Home > Waco Breaking News > Archives > 2008 > December > 16
Tuesday, December 16, 2008
Blinn College safety verbally commits to Baylor
Blinn College safety Byron Landor believes Baylor is a program on the rise and wants to be part of it.
After visiting the Baylor campus last weekend, Landor has made a verbal commitment to the Bears and plans to sign in February.
“I’m really encouraged by the direction Baylor is going,” Landor said. “I think they were only a few plays away from going 8-4 this year. I met some of their players, and they all seem real down to earth. Their coaching staff seems like it has a lot of camaraderie.”
Landor said that five weeks ago, the only offer he had was from Texas Southern. But in recent weeks, he’s gotten offers from Baylor, Houston, UTEP and several other schools.
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Wilson scores 23 as Lady Bears romp past UT-Pan American, 73-27
Even without one of their best players, the Baylor Lady Bears stood far too tall for the overmatched UT-Pan American Broncos.
Junior post Danielle Wilson came up a point shy of matching her career high, scoring 23 points to lift the No. 7 Lady Bears to a 73-27 whipping of UT-Pan American tonight at the Ferrell Center.
Baylor (10-1) played without senior forward Rachel Allison, who injured her ankle in the waning moments of Monday’s practice.
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Authorites still searching for missing boater
The search for a missing Texas A&M University student missing after a weekend boating accident continues today.
Game wardens with the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department have been combing the area in and around Richland Chambers Lake in Corsicana, after 23-year-old Charles Andrew Bergfeld, of Conroe, went missing after a Sunday boating accident.
Game wardens have been using boats equipped with side-scan sonar and dogs trained to find human remains, among other tactics, Texas Parks and Wildlife spokesman Tom Harvey said.
The boat was returning from a lakeside restaurant to a private residence when it struck an object in the water near the U.S. Highway 287 bridge and sank, authorities said.
The other nine passengers aboard the boat managed to wade ashore after being stranded in the water, but Bergfeld, the boat’s operator, did not surface with the group.
Dive teams from the Montgomery County Sheriff’s Office and the Lewisville Fire Department also have been searching the lake and the Red Cross and Corsicana Volunteer Fire Department have been assisting. Officials say the search has been complicated by weather conditions such as sleet, wind and rain.
Staff writer Regina Dennis contributed this story.
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Deadly crash blamed on icy roads
An 11-year-old girl was killed and four other people injured this morning in a wreck caused by icy road conditions in Fairfield, authorities say.
Stephany Aguirre, of Melissa, died about 6:50 a.m when the truck she was riding in overturned on Interstate 45 in Fairfield, a Texas Department of Public Safety spokesman said.
The girl’s father, 42-year-old Juan Aguirre, of Melissa, was driving the Ford F-250 pickup when it hit patches of snow and ice on a bridge, struck a guardrail and overturned, the spokesman said.
The truck’s other occupants, Yamile Aguirre, 8, and Nancy Aguirre, 35, both of Melissa, and Julie Monge, 22, of Van Alstyne, were injured in the wreck, the spokesman said.
Yamile Aguirre was listed in critical condition with head trauma at Children’s Medical Center of Dallas; Nancy Aguirre and Julie Monge were listed in fair condition at East Texas Medical Center in Fairfield, the spokesman said. Juan Aguirre is listed in critical condition with spinal injuries at the Fairfield hospital, the spokesman said.
All the truck’s occupants were wearing seatbelts, the spokesman said.
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China Spring duo earn 1st-team AP all-state honors
Before this season ever started, China Spring’s James French was already one of Central Texas’ most highly decorated kickers.
French earned a first-team kicker selection on the 2007 Super Centex team last fall and won the Lone Star Kicking Challenge overall championship last summer.
On Tuesday, French added another honor as he and Cougars teammate Ryan Boutwell earned first-team honors on the Associated Press 3A All-State team.
