Ted S. Warren / AP

A Seattle Police officer with a baton tries to fend off protesters during a May Day anti-capitalism protest that ended with demonstrators clashing with police on Wednesday.

SEATTLE -- Protesters clashed with police in Seattle on Wednesday as a May Day rally that began peacefully turned violent after dark, with demonstrators hurling objects at officers who responded with flash-bang grenades and pepper spray.

One protester was seen using a skateboard to smash windows at a Walgreens drug store in the city's Capitol Hill neighborhood, and others overturned trash cans and lined up newspaper display racks to block police.

Matt Mills Mcknight / Reuters

A demonstrator attempts to break a window of a pharmacy in Seattle's Capitol Hill neighborhood during May Day demonstrations Wednesday.

Officers in riot gear, some riding in armored SWAT vehicles, repeatedly used the flash-bang grenades and tried to disperse the crowd.

Seattle police said that as of 9 p.m. local time (12 p.m. ET), 11 adults and two juveniles had been arrested for assaults and property damage. Several people were shown on local TV stations being taken into custody.

Seattle police said in a tweet that one officer was injured by a thrown object. His condition was not immediately clear.

The violence broke out as darkness fell in Seattle following a day of May Day rallies in cities across the U.S. West that were planned by a coalition of organized labor activists, students, civil rights advocates and members of the clergy to call for an overhaul of immigration laws.

In Los Angeles, thousands of protesters marched through downtown waving American flags and carrying signs with the slogan, "Stop deportations."

The demonstrators chanted in Spanish, "Obama! Escucha! Estamos en la lucha!" ("Obama! Listen! We are in the fight!"), as they marched down one of downtown's main thoroughfares.

The march spanned across more than two large city blocks, and one police officer told Reuters that unofficial estimates put the size of the crowd at roughly 3,500 people. No arrests were reported.

In Arizona, where a state crackdown against illegal immigration was signed into law three years ago, several hundred people joined a late-afternoon rally outside the state Capitol in Phoenix, ahead of a march through downtown.

The protests come about two weeks after a bipartisan group of U.S. senators introduced an 844-page bill, backed by President Barack Obama, that would rewrite many U.S. immigration laws.

A centerpiece of the measure would create a path to legal status and ultimately citizenship for many of the 11 million undocumented immigrants in the United States.

It also aims to secure the U.S. border with Mexico against illegal entry and to make it easier for industry, particularly high-tech businesses and agriculture, to hire workers from abroad when needed.

Related:

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NBC News in depth: Immigration Nation

Pinned between a massive slab of granite and the wall of a cargo container, a worker who appeared to aid in his own extrication was rescued Tuesday afternoon in Fontana, Calif.

The 1,000-pound piece of rock, often used for countertops, was being delivered to a contracting company in Fontana. The trapped worker apparently was helping take the slab out of the truck when it split in two.

Crews from the San Bernardino County Fire Department cut open part of the truck's rear wall, allowing the worker to dangle his right arm outside the truck.

"As soon as they cut a section out, his arm fell out," witness Lucky Lira said. "At that point they were frantically trying to get him out."

The worker appeared to be helping rescuers break down the granite that was trapping him, at one point taking a hammer from crews to chip away at the rock.

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"He got quite lucky," said Battalion Chief Kathleen Opliger, who led the rescue. "When the granite came down, it formed an alcove for him, putting pressure on his lower extremities instead of his whole body."

Paramedics hooked up the man to an IV drip attached to what appeared to be a saline bag taped to the outside of the truck.

The man became trapped in the truck about 5 p.m. (8 p.m. ET) on Industry Avenue.

Rescue crews pulled the man out of the truck about 6:30 p.m. He appeared to be moving his arms freely and speaking with rescuers as he was airlifted to the hospital.

Witnesses called the rescue a "miracle."

"He grabbed hold of his rescuer, was trying to hug his rescuer, then did thumbs-up with both arms while we were trying to load him to the gurney," Opliger said.

The worker remained in the hospital late Wednesday. It was not immediately known when he would be well enough to leave.

A wind-whipped brushfire spread over 170 acres overnight in Ventura County, Calif., destroying two homes and threatening about 100 more, and was still not contained as of early Tuesday morning.

The fire began with a fire in a mobile home around 3:15 p.m. on Monday, fire officials said. That home sustained damage to its roof, but was not entirely destroyed. About 400 firefighters responded as the blaze spread, with officials saying that they hoped slackening winds overnight would help them control the flames.

“I can see flames and some smoke and helicopters coming in and dropping of their water,” Judi Ortiz, an employee at a local gas station, told NBCLosAngeles.com. “You couldn’t see anything at the beginning but smoke. It’s horrific.”

Driven by 40-mph winds, the city engulfed an orchard near the city of Fillmore, north of Los Angeles.

“A couple years back we had some pretty bad fires, but nothing that came close to homes like this,” Fillmore Mayor Pro Tem Manuel Minjares told NBCLosAngeles.com. “This is pretty significant.”

No injuries have been reported as a result of the fire. Authorities lifted a mandatory evacuation order on about 160 homes early on Tuesday morning, saying they hoped to have the fire contained by sun up.

Searchers on Thursday rescued an 18-year-old woman who had gotten lost with a friend on an Easter Sunday hike in an Orange County forest.

Orange County Sheriff via AP

Hiker Nicholas Cendoya was found alive late Wednesday. Kyndall Jack, right, was found on Thursday.

A sound of a female voice led Orange County Sheriff's search and rescue teams to locate Kyndall Jack in the Holy Jim Canyon area of the Cleveland National Forest, said Orange County Sheriff's Lt. Jason Park.

