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Wednesday, August 6, 2008
Police investigate inappropriate touching of child allegation at YMCA
Waco police were called to the YMCA at 6800 Harvey Drive at 12:27 p.m. today after a woman reported that a man inappropriately touched her 11-year-old daughter.
Sgt. Melvin Roseborough of the Waco Police Department said the suspect in the incident is an approximately 50-year-old man who was a customer of the YMCA, not an employee.
No arrests have been made, Roseborough said, and police are still seeking leads.
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Former WISD teacher arrested in teen’s sexual assault
A former Waco Independent School District teacher has been arrested on sexual assault of a child and improper relationship between educator and student charges stemming from when she worked at the district.
Tara Allison Hodges, 26, of Katy, Texas, surrendered to Waco police charges today, said Waco police spokesman Melvin Roseborough.
Detectives, during an investigation, found that Ms. Hodges had been involved in a sexual relationship with a 14 year-old student while she was employed as a teacher for WISD, Roseborough said.
Check back at wacotrib.com for updates.
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Don’t miss the bus …
That saying probably works only if you’re opposed to President Bush. Just a reminder that the Bush Legacy Tour Bus, which exhibits what it says are the failings of the Bush administration, should be stopping at the Crawford Texas Peace House about now.
It’s scheduled to be at the Peace House until 2 o’clock. It heads to Fort Worth after that.
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Soviet critic Solzhenitsyn buried in Moscow
Author Alexander Solzhenitsyn, who exposed the horrors of Soviet slave labor camps, was buried today in a cemetery filled with evocations of Communist cruelty and the fight against it that defined his life.
Solzhenitsyn’s death Sunday at age 89 silenced one of Russia’s most influential figures, a man regarded by mourners as critical in destroying the Soviet Union. His funeral and burial at Moscow’s Donskoi Monastery offered evidence of his renown — the Russian president was there as military honor guards fired rifles in salute and white-robed priests sang dirges.
Throughout the chilly morning, mourners, many bearing carnations and roses, flowed into the monastery’s main church where the Nobel literature laureate lay in an open casket.
A day earlier, thousands turned out in the rain to pay their last respects to Solzhenitsyn at a wake at the Russian Academy of Sciences.
— Associated Press
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Freddie Mac loss bigger than anticipated
Mortgage finance giant Freddie Mac, in a sign of continuing woes for the housing and financial markets, reported a much bigger-than-expected second-quarter loss and slashed its dividend today, CNNMoney.com reports.
Freddie Mac lost $821 million, or $1.63 a share, in the quarter. Analysts surveyed by Thomson Reuters had forecast it would trim its loss to 41 cents a share from the 66 cent-a-share loss in the first three months of the year. The company earned $729 million, or 96 cents a share, a year ago.
The company announced it would cut its quarterly dividend to 5 cents a share or less, subject to a final decision by its board, from 25 cents a share in an effort to save capital. Losses have strained Freddie’s capital, and the dividend cut should save the company more than $500 million a year.
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Mummy fetuses in Tut’s tomb get DNA tests
Egyptian scientists are carrying out DNA tests on two mummified fetuses found in the tomb of King Tutankhamun to determine whether they are the young pharaoh’s offspring, the antiquities authority said today.
The two tiny female fetuses, between five to seven months in gestational age, were found in King Tut’s tomb in Luxor when it was dissevered in 1922.
DNA samples from the fetuses “will be compared to each other, along with those of the mummy of King Tutankhamun,” the head of the Supreme Council of Antiquities, Zahi Hawass, said in a statement.
The testing is part of a wider program to check the DNA of hundreds of mummies to determine their identities and family relations. Hawass said the program could help determine Tutankhamun’s family lineage, which has long been a source of mystery among Egyptologists.
The identity of Tut’s parents is not firmly known.
— Associated Press
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There’s a reason elevators have capacity limits
Who would have thought you could squeeze 26 cheerleaders into an elevator? That’s what happened yesterday at the University of Texas’ Jester Hall, but the weight overload caused the elevator to get stuck.
Read on here.
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3 women held in Iraqi suicide bomb plots
Iraqi security forces arrested three women, accusing them of plotting suicide bombings against the country’s armed forces, the Interior Ministry spokesman told CNN today. Iraqi forces stage a convoy in Iraq’s Diyala province on Sunday.
Iraqi Interior Ministry spokesman Gen. Abdul Karim Khalaf said the women were arrested last week as part of the military offensive in Diyala province, the territory that sprawls north and east of Baghdad.
Khalaf said two of the women “tested positive for explosives residue” and explosives were found in another’s house. He did not say precisely where or when they were seized. He said the women confessed to planning attacks.
Women are increasingly carrying out suicide attacks in Iraq. Male security forces will not search women and few women have been trained to conduct searches.
Up to 24 suicide attacks in Iraq have been committed by female bombers in 2008 — up from eight in 2007 — according to U.S. military figures.
— CNN
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State attorney general alleges Olympic scam
Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott has charged an Austin-based ticket broker with deceiving customers in the sale of tickets to Friday’s opening ceremonies at the Beijing Summer Olympics.
According to the state’s court filings, TicketCity Inc. sold tickets for $1,250 with a promise to double the refund if it failed to deliver the pre-purchased tickets. But the state says the company did not possess the tickets it was selling and by early 2008 told customers it could not honor the purchase and would not honor the 200 percent refund offer.
According to court documents, undercover investigators found that TicketCity continued to offer tickets for sale at the greatly increased rate of $7,000 each.
TicketCity Vice President of Marketing Zach Anderson said the company has not seen the documents filed the attorney general’s office and declined comment.
