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Monday, June 16, 2008
Man killed in Freestone County wreck
A Freestone County man died Monday after he was injured in a three-vehicle wreck Sunday afternoon.
Jessie Don McCord, 21, of Kirvin, died at 11:25 a.m. Tuesday at Hillcrest Baptist Medical Center, a Texas Department of Public Safety spokeswoman said.
McCord was riding in a vehicle driven by Kadie Miller, 23, of Mexia, when Miller drove around a slower moving vehicle that had pulled onto the shoulder of the westbound lanes of U.S. Highway 84.
Miller slowed after passing the vehicle to turn onto Farm-to-Market Road 2705 when the vehicle she had passed rear-ended her, sending her into the path of an eastbound vehicle, the spokeswoman said.
McCord and four other people from the three vehicles were taken to Hillcrest with unknown injuries.
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Dairy pollution still impacting Lake Waco, new $1.8 million study concludes
This in from veteran Trib staff writer J.B. Smith:
Efforts to reduce dairy pollution on the North Bosque River in the past decade have had no measurable impact on the water entering Lake Waco, the author of a $1.8 million study of the lake said today.
Phosphorus levels on the river just upstream from Waco are still about twice what they need to be if Lake Waco is to get a handle on the blue-green algae that affect the taste of drinking water, said Ken Wagner of the scientific firm ENSR.
Wagner said Waco could buffer the effect of high phosphorus levels by aerating the lake, stocking it with predator fish and experimenting with calcium additives.
But the key to cleaning up the lake lies with Erath County-area dairies, which account for some 55 percent of Lake Waco’s phosphorus, he said.
The study examines half a million data points between 1968 and 2006, focusing on the years between 2002 and 2006, a period when dairies used government grants to haul half a million tons of manure from the North Bosque watershed.
“There’s nothing in the study to show that what dairy farmers have done has made a significant difference,” he said. “That’s not to say there haven’t been some good things done, but it’s not enough.”
About 50 people attended the two-hour public meeting in Waco where Wagner summarized the 1,000-page study. Officials with the Texas Farm Bureau and Texas Association of Dairies were invited but unable to come.
Kirsten Voinis, spokeswoman for the dairy association, said its officials look forward to reviewing the study.
For much more on this story, pick up a copy of Tuesday’s Tribune-Herald.
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Tiger Woods wins U.S. Open in sudden death
Trib sports writer Chad Conine has been blogging throughout today’s playoff on his Teed Off blog, so check it out.
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Get wet, watch a movie tonight
Grab a towel, put on your swimsuit and head over to Waco Water Park this evening for its first Dive-In Movie of the summer. “Bee Movie” will be shown. Those in the park can sit on blankets and chairs or float in the water during the movie.
Twilight admission rates are $2 for those below 48 inches in height and $4 for those 48 inches and taller. Gates open at 8:30 p.m. No outside food or drinks are allowed, but concessions will be available.
Dive-In Movies will be shown every first and third Monday in July and August. “Jaws” will be shown on July 7, followed by “Over the Hedge” on July 21.
Waco Water Park is at 900 Lakeshore Drive. Hours are:noon to 7 p.m. Monday-Friday, 10 a.m. to 7 p.m. Saturday, and 1 o 7 p.m. Sunday.
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Perot launches ‘economic crisis’ Web site
Billionaire former presidential candidate Ross Perot is starting a Web site to highlight the “economic crisis” facing the country because of deficit spending.
The Web site announced today is PerotCharts.com, a play on Perot’s use of economic charts in political advertisements during his 1992 and 1996 presidential campaigns.
In a statement, Perot said the nation’s debt reached $9.4 trillion in April and is rising more than $1 billion a day. “We are leaving our children and grandchildren with debt they cannot possibly pay,” he said.
The Web site, which Perot said is nonpartisan, includes a video of Perot, a blog and a chart presentation explaining the nation’s economic problems.
The site was praised by David Walker, former U.S. comptroller, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, and former U.S. Sen. and Oklahoma Gov. David Boren.
Perot, 77, founded Electronic Data Systems Corp. and later Perot Systems Corp., both of which provide technology services to other companies and government agencies. Last year, Forbes magazine estimated his personal wealth at $4.4 billion.
— The Associated Press
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Taliban fighters take over Afghan villages
Hundreds of Taliban fighters took over several villages in southern Afghanistan today just outside the region’s largest city, and NATO and Afghan forces were redeploying to meet the threat, officials said.
Mohammad Farooq, the government leader in the Arghandab district of Kandahar province, said around 500 Taliban fighters moved into his district and took over several villages.