French finished his high school career with a remarkable record for efficiency as he booted 112 consecutive extra points through the uprights, including all 60 he attempted as a junior and every one of 52 he attempted this season.
Boutwell earned first-team honors at defensive line after he recorded 73 tackles, 10 sacks and 20 tackles for losses and an interception during the regular season.
The AP all-state teams consider high school players’ regular-season performance and don’t take playoff results into account.
China Spring wide receiver Mike Hicks, who finished the season with 45 receptions for 926 yards and 12 touchdowns, earned second-team honors at receiver.
Hicks alternated between playing running back, where he gained 619 yards and scored 11 touchdowns, and receiver. As a safety on defense, he posted 88 tackles and four interceptions. He also returned eight kickoffs for 332 yards and two touchdowns.
La Vega wide receiver/defensive back Daxton Swanson earned honorable mention after he helped the Pirates advance to the 3A Division I state championship game.
Swanson, who caught a 51-yard touchdown pass from Danzel Wilson for the Pirates only touchdown in the championship game, entered the state final with 29 catches for 774 yards and six touchdowns.
Other Central Texas players earning honorable mention on the AP 3A All-State team included Cameron offensive lineman Tanner Andrews, Mexia offensive lineman Stephon Forge, China Spring quarterback Brian Bell, Mexia running back Doug Gentry, and Lorena linebacker Chase Snodgrass.
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Winter weather advisory canceled; fog to come
UPDATE, 3:15 pm: The winter weather advisory has been canceled. Temperatures are expected to remain close to freezing (it was still 32 at Waco Regional Airport at 3 pm) until tomorrow.
ORIGINAL TEXT: The National Weather Service extended its winter weather advisory until 4 p.m. this afternoon, saying that the chance of freezing drizzle or light freezing rain showers will continue to move across the region today.
The weather service says the accumulations of ice will be light, less than one-tenth of an inch, but that can be a danger on bridges and overpasses.
Allow extra time when driving today.
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Dow up more than 350 points on Fed move
NEW YORK — A surprised Wall Street jumped at the Federal Reserve’s historic decision to slash its target for a key interest to a record-low range and took comfort from the central bank’s pledge to use “all available tools” to jump-start the economy.
Stocks, already up more than 1 percent ahead of the announcement, surged, sending the Dow Jones industrial average up more than 350 points. Demand for long-term government bonds increased and pushed yields to record lows. Wall Street was clearly caught off-guard by the Fed’s decision to lower its target for the rate at which banks lend each other money to a range of zero to 0.25 percent.
Many analysts had expected the Fed to make a smaller cut to 0.5 percent from 1 percent. Establishing a range for its target was also unprecedented. The central bank also cut the lending rate for loans directly to banks.
The array of measures the Fed pointed to left Wall Street little room for doubt that the central bank will do what is necessary to help bring an end to the longest recession in a quarter-century.
More here from the Associated Press.
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Fed cuts interest rate to record low
The Federal Reserve has cut its target for a key interest rate to the lowest level on record and pledged to use “all available tools” to combat a severe financial crisis and prolonged recession.
The central bank on Tuesday said it had reduced the federal funds rate, the interest that banks charge each other, to a range of zero to 0.25 percent. That is down from the 1 percent target rate in effect since the last meeting in October. Many analysts had expected the Fed to make a smaller cut to 0.5 percent.
Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke and his colleagues also pledged to use “all available tools” as they struggle to contain a financial crisis that is the worst since the 1930s and a recession that is already the longest in a quarter-century.
The Fed also made clear that it intends to keep the funds rate at extremely low levels. “The committee anticipates that weak economic conditions are likely to warrant exceptionally low levels of the federal funds rate for some time,” the central bank’s panel that sets interest rates said in a statement.
The Fed’s decision is expected to be quickly matched by a reduction in banks’ prime lending rate, the benchmark rate for millions of business and consumer loans. Before the Fed announcement, the prime rate stood at 4 percent.
