New Jersey to make an identification.

The family declined to comment, but friends told NBC 4 Comunale graduated from Hofstra University, was an athlete and wasn't the type to get into trouble. 

One friend said, "Joey is an amazing hockey player and teammate from an incredibly close and loving family. We are hopeful that he will be returned home to those that love him the most."