Arghandab lies just north of Kandahar city — the Taliban’s former stronghold — and a tribal leader from the region warned that the militants could use the cover from Arghandab’s grape and pomegranate orchards to mount an attack on Kandahar itself.
The push into Arghandab comes three days after a sophisticated Taliban attack on Kandahar’s prison that freed hundreds of insurgent fighters being held there.
— The Associated Press
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3 Clifton residents die in Cleburne crash
A 5-year-old is the only survivor of a head-on collision Sunday in Cleburne that claimed her older sister, mother and grandmother, all from Clifton.
The accident happened about 1:15 p.m. Sunday on State Highway 174. According to a release from the Cleburne Police Department, a 2002 Chevrolet Cavalier driven by Wanda Timmons, 53, was headed southbound on the highway when it was struck head-on by a northbound 1999 Toyota Tacoma driven by Jeremy Roberts, 18, from Joshua.
Timmons was killed in the crash, along with her daughter Brandy Valdez, 32, who was in the back seat, and Kameron Burdette, 7, who was in the front passenger seat, according to Cleburne police.
Karyngten Burdette, 5, survived with non-life-threatening injuries. She was in the back seat with her mother.
Roberts, the driver of the Tacoma, also sustained non-life-threatening injuries.
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Heads up: Water line construction to close street
The city of Waco just sent out this news release to let residents know that the city will close Wooded Acres Drive between Cobbs Drive and Lake Jackson Drive beginning on Wednesday as it continues construction on a water line.
Here’s more from the release:
This section is expected to be closed for approximately two weeks depending on weather conditions. Limited access will be permitted to homeowners in the area, but all other traffic will be detoured.
The closure is necessary as construction work continues on a new 36-inch water line to connect the Mt. Carmel water treatment plant with the Hillcrest ground storage tank. The construction project is expected to be complete by next summer.
During the construction phase, several additional streets will be closed or detoured including: Cobbs from Wooded Acres to Hillcrest, Hillcrest from Cobbs to MacArthur, MacArthur from Hillcrest to Pine, Pine from MacArthur to 32nd and 32nd to the tank site.
The new water line will meet water supply demands while the Riverside treatment plant undergoes future upgrades and will boost the city’s capacity after those improvements are complete.
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Lesbian couple of 55 years to say ‘I do’
This afternoon, more than a half-century after they became a couple, Phyllis Lyon and Del Martin plan to become the first same-sex couple to legally exchange marriage vows in San Francisco and among the first in California.
“It was something you wanted to know, ‘Is it really going to happen?’ And now it’s happened, and maybe it can continue to happen,” Lyon said in this Associated Press story.
San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom plans to officiate at the private ceremony in his City Hall office before 50 invited guests. He picked Martin, 87, and Lyon, 84, for the front of the line in recognition of their long relationship and their status as pioneers of the gay rights movement.
Meanwhile, the New York Times has this story that says a number of gay couples in Massachusetts are finding no great benefit to being married.
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Bosque County residents killed in Cleburne accident
Three people, all reportedly from Bosque County, were killed in a head-on collision Sunday in Cleburne, and two others were injured, authorities said.
A 2002 Chevrolet Cavalier collided with a 1999 Toyota Tacoma pickup truck on Texas Highway 174 around 1:15 p.m.
The truck was traveling north and the car was heading south on the two-lane highway. The Tacoma entered the southbound lane of traffic and collided with the car, according to a statement issued by the Cleburne Police Department.
A 53-year-old woman who was driving the Chevrolet, a 32-year-old woman who was in the back seat and a male child in the front seat were killed, police said.
A female child in the car was taken by air ambulance to a Fort Worth hospital, as was the driver of the pickup, an 18-year-old Joshua man.
Both the children involved in the accident appeared to be under the age of 10, police said. Identities were not released pending notification of next of kin.
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Internet suicide case goes to federal court
A Missouri woman accused of taking part in a MySpace hoax that ended with a 13-year-old girl’s suicide has so far avoided state charges — but not federal ones.
Lori Drew, 49, a neighbor of the dead teen, was to make an appearance in Los Angeles federal court today, accused of one count of conspiracy and three counts of accessing protected computers without authorization to get information used to inflict emotional distress.
The charges were filed in California where MySpace is based. MySpace is a subsidiary of Beverly Hills-based Fox Interactive Media Inc., which is owned by News Corp.
Drew, of suburban St. Louis, allegedly helped create a fake MySpace account to convince Megan Meier she was chatting with a nonexistent 16-year-old boy named Josh Evans.