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Hillsboro child recovering from burns after house fire
A 3-year-old boy is still being treated today at Parkland Hospital in Dallas after Hillsboro fire authorities say he was severely burned Saturday in a fire in his home.
The fire is still under investigation, said a spokeswoman with the Hillsboro Fire Department.
Firefighters responded to the fire around 9:30 a.m. Saturday at 924 Park Drive in Hillsboro.
The little boy was the only one of the home’s occupants who was injured in the fire. A couple and their three children were in the house at the time of the fire, the spokeswoman said.
The child was initially taken to a local hospital to be treated, and later taken by medical helicopter to Dallas.
His condition today is unknown, as fire officials declined to release the boy’s name.
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Lawmakers recommend more pay for state school workers
AUSTIN — A panel of state House members reviewing Texas’ troubled facilities for the mentally disabled has recommended increasing pay and training for state school employees to address turnover and other problems.
The House panel, chaired by state Rep. Larry Phillips, stopped short of pushing to close the facilities, which the Department of Justice criticized this month for violating the civil rights of their mentally disabled residents. Investigators found that at least 53 residents died in the last year from preventable conditions, and officials said the number of injuries was “disturbingly high.”
One of the facilities studied was the Mexia State School, located about 40 miles northeast of Waco. It is home to some 500 people with mental retardation and employs more than 1,400 people.
The report did not single out Mexia as being better or worse than the locations. But it did include at least two examples of what federal investigators said was abuse at the school.
Federal investigators concluded that staff turnover and unfilled positions are key factors contributing to the poor conditions.
Besides increasing pay, state representatives recommended keeping the state schools open for only the most medically fragile residents while providing more community-based treatment options for others.
Lawmakers also suggested segregating residents who are criminal offenders from the general population, installing security cameras in common areas, creating advisory panels for schools that perform poorly on inspections and developing better vocational training programs for residents.
Another recommendation is to change the name of state schools, which aren’t schools, to a more accurate term, such as “supported living centers.”
The House panel’s report “provides a guideline for improving the system of care for those with developmental and cognitive disabilities,” said Phillips, a Sherman Republican, in a story in Tuesday editions of The Dallas Morning News.
Some of the nine lawmakers disagreed with parts of the report. Rep. Myra Crownover, whose district includes the Denton State School, the state’s largest facility, said she saw an institutional bias against state schools. Rep. Armando “Mando” Martinez, a Weslaco Democrat, argued for the expansion of state schools and the creation of new ones.
Rep. Patrick Rose, a Dripping Springs Democrat, said he will sponsor legislation to downsize state schools in favor of smaller, community-based options.
Texas’ 13 large facilities for the mentally disabled house nearly 5,000 residents, the most in the nation and more than six times the national average.
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Baylor quarterback Griffin honored by Sporting News
Baylor quarterback Robert Griffin was named to the 2008 Sporting News All-Freshman Team, the publication announced today. Griffin is Baylor’s first Freshman All-America honoree since Joe Pawelek was so tabbed by the Football Writers Association of America in 2006; Griffin is the first Baylor player so honored by Sporting News.
A product of Copperas Cove High School, Griffin tallied 2,934 yards of total offense, eight yards shy of the school record. He posted a 142.00 passing efficiency rating, the third-best season in school history, connecting on 160-of-267 passes for 2,091 yards and 15 touchdowns with only three interceptions.
Griffin, the nation’s youngest starting quarterback during the 2008 season, enjoyed one of the best passing seasons in Baylor history as he ranked in the program’s all-time top 10 in yards (sixth), completions (sixth), completion percentage (second), yards per attempt (ninth), touchdowns (tied-fourth) and touchdown-to-interception ratio (second). He also established a Baylor single-season record with 28 touchdowns produced.