Crews used a helicopter about noon Thursday to hoist Jack out of a dense ravine and take her to a hospital.

The rescue came hours after authorities found Jack's hiking companion Nicholas Cendoya.

He was found "dehydrated and disoriented" in a ravine near where Jack and Cendoya had parked their car.

Searchers had to cut through thick brush to rescue Cendoya. Visibility was less than 10 feet, Park said.

Authorities and volunteer searchers on foot and using dogs and helicopters had combed since Monday a network of trails in the rugged forest, trying to find the two teens.

After Cendoya was found Wednesday night, searchers were optimistic that they would find Jack.

They located her near where they found Cendoya.

Cendoya and Jack, both Costa Mesa residents, called authorities at 8:25 p.m. Sunday to say they had gotten lost, said Gail Krause, an Orange County sheriff's spokeswoman.

The cellphone battery wore down and authorities could not get an accurate GPS "ping" from the phone to pinpoint their location, prompting a massive search, said Sheriff's Lt. Erin Giudice.

They say never to cry over spilled milk, but motorists headed for Los Angeles on busy Interstate 5 Tuesday night very well might have.

Two tractor-trailers, one of them a tanker loaded with milk, collided on the interstate, which serves as California's main north-south artery, just before 9 p.m. near Santa Clarita, police said.

The accident and accompanying milk spill closed three of the four southbound lanes of the interstate, causing a backup for almost two hours, California Highway Patrol Officer Cheyenne Quesada said.

The milk truck's driver might have shed a tear as well. He was traveling at 65 mph and apparently did not see the other truck pulling out from the road's shoulder and into his lane, Quesada said. He required medical treatment after the fierce impact, but both drivers left the scene under their own power, the officer said, adding that an investigation was continuing.

Traffic was light when the crash occurred, Quesada said, so the incident could have been significantly worse for other motorists, too. "If it was northbound when people were still leaving for work, it might have been a different story," he said.

As for the people who found themselves tied up at the scene, Quesada offered just one tip: "I said they needed some cookies."

LOS ANGELES- Guards at a downtown Los Angeles jail fired rubber pellets and pepper spray to swiftly quell a racially charged brawl involving more than 60 inmates, and several injured prisoners were taken to a hospital, a jail spokesman said.

The altercation between Hispanic and African-American inmates erupted shortly after noon local time in a third-floor recreation area inside Tower One of the Twin Towers Correctional Facility, said Steve Whitmore, a spokesman for the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department, which runs the jail.

Whitmore said corrections officers fired rubber "sting balls" and pepper spray into the fracas, managing to break up the disturbance in one or two minutes.

"This is something that does occur throughout our jail system from time to time," Whitmore said. "People in our jails are under a lot of tension ... and it does regrettably happen."

Whitmore said four of the inmates were taken to a hospital with cuts, bruises and other non-life-threatening injuries.

But Los Angeles Fire Department spokesman Erik Scott told Reuters six patients were transported to the hospital, two in serious condition, though he did not know whether all of them were inmates.

The precise cause of the fight was under investigation, Whitmore said. The Twin Towers facility, one of eight detention centers run by the sheriff's department throughout the county, houses roughly 4,500 inmates, Whitmore said.

The jail system as a whole, the largest in the United States, comprises more than 18,000 prisoners and has long been plagued by overcrowded conditions. 

AP

Keana Barnes, who was serving a 25-year sentence for manslaughter, escaped from a Louisiana prison but has now been recaptured in Los Angeles. This photo was released Jan. 4, 2013, by the Louisiana Department of Public Safety and Corrections.

LOS ANGELES -- A nationwide search for a convicted killer ended in Los Angeles when police spotted a fugitive who has been on the lam for months after escaping prison in Louisiana, according to the U.S. Marshals Service.

Keana Barnes broke out of the Louisiana Correctional Institute for Women in January. She was arrested on Monday near Skid Row, some 1,800 miles west of the prison where she was being held.

The U.S. Marshals Service added Barnes to the agency's 15 Most Wanted list 11 days before she was captured. Barnes initially refused to give the officers her name, but ultimately confessed her identity.

Prison officials discovered the window was broken in Barnes’ cell. She was serving a 25-year sentence after being convicted of two counts of manslaughter in 2002, U.S. Marshals officials said.

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Authorities said Barnes’ “extremely violent criminal history” dates back to 1999. She has prior convictions of aggravated assault, battery, theft and manslaughter.

In 2002, Barnes fatally stabbed one victim 17 times, U.S. Marshals officials said.

While awaiting the outcome of her murder trial, Barnes allegedly shot and killed a man while he slept in 2003, authorities said.

LOS ANGELES — A 9-year-old girl hiked a steep embankment in darkness early Sunday to get help after the sport utility vehicle she and her father were travelling in crashed and rolled into an embankment, according to the California Highway Patrol.

The girl’s father, 35, was driving southbound on a semi-rural stretch of the Sierra Highway in Acton at 2 a.m. when the crash happened, according to the CHP collision report. The girl's father died at the scene.

The Ford Escape skidded down a dirt embankment, rolling numerous times before coming to rest near Soledad Canyon Road, officials said.

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The 9-year-old girl left the car after the crash and went in search of aid.

She hiked "difficult terrain" in a "threatening environment" for about a mile before knocking on the door of a home, but no one answered, the collision report noted. She continued her trek and ultimately flagged down a passing car.

It was not immediately known why the driver lost control, but California Highway Patrol officials suspect that alcohol may have been involved. The cause of the crash is still under investigation.

The driver’s daughter was transported to Children's Hospital Los Angeles for minor injuries, according to the report.

The girl’s condition was not immediately known Sunday, a CHP official told NBCLA.