LITTLE ROCK — Former President Bill Clinton
warned farmers and Agriculture Department employees in Washington, D.C., against using too much corn for ethanol fuel, adding: “I think the best thing to say is we have to become energy-independent, but we don’t want to do it at the cost of food riots.”
Olive Stephens, 94, is giving up politics, saying that after 48 years in municipal government, 38 of them as mayor of Shady Shores, Texas, she won’t seek a 20th term as mayor in the May municipal election.
Rod Blagojevich, the ex-governor of Illinois who is accused of trying to sell or trade an appointment to President Barack Obama’s vacated U.S. Senate seat, will face fewer charges after a federal judge agreed to prosecutors’ request to drop three of 23 corruption charges against the Democrat to simplify their case.
Paul McCartney
has written an orchestral work for the New York City Ballet, a love story titled Ocean’s Kingdom, that will debut at the company’s fall gala on Sept. 22.
Michael Brown, a Washington, D.C., councilman, thinks residents should ceremonially rename Pennsylvania Avenue, home to the White House, to highlight the city’s lack of statehood and has suggested such options as Let D.C. Vote Way, 51st State Way and Free D.C. Avenue.
Sharon McDonough, 44, pleaded guilty in Riverhead, N.Y., to a 13-count indictment charging her with animal abuse and child endangerment, admitting that she sometimes tortured dogs and cats to death in the presence of her six young daughters.
Sharon Cissna, 68, an Alaska Democratic state lawmaker who underwent a full-body scan at the Seattle airport but refused to submit to a follow-up pat-down search that was ordered because of her mastectomy, has arrived in Alaska after she decided to take a rental car and small airplane from Seattle to Prince Rupert, British Columbia, and from there, a two-day ferry ride to Juneau.
Ann Pettway, a North Carolina woman accused of kidnapping a newborn from a Harlem hospital in 1987, pleaded innocent in a New York federal court.
Luiz Claudio Farias, a firefighter captain in Parauapebas, Brazil, said a woman, whose house recently flooded, was shocked to find a 5-foot alligator lying tamely behind the living room couch as her 3-yearold son petted the reptile’s head, adding that the family was lucky the alligator wasn’t hungry.
Front Section, Pages 1 on 02/25/2011