However, Griffin was more than just a passer, finishing the season with 843 yards rushing on 173 carries. He tied Baylor’s single-season record with 13 rushing touchdowns and produced four 100-yard games, twice as many as any other Baylor quarterback has ever produced in a career. His yardage total was the 13th-best season in Baylor history as he established Baylor season quarterback and freshman records for rushing yards and rushing touchdowns. Griffin ranks sixth in the Big 12 in rushing and fifth in rushing touchdowns.
Griffin was one of four Big 12 Conference student-athletes on the Sporting News All-Freshman Team, joining Missouri offensive tackle Elvis Fisher, Oklahoma linebacker Travis Lewis and Texas safety Earl Thomas.
Sporting News also named Griffin the 2008 Big 12 Freshman of the Year. He joins Pawelek as the only Bears to have been so honored.
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Stay off the roadways if possible
Just spoke on the phone with Ken Roberts from the local office with the Texas Department of Transportation. The department has lots of crews out treating the roadways and bridges in Central Texas to keep them passable today.
But Roberts rightly advises that if you don’t have to be out on the roads, don’t do it. Tomorrow will be a better day for driving.
The worst places will be elevated roadways and bridge, which are more prone to icing in these conditions. In fact, he said crews just recently treated the elevated portions of Interstate 35 in Temple. Conditions, however, remain slippery so please be cautious there and throughout our area.
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Detroit newspapers to cut back on home delivery in 2009
These may be desperate times for newspapers, but I never thought I’d see a major newspaper make the changes that the Detroit Free Press and Detroit News announced this morning.
The two newspapers, which are run jointly under the Detroit Media Partnership, announced today that beginning next year they will not deliver newspapers to homes on Mondays, Tuesdays and Wednesdays. Printed copies will still go to newsstands every day, but the companies will focus on providing better online coverage. Subscribers would have daily access to electronic editions, exact copies of each day’s printed newspapers.
Rick Edmonds, a media business analyst for the Poynter Institute, has an informative column about this amazing move and asks aloud many of the questions I have about this bold direction.
He includes a related column by a teenager who loves grabbing the morning newspaper. I didn’t know such a creature existed today.
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Protests in Iraq support shoe thrower
CNN reports that protesters across Iraq today are urging government authorities to free the TV correspondent who threw his shoes at President George W. Bush.
CNN says: Hundreds of students at Diyala University in Baquba carried banners demanding the release of Muntadhar al-Zaidi — described by demonstrators as an “honorable Iraqi.”
Smaller protests emerged in the Anbar province city of Falluja and in two Baghdad locations — Baghdad University in the northern part of the city and western Baghdad’s Ameriya district. In those events, students also took to the streets.
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Toy-hunting toddler safe with extended family
The Beaumont Enterprise has a good followup story today on the 4-year-old who wandered from his home in the early morning hours Monday and was found by police playing with toys at a Family Dollar store.
It includes a minute-long surveillance video that shows the boy trying both doors (the first was locked; the second one wasn’t) and then greeting officers at the door as they arrived to check out the silent alarm he had triggered.
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Waco’s Washington Avenue bridge to get work in new year
The city of Waco sent out a news release this morning to let us know that the Washington Avenue bridge will be closed beginning on Jan. 5, so that the Texas Department of Transportation can begin making structure repairs and restoration improvements.
The work is estimated to take 18 months to complete. The cost of the repairs is estimated at $4.7 million.
In preparation for the work, AT&T will be relocating a cable on the bridge by boring a tunnel under the Brazos River. This may involve temporary road closures in the area.
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Pirates take oil company’s tugboat off Yemen coast
Somali pirates seized a tugboat today operated by the French oil company Total, as the U.N. anti-crime agency called for a special maritime police force in the insecure the Gulf of Aden coastline.
Somali pirates have seized some 40 vessels off Somalia’s 1,880-mile coastline this year. Maritime officials say 14 remain held — including a Saudi oil tanker carrying $100 million in crude and a Ukrainian ship loaded with tanks and heavy weapons. Also held are a total of more than 250 crew members.
