LITTLE ROCK — QUOTE OF THE DAY
“Everybody in the morning should be sticking their chests out and saying, ‘That’s my rover on Mars.’”
NASA Administrator Charles Bolden, referring to Jet Propulsion Laboratory engineers, after the Mars rover Curiosity landed on the Red Planet early Monday Article, 1A
Body found in wildfire-burned home
OKLAHOMA CITY - A spokesman for the Oklahoma medical examiner’s office said a badly burned body has been discovered inside a home ravaged by wildfires last week.
Spokesman Amy Elliott said Monday that the body was found in a home in Norman. The local sheriff’s office said the area had been evacuated after a wildfire broke out Friday afternoon.
Some residents weren’t allowed to return until Sunday.
Elliott said firefighters found the body Saturday.
She said the medical examiner’s office has yet to determine the age or sex of the victim and has requested dental records to confirm the person’s identity.
Three dozen wildfires have scorched parts of Oklahoma since Friday, leaving only ashes in some spots. Authorities said fires were under control or in “mop-up” stages Monday.
Wife bad off before hospital gunshot
MASSILLON, Ohio - A woman whose husband of 45 years is accused of shooting her in the head in her hospital bed in a possible mercy killing had been in the intensive care unit in an extremely disabled state, a prosecutor said on Monday.
Barbara Wise was incapacitated before John Wise stood at her bedside and shot her on Saturday with a handgun, Akron Assistant City Prosecutor Craig Morgan said.
John Wise entered his wife’s room at Akron General Medical Center and fired at least one round from the handgun, police said. One shot was fired, hospital officials said.
Barbara Wise, 65, was declared dead Sunday morning.
She had been at the hospital in a “previously extremely disabled state,” said Morgan, who wouldn’t specify her ailments.
John Wise, 66, has an initial court appearance today in Akron Municipal Court. He was in police custody at an undisclosed location on Monday, and no attorney had been assigned to him.
Barbara Wise’s autopsy was rescheduled for today or Wednesday, and it will likely upgrade John Wise’s attempted aggravated murder charge to a more serious type of murder charge, police Capt. Dan Zampelli said.
Stable Medicare drug premium seen
WASHINGTON - The Obama administration said Monday that the average premium for basic Medicare drug coverage will stay the same next year, $30 a month.
It’s the third year in a row of little or no change.
Consumer advocates cautioned that since the number is an average, some beneficiaries may see their monthly cost go up, while others get a decrease. They recommended that senior citizens should check their plan during open enrollment season this fall and shop around if they’re not satisfied.
In addition, Medicare recipients with high prescription costs are saving an average of $629 apiece because of a provision of the new health-care law that gradually eliminates a coverage gap called the doughnut hole.
Ex-Edwards aide won’t face contempt
RALEIGH, N.C. - A North Carolina prosecutor said Monday that he wouldn’t pursue contempt charges against a former aide to John Edwards related to a court fight over a video purported to show the ex-presidential candidate having sex with his former mistress.
A state judge in June assigned District Attorney Jim Woodall to weigh whether to pursue criminal charges against Andrew Young, his wife and two of their lawyers.
The contempt charges were tied to a lawsuit filed against the Youngs by Rielle Hunter, who was Edwards’ mistress as he sought the White House in 2008. The state court ordered sensitive documents in the lawsuit to be kept under seal, including a lengthy deposition given by Edwards.
Young and his lawyers acknowledged providing those documents to federal prosecutors investigating Edwards before his 2011 indictment but said they did so only after receiving a subpoena signed by a federal judge. Attorneys for the Youngs said they were asked by prosecutors to keep the subpoena a secret from Hunter and her lawyers.
Andrew Young was the government’s star witness at Edwards’ campaign-corruption trial this spring, spending more than a week on the witness stand. Edwards was acquitted on one count, and the jury deadlocked on five others. The U.S.
Justice Department decided against retrying Edwards.
Front Section, Pages 3 on 08/07/2012