Home > Waco Breaking News > Archives > 2008 > July > 25
Friday, July 25, 2008
Bicyclist hit by truck Thursday in Lorena dies
A bicyclist hit Thursday night by a truck on the Interstate 35 access road in Lorena died from his injuries.
A Corpus Christi man died at Hillcrest Baptist Medical Center at 11:35 p.m. Thursday from his injuries, a Texas Department of Public Safety spokeswoman said.
The man was riding his bicycle southbound in the northbound lane of the access road of south I-35 when he was struck about 8:30 p.m. by a blue Dodge pickup, the spokeswoman said. The wreck happened about two miles south of Lorena.
The pickup left the scene without helping the man, the spokeswoman said. Police have identified a suspect, but have not made an arrest, the spokeswoman said.
At the scene, a bicycle could be seen crumpled in the grass near the road.
The man was flown to the hospital by helicopter where he later succumbed to his injuries.
The spokeswoman said there was no information on why the man was in the area.
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Baylor football picks up 3 commitments at camp
After hosting 406 players at a three-hour camp this afternoon, Baylor didn’t have to wait too long to see it pay dividends.
The Bears picked up three pledges immediately after the camp, adding commitments from offensive linemen Jeramie Roberts (6-4, 305) from South Garland and Stefan Huber (6-5, 272) from Nederland and Temple wide receiver Tevin Reese (5-11, 160).
Roberts, a rivals.com 3-star recruit along with Huber, had offers from Miami, Arizona, Colorado, Kansas and Cincinnati. Huber picked the Bears over offers from SMU and Army, while Reese was getting interest from Arizona, LSU, Northwestern, UNLV and Utah.
Baylor now has eight commitments for the 2009 class.
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Weather service: Get ready for more heat
Today’s high at Waco Regional Airport was below 100 again today — 97 — but don’t expect that luck to hold. A National Weather Service advisory says hotter weather is on the way:
Hot and humid conditions persisting through the middle of next week…
Upper level high pressure will remain over North Texas through the middle of next week and maintain hot and humid conditions. Overnight low temperatures tonight and Saturday night will range from the middle to upper 70s with afternoon high temperatures Saturday between 96 and 102 degrees. Afternoon heat index values Saturday will reach the upper 90s to around 104.
Slightly warmer temperatures are in store regionwide Sunday through Tuesday as the high pressure ridge strengthens. Many locations will reach the century mark or slightly above and afternoon heat index values will range from 100 to 105. A heat advisory will likely be needed for some North Texas counties sunday through Tuesday … especially in and around the Dallas-Fort Worth metroplex where overnight lows will only cool into the upper 70s to lower 80s.
North Texas residents are urged to drink plenty of fluids … stay in air conditioned rooms … stay out of the sun … and check on relatives and neighbors. Also … be sure pets have plenty of fresh water and a source of shade.
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Margaret Mills’ lawyers seek to bar cameras from courtroom
Attorneys for former Downtown Waco Inc. director Margaret Mills want cameras and recording devices barred from the courtroom during any future proceedings in the felony theft case against her.
The motion, filed Friday by Waco lawyers Rick Bostwick and Pat Beard, says allowing media devices inside the courtroom during Mills’ trial or related hearings will negatively affect the jury and keep Mills from getting a fair trial. It also asserts that longstanding policy in McLennan County, as well as in federal courts and most state courts, prohibits such devices inside courtrooms.
“Cameras and recording devices within the courtroom are calculated to demean the dignity and decorum critical to the judicial process and will instead promote an aura of theatre,” the request says.
The motion appears to have been prompted by the fact that media cameras were inside the courtroom during a pre-trial hearing for Mills last week. Their presence intruded on the privacy of attorney-client communications, the motion says, citing as evidence a photo and article published by the Tribune-Herald.
The photo, which ran on the front page, showed Bostwick leaning over to talk to Mills. The article reported that Mills remained in the courtroom for about 10 minutes after the hearing ended, telling Beard, “I can’t walk out there past all those TV cameras. This is ridiculous.”
During most local trials, media cameras are not allowed inside the courtroom. However, both the Tribune-Herald and television stations routinely capture images of defendants by aiming their cameras through windows in courtroom doors.
Allowing media devices inside the courtroom during future proceedings in the Mills’ case is likely to cause jurors to conclude it is entitled to special attention, the motion says. It also heightens the probability that jurors may be exposed to and influenced by media reports of the trial, it says.