Antonio Maria Costa, executive director of the Vienna-based U.N. Office on Drugs and Crime today urged law enforcement officers to deploy on warships as “ship riders” to seize pirates and try them in the arresting officer’s home country.
“Pirates cannot be keelhauled or forced to walk the plank, nor should they be dumped off the Somali coast. They need to be brought to justice,” he said.
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Examining Caroline Kennedy’s credentials
The New York Times has this story today looking at Caroline Kennedy and the news that she wants to run for Hillary Clinton’s open Senate seat.
It certainly is interesting that after all that time staying out of the public glare she is considering such a high-profile role.
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Coming to Dubai: A refrigerated beach?
As cold as it is outside today, perhaps this story will warm you with a chuckle. It’s best read the way the Daily Mail reports it: The world’s first refrigerated beach is to be built at a luxury hotel in Dubai so the filthy rich holidaymakers don’t burn their feet on the scalding hot sand.
Gotta love it. Read on:
The revolutionary beach will sit next to the new Palazzo Versace hotel and will include a system of heat-absorbing pipes built under the sand and giant wind blowers, designed to keep tourists cool in the searing 40-50C heat. (That’s 104-122 Fahrenheit)
The hotel, which is due to open late next year or early 2010, will be controlled by thermostats linked up to computers and feature a cooled swimming pool.
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Obama named top religion newsmaker of 2008
The U.S. presidential election was the impetus for the nation’s top religion stories of 2008, according to a survey of more than 100 religion journalists.
The Religion Newswriters Association chose the controversy surrounding the Rev. Jeremiah Wright as the No. 1 story, with Democratic outreach to faith communities and GOP vice presidential running mate Sarah Palin’s selection as the second and third top stories, respectively.
The poll was conducted among active members of the Religion Newswriters Association, which includes the Trib’s Terri Jo Rya. RNA members are journalists who report on religion in non-religious media outlets. About 38 percent of the nearly 300 active members voted.
Here are the year’s top 25 religion events, in order based on voting:
Controversial sermons delivered in recent years by the Rev. Jeremiah Wright surface, resulting in pressure on Barack Obama, who eventually withdraws his membership in his church, Trinity UCC, Chicago. Meanwhile, John McCain rejects the endorsements of evangelists John Hagee, a critic of Catholicism, and Rod Parsley.
Democrats, especially Barack Obama, make a conscious effort to woo faith-based voters. Obama participates in a faith-based debate with John McCain moderated by California mega-church pastor Rick Warren. Unusual attention is paid to evangelicals at the Democratic National Convention.
Sarah Palin’s nomination as Republican vice president leads many evangelicals, who had planned to sit out the election, to support the GOP ticket. The choice causes a dilemma for some religious conservatives who oppose women in leadership roles.
The California Supreme Court rules gay marriage is legal, but voters in November approve a constitutional amendment overturning the decision. gay marriage also fails at the polls in Arizona and Florida.
In his first U.S. visit, Pope Benedict XVI brings a message of hope during stops in Washington and New York. During the trip, he meets with victims of clergy misconduct.
U.S. conservatives alienated from the Episcopal Church say they will ask Anglican Communion leaders for permission to create the Anglican Church in North America, allowing dioceses unhappy in the Episcopal Church to operate under the authority of a North American bishop instead of Anglican bishops in Africa and Latin America, as is now done. The move is considered the most significant threat to the Episcopal Church’s unity since a gay clergyman was ordained bishop five years ago.
Terrorism believed motivated at least in part by religious fervor results in the deaths of almost 200 people in a three-day siege in Mumbai, India; one of the major targets is a Jewish center, where an American rabbi and his wife are killed. Meanwhile, attacks on Christians in the eastern India state of Orissa and its neighbors, which began in late 2007, continue during 2008.
