Postal worker shot, killed in mail truck
DALLAS -- A U.S. Postal Service worker was found fatally shot inside a mail truck along a busy highway in Dallas on Monday, and investigators are treating the case as a homicide, according to police.
Officers found the worker's body inside the government vehicle around 2:30 a.m. after responding to a reported shooting along Interstate 30 just west of downtown, according to a statement released by Dallas police.
Senior Cpl. DeMarquis Black said no arrests have been made, and investigators are still trying to determine a possible motive behind the shooting. The victim's name hasn't been released.
The U.S. Postal Service operates two large mail sorting and processing complexes nearby, according to Amanda McMurrey, an inspector with the U.S. Postal Inspection Service , the law enforcement and security arm of the USPS.
McMurrey had no immediate information on the employee's route, but she said it isn't unusual for a Postal Service worker to be on the job before dawn.
Gunman fires on family at Texas eatery
SAN ANTONIO -- A masked shooter opened fire on a family waiting to be seated at a San Antonio restaurant, wounding a 6-year-old boy and four of his relatives, police said Monday.
Police Chief William McManus said shortly after the Sunday night shooting that the boy was shot in the leg and was expected to survive, but that two of the adults' injuries were life-threatening. He said investigators don't believe the shooting was random.
The child, two men and two women were sitting on a bench outside a Texas Roadhouse when they were struck by gunfire around 8:40 p.m., according to a police report.
The gunman walked up to a nearby parking lot and fired multiple rounds from a handgun before fleeing, according to the report. Police said the shooter was about 15 feet from the front of the restaurant when he opened fire.
Police said the gunman hasn't been identified and remains at large.
Georgia hazardous waste fund shorted
ATLANTA -- Georgia has more than 500 hazardous sites in need of costly cleanup, but an analysis of state spending shows that it routinely shorts the trust fund that's supposed to pay for them.
Less than half of the $14.5 million in fees the state collects on average for hazardous waste cleanup annually is spent on that need, a WSB-TV analysis of state budget figures shows. The rest goes into Georgia's general fund for other purposes.
"We find that a lot of people had no idea this was going on," said Jesse Demonbreun-Chapman with the Georgia Water Coalition. The issue of the hazardous waste sites was included in the Georgia Water Coalition's publication, "Dirty Dozen: 2017's Worst Offenses Against Georgia's Water."
There are 528 sites on Georgia's cleanup list, ranging from closed dry-cleaning businesses to old landfills.
On average, 11 hazardous sites come off the list each year, but an average of eight new sites are added in the same span. There are 166 sites that have been on the state's list since it was created in 1994.
Kentucky AG sues opioid distributor
FRANKFORT, Ky. -- Kentucky's attorney general filed a lawsuit Monday against another pharmaceutical distributor it said was linked to a pipeline inundating the state with dangerously addictive opioid painkillers.
Cardinal Health was accused by Attorney General Andy Beshear of distributing millions of prescription opioid doses into a state struggling with drug overdose deaths.
Kentucky pharmacies filled 307.2 million doses of opioids from Feb. 1, 2016 to Jan. 31 of this year -- amounting to 69 doses for every Kentuckian, Beshear said. Based on its market share, Cardinal Health would have distributed 63.6 million of those doses, he said.
Cardinal Health called the lawsuit "baseless."
The latest lawsuit accuses Cardinal Health of using misleading business practices to funnel huge volumes of highly addictive prescription drugs into the state. It claims the Ohio-based company failed to report suspiciously large shipments to state and federal authorities.
Last year, more than 1,400 people died from drug overdoses in Kentucky.
A Section on 02/20/2018