Matt Johnson of Waco’s 54th State District Court is presiding over the case and will be the one to rule on the motion. He has scheduled a hearing for Sept. 3 to rule on a change of venue request. If the judge rejects the motion or carries it over to gauge prospective jurors’ attitudes about the case, jury selection in Mills’ trial is set to begin Sept. 22.
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Waco family reports missing man — a year later
Waco police are asking the public for information in a bizarre, missing person’s case involving a 61-year-old transient they say disappeared more than a year ago while taking out the trash.
George Darrell Herrington was reported missing earlier this month by one of the families with whom he lived on 2805 Mildred St. and 7321 China Spring Highway, states a news release from the Waco Police Department. The release states the family waited a year because they figured he had moved on without saying anything.
A relative of one of those families, 40-year-old Linda Joyce Owen, was arrested Thursday and charged with credit card abuse after detectives discovered she had been stealing from his bank account for the last year, the release states. Owen is out of the McLennan County Jail on a $5,000 bond.
Police declined to say whether foul play was suspected in Herrington’s disappearance. The release stated the man was driven to Waco on a visit from Athens, Texas, and decided to stay. The release stated he left behind his personal belongings, including the bicycle, which was his only form of transportation.
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Baylor regents to increase membership
Baylor University’s Board of Regents has announced that its plans to increase its membership to 24.
From an official university press release:
GRAPEVINE, Texas — Baylor Regents today voted to modify the size of its governing body, increasing its board size from a previous goal of 16 to 24 members. The vote came as the board was concluding its annual summer retreat, which this year was held in Grapevine.
Board Chair Howard K. Batson said the increase in board size was intended to position Baylor for future success.
“Our goals are ambitious and we are going to need increased diversity of talents within our board structure to achieve the level of future success we envision,” Batson said. “Our board is strong now and with this action we believe we can create an even more representative governing body that will help Baylor to reach new heights in the coming years.”
Wes Bailey, chair of the Governance Review Committee of the board, explained that the recommendation came after extensive study by his committee.
“We have spent significant time over the past several months looking at governance issues and considering an array of best practices in higher education,” Bailey said. “The Board determined today it would revise its plans to downsize to 16 and instead adopt a plan to transition to a steady board size of 24.”
One-fourth of Baylor’s regents will continue to be elected by the Baptist General Convention of Texas.
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Group to provide instructional publications to South Texas flood victims
According to a press release e-mailed to the Tribune-Herald:
Texas AgriLife Extension Service over the weekend will be distributing 75,000 publications aimed at helping people in South Texas recover from the damage inflicted by Hurricane Dolly. “Our hearts go out to the thousands of our neighbors who have been victimized by this hurricane,” said Dr. Ed Smith, Extension director. The publications, produced in both English and Spanish, offer advice on first steps to take in recovering from flooding, wind damage and other losses that hurricanes can bring, Smith said. They will be distributed at many of the same locations across the Rio Grande Valley where people will come for other help. Those victims who have had electrical power restored and can access a home computer with an Internet connection can download at no cost scores of helpful Extension publications on hurricane recovery, Smith said. These can be found at http://agrilifebookstore.org/ and http://texashelp.tamu.edu/ . The Texas AgriLife Extension Service, operating in every county, offers an array of educational programs aimed at helping people improve their lives and livelihoods.
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‘Last Lecture’ professor Randy Pausch dies
Randy Pausch, a former Carnegie Mellon University computer science professor, died this morning at his Virginia home. He was 47.
Pausch was diagnosed with terminal pancreatic cancer in September 2006 and gave his final lecture at the university in September 2007.
The video from the lecture has been an Internet sensation and led Pausch to write a book, The Last Lecture, which has been on the New York Times’ best seller list since April.
For more about Pausch, click here.
And here is a video of the complete and famous “last lecture.” It is more than an hour long, but apparently very inspiring.
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Chinese paper censored for running Tiananmen Square photo
An aggressive tabloid newspaper has had its Web site censored and could face further punishment by China’s media authorities for running a photograph from the 1989 Tiananmen Square democracy movement, in which student protesters were wounded by government tanks and soldiers.
The photo published Thursday was a black-and-white image showing wounded young men in bloodstained shirts on the back of a three-wheeled cart.
Within hours, the photo had been pulled from the newspaper’s Web site and print editions of the paper had been recalled from newsstands by Chinese authorities.
The Beijing News has a reputation for being a liberal voice in the controlled Chinese media. Senior editors have been fired or transferred in the past because of decisions unsupported by the government.
For more on this case of censorship, see the full story by the Associated Press.
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Catholic groups urge pope to lift birth control ban
More than 50 dissident Catholic groups from around the world have asked Pope Benedict XVI to lift the church’s 40-year ban on birth control.
