"83 patrons rescued from eatery on barge that floated away in Ky.; Flooding also causing concerns in Northeast" by Dan Sewell, Associated Press / March 13, 2011
COVINGTON, Ky. — Everyone on board, including former Cincinnati Bengals star Cris Collinsworth, was safe....
I'm sick of celebrity journalism in AmeriKa.
Swollen rivers and other waterways also have overflowed their banks from Maine to Maryland, and officials yesterday were monitoring several that were on the verge of overflowing.
Major flooding has forced hundreds of people from their homes in the Northeast in recent days.
There were major concerns in New England that rising waters could break up river ice, creating ice jams that can cause flooding. New York, from Manhattan to the Canadian border, was under a flood watch as heavy rain and melting snow closed roads.
The flooding was also blamed for at least two deaths....
Forecasters warned that the worst was yet to come for many areas, especially parts of flood-prone northern New Jersey that were under water after a storm that dropped as much as 5 inches of rain in some areas from Thursday afternoon through Friday morning. That came just days after most of the same areas — which are emerging from a snow-filled winter — were flooded by another round of heavy rains....
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Also see: Flood waters begin to recede in N.J., leaving damage but less than expected
The kinship continues:
"Kentucky teen charged in slaying of kin" by Associated Press / March 24, 2011
EDMONTON, Ky. — A troubled 15-year-old shot and killed relatives who had taken him in because his mother could not control him, then stole their car and fled with a 12-year-old girlfriend they had ordered him not to see, police and family members said....
You know, the classic American love story.
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"Kin, caseworkers charged in girl’s death" by Associated Press / March 24, 2011
NEW YORK — Two former child welfare workers and a grandmother pleaded not guilty yesterday to charges in the death of a 4-year-old girl who was starved, beaten, and drugged, and a prosecutor announced that a grand jury would be convened to look at evidence of potential “systematic failure’’ in the troubled agency....
Related: Riley Redux
In another case earlier this week, a man was charged with assault and reckless endangerment after his girlfriend’s 17-month-old foster child was found unconscious and badly beaten....
“The particular merits of this criminal case aside, we are very concerned that today’s indictments of social work staff may have the opposite effect from what’s intended because it may discourage excellent, idealistic individuals from taking jobs helping our society’s neediest and most vulnerable children,’’ the child welfare agency said in a statement....
And all they are worried about is their image and sales pitch?
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What's next for the kids, a school lunch?
"Kentucky chemical plant blast kills 2" by Associated Press / March 23, 2011
LOUISVILLE, Ky. — Two explosions rocked a chemical plant and threw debris hundreds of yards from a burning building, killing two workers and injuring two others, officials said yesterday.
Firefighters planned to let the fire burn itself out and officials said the air quality was not a threat to nearby residents....
Sigh. The government said the same about the toxic stew after 9/11, they are lying about the radiation coming from Japan, and now this.
As a thoughtful, caring citizen it is really an eye-opening slap in the face.
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"Ky. woman accused of Bosnian war crimes" by Associated Press / March 18, 2011
LOUISVILLE, Ky. — A woman who served in the Croatian army faces extradition from a small Kentucky town to face charges that she forced prisoners to drink human blood and gasoline during the bloody aftermath of the breakup of Yugoslavia.
US Marshals arrested Azra Basic, 52, on Tuesday in Stanton, about 45 miles east of Lexington, where she lives and works at the nearby Nestle Prepared Foods plant. She has lived in Kentucky for several years, but it is not clear how she wound up in the rural city....
I'm thinking with CIA assistance, but that is just me.
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Too bad state can't just kill her:
"Tenn., Ky. turn over lethal injection drug to DEA" by Roger Alford and Kristin M. Hall Associated Press / April 1, 2011
FRANKFORT, Ky.—The U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration has taken supplies of a key lethal injection drug from Kentucky and Tennessee, effectively preventing any executions in three states while it investigates how the drug was imported during a national shortage.
I like that last bit; I'm so sick of killing in this world.
States have been scrambling over the past year to find a new supplier of sodium thiopental, a fast-acting sedative in a three-drug cocktail used when putting inmates to death, since its primary manufacturer in the United States stopped making the drug.
Related: Slow Saturday Special: States Scramble to Execute
Why does that not surprise me?
In March, the DEA took Georgia's entire supply, putting a hold on executions there following claims from a defense attorney for a death row inmate that the state bought the drug from a fly-by-night outfit in the United Kingdom.
Kentucky officials confirmed Friday that they turned their supply over to the DEA and Tennessee officials said Friday that they relinquished theirs on March 22. The DEA and state officials have given few details about the investigation except saying there were questions about whether it was imported properly.
Kentucky officials said they were cooperating in an unspecified federal investigation and the state willingly turned over its entire supply....
Some states have considered switching from sodium thiopental to pentobarbital, a sedative that has a range of medical uses and is used to euthanize animals. Pentobarbital has already been used to execute prisoners in Ohio and Oklahoma.
LITERALLY treating them LIKE ANIMALS!
Kentucky will continue to look for a source of sodium thiopental.
I think I'll stop looking at the Globe now.
