LITTLE ROCK — QUOTE OF THE DAY
“The net net of all this, as you can see, is by 2020, we’re able to produce somewhere
between 28 million barrels per day of oil and we won’t need to buy any oil from the Middle East or Venezuela or anywhere else where we don’t want to.”
Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney,
unveiling his energy plan Article, 1A1st lady meets Sikh victims’ families
MILWAUKEE - First lady Michelle Obama met on Thursday with families of those killed and wounded earlier this month in the shooting at a Sikh temple in Wisconsin.
Temple official Kulwant Singh Dhaliwal said the first lady offered her sympathies Thursday for the Aug. 5 tragedy. He called her appearance a “wonderful gesture.”
She met with families in a hallway of Oak Creek High School.
Dhaliwal said Sikhs have taken comfort in the knowledge the shooting has at least helped them educate the world about their religion.
Amardeep Kaleka is the son of the temple president, one of six people killed. Kaleka said his father is educating more people about Sikhism in death than he could in life.
Holmes a concern, university affirms
CENTENNIAL, Colorado - The former graduate student accused in a deadly mass shooting at a movie theater had failed a key exam six weeks before the rampage, made threats and was banned from his college, prosecutors said Thursday.
University of Colorado Denver spokesman Jacque Montgomery later disputed that James Holmes was banned from campus but confirmed that a criminal background check was done on him before the July 20 attack.
She said a court gag order prevented her from discussing who requested the check, who performed it and who saw the results.
It’s the first explicit confirmation from the university that concerns had been raised about Holmes at the school before the shooting. University officials did not elaborate about why they conducted the background check.
Montgomery did say that campus Police Chief Doug Abraham was referring to that background check when he said at a July 23 news conference that Holmes had only a minor infraction on his record.
Prosecutors made their new claims Thursday against Holmes in their effort to persuade a judge to allow them access to 100 pages of education records subpoenaed from the university, where Holmes had been a neuroscience doctoral candidate.
The university turned over the documents last week, but Holmes’ lawyers moved to keep them sealed.
Holmes is charged with killing 12 people and wounding 58 during a midnight showing of the latest Batman movie.
Train’s coal smothered 2, police say
ELLICOTT CITY, Md. - Two young women were killed when a freight train derailed and toppled so much coal on them they couldn’t breathe, authorities said Thursday.
The bodies of Elizabeth Nass and Rose Mayr were found buried under coal but still seated on the edge of a railroad bridge in Ellicott City, police have said. They were not hit by the train, Howard County police spokesman Sherry Llewellyn said.
Llewellyn said an autopsy found the women died from accidental asphyxia.
Both were 19-year-old college students. Nass attended James Madison University in Virginia and Mayr was a nursing student at the University of Delaware.
Tweets and photos from the women indicated they were drinking on the bridge as they enjoyed a summer night together before heading back to college.
Ex-envoy in crash, faces DWI charge
SPOKANE, Wash. - Former U.S. Ambassador Ryan Crocker is facing hit-and-run and drunken-driving charges in Washington state after striking a tractor-trailer when he tried to make a right turn from the left lane, authorities said Thursday.
The 63-year-old Spokane native registered a 0.160 blood-alcohol content - twice the legal limit - and a 0.152 in successive breath tests when he was arrested Aug.
14 in Spokane Valley, Washington State Patrol Trooper Troy Briggs said.
Crocker pleaded innocent in court the next day, KXLYTV reported.
Front Section, Pages 4 on 08/24/2012