China cracks down on Buddhists seeking Tibetan independence in a prelude to producing a peaceful Olympics games; demonstrations mar some of the torch passages.
The crumbling economy and subsequent drop in contributions force many faith-based organizations to cut back on expenses, at the same time as the need for social services increases.
Violence continues in Iraq as Sunnis and Shiites attack each other and Christians are also targeted; Chaledean Archbishop Paulos Rahho is kidnapped and murdered in Mosul. However, some progress toward peace is apparently made.
Newsmaker of the Year: Barack Obama, who consciously sought the support of the faith community on his way to winning election as president.
Obama received more than 60 percent of the votes, surpassing votes for Jeremiah Wright, Pope Benedict XVI, Rick Warren, Rowan Williams, Robert Duncan, and Stephen and Alex Kendrick.
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Shoe thrower beaten while in custody, brother says
BBC News says that the brother of the Iraqi journalist who threw his shoes at President Bush tells the news organization that the reporter has been beaten in custody.
Muntadar al-Zaidi has suffered a broken hand, broken ribs and internal bleeding, as well as an eye injury, his older brother, Dargham, told the BBC.
Zaidi threw his shoes at Bush at a news conference. The BBC reports that Zaidi has become a hero to many in Iraq and the Arab world for his actions.
Dargham al-Zaidi told the BBC that his brother deliberately bought Iraqi-made shoes, which were dark brown with laces. They were bought from a shop on al-Khyam street, a well-known shopping street in central Baghdad.
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Dynamite found in Paris department store
CNN is reporting that police have evacuated a major department store in central Paris today after finding five sticks of dynamite inside.
CNN affiliate BFM-TV reported the dynamite was not rigged to explode, but police did not immediately confirm the report.
French news agency AFP said it received a letter in the mail this morning, claiming to be from an Afghan revolutionary group and saying that a bomb was at the renowned Printemps department store. The news agency alerted the police, who evacuated the store, AFP told CNN.
The bomb squad found the suspicious package around 11 a.m. (6 a.m. CST) and were still investigating nearly two hours later, police said.
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Consumer prices drop record 1.7 percent
Consumer prices in November plunged by the largest amount on records going back 61 years as energy costs posted nearly double the decline of the previous month.
The Labor Department reported today that consumer prices fell 1.7 percent in November, surpassing the previous record decline of 1 percent set in October. The drop was the largest one-month decline dating to February 1947.
The huge decreases reflect the severe recession gripping the country and raise the pressure for the Federal Reserve to act decisively to guard against a debilitating bout of deflation.
In other economic news, the Commerce Department reported that construction of new homes fell in November by 18.9 percent, the biggest drop in a quarter-century. The steep decline pushed construction down to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 625,000 homes, the slowest pace on records that go back to 1959.
The Fed wraps up a two-day meeting today. Economists expect the central bank to cut the federal funds rate, already at a low of 1 percent, by another half-point in an effort to keep the recession from worsening.
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Hillsboro ISD also starting late
Hillsboro ISD also announced this morning that it will begin everything on a two-hour delay. Bus routes are running two hours later than normal and classes will start two hours later.
Waco ISD was taking no chances with the possibility of further ice this morning, pushing back it’s start by two hours.
The National Weather Service does forecast areas of freezing drizzle around Waco, so overpasses could be a dangerous. It’ll remain cloudy, with a forecast high just above freezing at 33 degrees. The north wind won’t be more than 5 mph, and you can feel the difference without that wind.
It’s 27 degrees currently at Waco Regional Airport. A 10 mph north wind there has it feeling like 17. I haven’t felt the wind downtown.
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Waco schools start at 10; no delay at Midway
This from the WISD web site: Because of possible inclement weather conditions, all Waco ISD campuses will open at 10am on Tuesday, December 16, 2008. Buses will run approximately two hours later than normal. This message will be updated as conditions warrant.
Midway ISD is not delaying school openings today.
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