LITTLE ROCK — QUOTE OF THE DAY
“Now Maine will be able to make its case: This is beautiful, you should come here to get married.”
Lee Badgett, research director at the Williams Institute and an economics professor at the University of Massachusetts, on the economic effects of Main’s vote to legalize gay marriage Article, this page
1 missing, 4 hurt after platform fire
NEW ORLEANS - As crews search for a worker still missing after an oil platform explosion and fire, doctors said one of four men burned in the blaze is improving and is now in fair condition.
Doctors said two remain in critical condition and one in serious condition.
The company that owns the platform that caught fire in the Gulf of Mexico on Friday pledges to keep searching for the missing worker. Another worker’s body was found Saturday near the platform.
Baton Rouge General Medical Center said in a news release Sunday that 50-year-old Wilberto Ilagan of the Philippines told Dr. Jeffrey Littleton that he wanted his family and country to know he’s doing well.
The Advocate reports that the other men’s names are being withheld for privacy reasons.
Police helicopters collide; 6 hurt
ALTADENA, Calif. - Two police helicopters collided over a helipad Saturday, leaving five Pasadena officers and a civilian with minor injuries, officials said.
Police believed the collision occurred when the rotator blades of a chopper that was landing and one that was taking off touched, Lt. Phlunte Riddle said.
The collision caused the blade of one of the helicopters to fall off and its tail to break.
The injured were taken to hospitals for further evaluation after the 4 p.m. collision in Altadena. Riddle said they included five police officers and a civilian observer in one of the two Bell OH-58A helicopters.
One helicopter crew was on routine patrol and the other was assigned to monitor traffic from the UCLA-Southern California football game at the Rose Bowl, she said.
The weather was drizzly and cloudy at the time of the accident.
FAA spokesman Allen Kenitzer said his agency and the National Transportation Safety Board will investigate.
Atheist’s sign moves Nativity out
LOS ANGELES - Damon Vix didn’t have to go to court to push Christmas out of the city of Santa Monica, Calif.
He just joined the festivities.
The atheist’s anti-God message alongside a life-sized Nativity display in a park overlooking the beach ignited a debate that burned brighter than any Christmas candle.
Santa Monica officials snuffed the city’s holiday tradition this year rather than referee the religious rumble, prompting churches that have set up a 14-scene Christian diorama for decades to sue over freedom-of-speech violations. Their attorney will ask a federal judge today to restore the depiction of Jesus’ birth, while the city aims to eject the case.
“It’s a sad, sad commentary on the attitudes of the day that a nearly 60-year-old Christmas tradition is now having to hunt for a home, something like our savior had to hunt for a place to be born because the world was not interested,” said Hunter Jameson, head of the nonprofit Santa Monica Nativity Scene Committee that is suing.
Missing from the courtroom drama will be Vix and his fellow atheists, who are not parties to the case.
Front Section, Pages 3 on 11/19/2012