In a half-page ad in the Italian daily Corriere della Sera, the groups said Friday that the Church’s ban on artificial birth control has had “catastrophic effects,” particularly in the fight against AIDS.
The ad comes on the 40th anniversary of the 1968 encyclical “Humanae Vitae” (“On Human Life”) — the document issued by Pope Paul VI that prohibits Catholics from using artificial contraception.
Vatican officials responded that the church is active in the fight against AIDS.
For more on the ad and the Vatican response, click here.
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Two bombs explode in Gaza City
Two bombs exploded today in Gaza City, a site of frequent bloodshed and struggles between Israel and Palestinian militants.
The first bomb exploded at a cafe after midnight. Three people were injured, one of whom later died. The cafe has been hit twice before and is likely targeted because Islamic militants see it as a sign of Western cultural intrusion.
The second bomb went off outside the home of a Hamas lawmaker not long afterward. The bomb caused structural damage but no casualties.
For more on the bombings, click here.
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New Zealand students offer reward for arrest of Condoleezza Rice
The Auckland University Students’ Association is offering a $3,700 reward for anyone who will carry out a citizen’s arrest of U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice during her visit to New Zealand today.
The group, who is opposed to the United States’ continued military precense in Iraq want Rice arrested for for her role in “overseeing the illegal invasion and continued occupation.”
When asked about the planned protest, Rice said: “Protests are a part of the Democratic society and student protests are particularly a long honored tradition in democratic society. I can only say that the United States has done everything that it can to end this war on terror, to live up to our international and national laws and obligations.”
Officials traveling with Rice said the protest will not affect her travel plans. New Zealand security officials promised that anyone trying to penetrate police lines to get to Rice would not be able to carry out their plan.
For more on Rice’s planned talks with New Zealand officials, click here.
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Olympic ticket sales cause stampede in Beijing
Thousands of people who waited in line for two days to purchase the final 250,000 tickets to various Olympic events were involved in a dangerous stampede when officials decided to open additional sales windows just as purchasing began.
“It was so unfair,” said Ji Liqiang, who waited for 28 hours with Wang Zhenqiang, a fellow businessman from eastern Shandong province, for a chance to buy tickets to the diving competition, where the Chinese are favored to win gold.
“Those who came late but were able to push forward got the tickets,” he said.
Further exasperating the situation were weather conditions, with temperatures above 93 degrees increasing frustration and impatience among those waiting in line.
Chinese officials expect venues to be sold out for the Games, even in unpopular sports. Some tickets were given to school children to pack arenas of often poorly-attended events in order to send a positive image to the world.
Black market and forged ticket sales are also a problem as the Games approach.
For more on ticket scandals, click here.
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Bush expands sanctions against Zimbabwe
President Bush this morning signed an executive order expanding U.S. sanctions against Zimbabwe to include individual Zimbabweans and organizations associated with the regime of Robert Mugabe, a ruler the U.S. considers illegitimate.
Bush hope the sanction leave no doubt that the U.S. will not tolerate individuals associated with Mugabe to participate in U.S. financial markets.
For more on the sanctions, click here.
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Aging levee system leaves DC landmarks in danger
A system of levees designed to keep flood waters away from the Lincoln Memorial, the National Archives and other Washington, D.C., landmarks could leave the city under 10 feet of water and fail to prevent $200 million in damage in a major storm.
The 70-year-old system of levees has had little maintenance over the years.
“We have built a series of structures and walked away from them historically,” said Leonard Shabman, a water resources expert with the think tank Resources for the Future. “If you’ve got potholes in the road, people go out and fix them; that’s not the case with levees.”
Further complicating matters is the fact that the nation’s capital was built on reclaimed swamp land and is therefore prone to flooding issues.
For more on the threat to valuable national resources, click here.
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Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice: Born to shop
What is Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice most looking forward to doing after President Bush’s second term expires: Shopping.
“I love to shop … but now I don’t have much time,” she said while speaking at a private school in Australia yesterday.
“It’s a great pastime, shopping. I love it, even if I don’t buy anything. I just love going to the stores to look,” she said, noting with mock dismay that her apartment near Stanford University is just five minutes from a local mall.
For more of Rice’s comments on her favorite pastime, click here.
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Waco motorcyclist traveling 100 mph crashes into SUV
A 36-year-old Waco man is being treated in a local hospital after officials say he was riding his motorcycle at speeds of 100 mph, lost control, and crashed into the back of an SUV.
At about 7:40 a.m. today, Richard Waterhouse Jr. was southbound on a 2006 Yamaha motorcycle on State Highway 6 just north of the twin bridges, said Texas Department of Public Safety Trooper Chris Dale.