— The Associated Press
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France to cut 54,000 defense jobs
France will slash 54,000 defense jobs and boost funding for space- and land-based military intelligence, according to a new strategy aimed at adapting the country’s forces to evolving threats.
President Nicolas Sarkozy will present the plan — the biggest review of France’s defense posture in 14 years — to military and security officials Tuesday.
The plan, obtained by The Associated Press from the French president’s office, foresees leaner but more high-tech fighting forces that can quickly deploy to battlefields in evolving conflicts from Afghanistan to Africa.
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Another insurer shakes up leadership
U.S. financial stocks fell in early trading today, Marketwatch.com reports, a day after insurer American International Group jettisoned its CEO, the latest casualty in the mortgage crisis.
Here’s more information on the change at AIG.
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Iowa City still faces flooding concerns
Record flooding that tormented Iowa’s smaller river towns may have spared Iowa City from a cataclysm, but the Iowa River wasn’t expected to start receding until tonight.
Elsewhere in the soaked Midwest, National Guard soldiers hoped to fill about 500,000 sandbags by today to fortify levees along a 15-mile stretch of the Mississippi River near Quincy, Ill., and flood waters began to recede in parts of western Michigan.
The Iowa River’s crest arrived early and lower than expected, possibly because of a number of levee breaches downstream that opened the channel, the National Weather Service said. Gov. Chet Culver called word of Iowa City’s crest “a little bit of good news,” but cautioned that the situation was still precarious.
Hundreds of homes were evacuated near the river Sunday, though it wasn’t immediately clear how many suffered damage. More than a dozen buildings on the University of Iowa campus had taken on water, but school officials said they believed others were protected.
— The Associated Press
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Princess caught ‘frolicking naked’
Ah, yes, nothing like reporting on something embarrassing by a member of the royal family in England.
The news is making the rounds that Britain’s Princess Eugenie has been reprimanded by her school after being caught frolicking naked on the grounds of her college.
The 18-year-old daughter of Prince Andrew, Duke of York, and Sarah Ferguson, was apprehended for her part in end-of-term “high jinks” at the exclusive Marlborough College, west of London, the UK Press Association said.
Read on here on the CNN Web site.
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Elian Gonzalez back in news again
Here’s a name I didn’t think I’d hear again, but remember Elian Gonzalez, whose story transfixed our nation eight years ago in an international custody fight between the U.S. and Cuba?
Now comes the news that the 14-year-old has joined Cuba’s Young Communist Union, according to the Associated Press.
Communist youth newspaper Juventud Rebelde quotes Gonzalez as saying he will never let down ex-President Fidel Castro and his brother Raul Castro, who succeeded Fidel earlier this year.
Elian was 6 when Miami relatives lost their fight to keep him in the United States and he was returned to Cuba in mid-2000 with his father.
Elian had survived a boating accident off the Florida coast that killed his mother, who was attempting to get to the U.S.
Juventud Rebelde said in its Sunday edition that the boy was among 18,000 people who joined the group on Saturday.
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Britain announces new sanctions against Iran
Britain will freeze assets of Iran’s largest bank in a further move to discourage the country from developing nuclear weapons, Prime Minister Gordon Brown said today.
Brown, speaking at a news conference with President Bush, said Britain will work to persuade Europe to follow suit. It’s a boost to the president as he wraps up a weeklong trip to Europe.
The British leader said that assets of Iran’s Bank Melli would be frozen. Last year, the United States accused the bank of providing services to Iran’s nuclear and ballistic missile programs.
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Tiger cubs for sale in McAllen
This is the type of thing that draws attention and will get you in trouble. According to an Associated Press story, McAllen police detained a woman after she allegedly tried to sell six tiger cubs at a parking lot.
Federal wildlife authorities have placed the animals at the Gladys Porter Zoo in Brownsville.
Investigators are trying to determine if the animals were bound for Mexico.
An official with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service says the cubs appear to be healthy and range in age from 2-10 weeks.
A McAllen police officer who was on patrol Sunday noticed a woman and a man allegedly involved in some type of sale.
The officer saw the young tigers in a vehicle as he approached the pair.
Police say charges are pending against the woman, amid concerns about no permits to transport the tigers and other possible wildlife violations.
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Bringing the heat
Don’t know if we’ll hit 100 degrees today, but I’m sure not that it matters. It’ll be hot. The official high of 98 yesterday for Father’s Day was plenty hot. And some thermometers in Central Texas recorded even higher temperatures.
Expect more of the same today. Wish we could get some of that rain the Midwest has had way too much of.
It’ll be mostly sunny and hot, with a forecast high near 99. A south-southwest wind between 10 and 15 mph is expected.
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