The state is seeking court-ordered civil penalties of up to $20,000 per violation of the Texas Deceptive Trade Practices Act and awards in actual damages to consumers.
— Associated Press
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Obama-Bayh event creates extra buzz
When U.S. Sen. Evan Bayh introduces Sen. Barack Obama at a town hall-style meeting in Indiana today, political watchers will be examining them closely because Bayh is reportedly on the short list of people Obama is considering for his vice president.
Read more here on The New York Times political blog.
Here’s more on Bayh from his Senate Web site.
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Hedge swindler wants to plead guilty for fleeing
The hedge-fund swindler who faked his suicide rather than report for his 20-year prison term tried to plead guilty today for going on the lam, but a federal magistrate wouldn’t let him.
Samuel Israel III’s guilty plea was likely to be accepted eventually, possibly later today, and it will mean as much as 10 more years added to the sentence he received for fleecing investors of nearly half a billion dollars.
Israel, 49, said “Guilty” this morning when Magistrate Judge Lisa Margaret Smith asked him how he pleaded to a charge of failure to surrender. But the magistrate said, “It has to be `Not guilty’ at this point,” apparently because some federal judges prefer not to have the magistrate judge accept guilty pleas.
The case was then assigned to Judge Kenneth Karas, and Smith said, “Judge Karas is taking his own guilty pleas at this time.” An afternoon session with Karas was then scheduled.
— Associated Press
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Bin Laden’s former driver found guilty in terror trial
A U.S. military jury found Osama Bin Laden’s former driver guilty of five counts of material support to a terror organization in the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, CNN is reporting.
In a split verdict, jurors found Salim Hamdan not guilty of conspiracy to aid a terror organization, in this case al Qaeda. To be convicted of that charge, jurors would have had to prove that Hamdan had an intent to aid and plan the attacks.
Hamdan’s attorney said the defendant cried as the verdict was read.
The trial is being held at the Guantanamo Bay detention facility where he is being held.
Prosecutors in closing arguments Monday said Hamdan’s support of bin Laden helped the al Qaeda leader carry out terror plots, including the attacks of Sept. 11, The Associated Press reported.
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Mountain lion grabs dog from Colorado home
Not sure how well I could sleep after finding out a mountain lion got into in my home and grabbed the family dog, but that’s the story out of Denver for a couple who lost a 12-year-old Labrador retriever.
A mountain lion crept through an open door into a house outside Denver, snatched a Labrador retriever from a bedroom where two people were sleeping and left the dog’s dead body outside, wildlife managers said Tuesday.
Mack and Jacquie Anderson told Denver TV stations that they awoke to see the tail of the mountain lion leave their bedroom. No one else was hurt in the home about 14 miles southwest of Denver, which is probably amazing in itself.
Wildlife officials later trapped the 130-pound male cat using the dog’s body as bait and fatally shot it.
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Olympic flame arrives in Beijing
The Olympic flame approached the final destination of its long and sometimes contentious global tour today, greeted by rapturous crowds in the Chinese capital two days before it officially launches the Summer Games.
The arrival of the torch marks one of the final steps in China’s seven years of preparations for the games that have cost billions of dollars, and one which Beijing hopes will serve as the country’s symbolic debut as a modern world power.
The torch will tour Beijing before ending up at Friday’s opening ceremony for the games. It will be carried by a diverse group, including China’s first astronaut in space Yang Liwei, movie director Zhang Yimou and basketball superstar Yao Ming.
— Associated Press
Be sure to check out Olympic coverage here.
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Paris Hilton rebuts McCain ad
Paris Hilton has now chimed in on the presidential race. The sort-of celebrity blonde has an actually funny video in response to the John McCain ad launched last week that compared Democratic rival Barack Obama to Hilton and Britney Spears, suggesting Obama was no more than a celebrity candidate unready to lead the nation.
Hilton’s mother took offense to McCain’s ad. She and her husband donated $4,600 to McCain’s campaign earlier in the year, but she said McCain’s ad is “a complete waste of the country’s time and attention at the very moment when millions of people are losing their homes and their jobs.”
I saw Paris Hilton’s video last night on “The Tonight Show with Jay Leno.” It is funny. The “political ad” was created for Will Ferrell’s funnyordie.com site. Check it out here. One word of caution: There is a mild profanity near at the end.
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Mauritania army stages coup
Army officers staged a coup in Mauritania today and detained the president and prime minister, overthrowing the first government to be freely elected in the desert country in more than 20 years, the Associated Press reports.
The coup in Africa’s newest oil producer took place after the president and prime minister fired the country’s top four military officials.
A brief announcement read over state television said the new “state council” will be led by presidential guard chief Gen. Mohamed Ould Abdel Aziz, who also helped lead a 2005 coup. It gave no other details.
Mauritania is in northwest Africa. For more about this country, go to this Wikipedia entry.
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Edouard, we barely knew ye
Like most Central Texans, I was hoping for a bit more rainfall out of a tropical storm, but I’ll take what I can get. Edouard certainly helped knock down the temperatures.
Because much of the rain petered out as it reached Waco, my home rain gauge collected just 0.2 inches of rain overnight. The rain gauge on the top of the Trib’s roof says the same. Officially at Waco Regional Airport 0.23 inches was recorded.
Still, with all the moisture in the air we do have a 50 percent chance of showers and thunderstorms today. Forecasters are predicting mostly cloudy skies, with a high near 92 degrees, so that’s lower, though the heat index could still be around 99. We’ll also have a south wind around 15 mph, with gusts as high as 20 mph.
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