Witnesses to the crash told Dale that Waterhouse was speeding when he lost control of his bike and laid it down, before colliding into the back of a GMC Yukon driven by 53-year-old William Puryear of China Spring.
After the impact witnesses told Dale that Waterhouse was up and walking around. When troopers arrived at the scene, he was lying in a nearby ditch.
Waterhouse was taken by ambulance to Hillcrest Baptist Medical Center. Dale said it appeared he suffered from extensive road rash, but did not know the extent of his injuries. Dale said Waterhouse will be ticketed for failure to control speed. Puryear was not injured, Dale said.
The accident snarled up morning traffic in the southbound lanes nearly a mile, Dale said.
Less than an hour later, traffic was cleared and moving.
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State Department investigating Iraqi oil contracts
Complaints by four Democratic senators have led State Department Inspector General Harold Geisel to investigate whether department employees encouraged lucrative oil deals between Iraq and U.S.-based companies.
Such deals would violate Bush administration policy which discourages deals until Iraq’s government establishes a system to fairly distribute profits among various provinces.
“We are concerned that U.S. policy regarding these oil contracts has not been clearly defined, communicated or consistently implemented by the Iraqi government, the Kurdistan Regional Government and international oil companies seeking to do business in Iraq,” Sens. Carl Levin of Michigan, Chuck Schumer of New York, John Kerry of Massachusetts and Claire McCaskill of Missouri said in their July 16 letter.
For more on the investigation, click here.
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2002 Justice Department memo OKs CIA interrogation tactics
The Justice Department in 2002 told the CIA that its interrogators would be safe from prosecution for violations of anti-torture laws if they believed “in good faith” that harsh techniques used to break prisoners’ will would not cause “prolonged mental harm.”
The Aug. 1, 2002, legal opinion signed by then-Assistant Attorney General Jay Bybee was issued the same day he wrote a memo for then-White House Counsel Alberto Gonzales defining torture as only those “extreme acts” that cause pain similar in intensity to that caused by death or organ failure.
For more on the memo, see the full Associated Press story.
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Rice urges Pakistan to do more to stop militants
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said Pakistan needs to do more to prevent Taliban militants from launching attacks into Afghanistan from its territory.
Speaking Friday in Australia, Rice suggested to reporters that a surge in Taliban-related violence in Afghanistan had its source in the restive semiautonomous tribal areas along Pakistan’s border with Afghanistan.
Pakistan has resisted suggestions that U.S. or other foreign troops should be allowed into the remote region to combat the militants. Gilani is seeking peace deals with militants through tribal elders in the northwestern regions of Pakistan.
For more on this story, read the full story from the Associated Press.
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Gunman injures three in college shooting
A long-standing feud between a current student and a former student of South Mountain Community College in Phoenix, Ariz., led to shots being fired, critically wounding three students.
One remained in critical condition, while the other two had been updated to stable condition at a Phoenix hospital.
The suspected gunman, Rodney Smith, age 22, was apprehended by authorities near the scene of the shooting.
Yessenia Lara, an 18-year-old student who witnessed the shooting, said the gunman was one of two men who had been fighting in the computer building.
“I saw someone get punched and then I heard three shots after that. Everybody basically ducked, and the shooter got away,” Lara said, adding that the victims were yelling in pain.
For more on this story, click here.
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South Texas prepares for Dolly cleanup
The remnants of Hurricane Dolly may still dump a few more inches of rain on a soggy South Texas, but residents are emerging from bunkered houses to begin cleaning.
There will be substantial cleanup: President Bush declared 15 counties in south Texas a disaster area to release federal funding to them, and insurance estimators put the losses at $750 million.
Thousands remain without power and the main remaining danger to residents is downed power lines.
For photos from the hurricane, click here.
For more on this story, click here.
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Hooray! State gas prices drop 7 cents per gallon
AAA reports that gas prices dropped 7 cents per gallon this week, settling in at a state average of $3.92 per gallon.
The national average is $4.02.
The lowest average in the state this past week was in Corpus Christi ($3.86), while the highest was in Austin ($3.93).
For Waco-area prices, click here.
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Brace for the heat
I’m not sure we got our day of respite yesterday. I was stuck indoors with the Lilley news breaking, but I didn’t see any evidence of rain or cooler temperatures.
Today, expect a high of 96 with heat index values over 100. A low tonight of 75 is forecasted.
The weekend forecast calls for highs of 99 both days and lows in the upper 70s.
It’s summer in Waco. What else can we say?
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