QUOTE OF THE DAY
“Is it weeks, is it longer? I really don’t know.”
George Machan, a landslide specialist, who said that despite an increase in the speed of a slow-moving slide in Jackson, Wyo., it was not possible to predict whether or when the hillside would fully collapse Article, 2A
Suspect in highway shootings charged
KANSAS CITY, Mo. - Authorities announced charges Friday against a Kansas City-area man suspected in connection with about a dozen recent highway shootings that have wounded three people.
Jackson County prosecutor Jean Peters Baker said at a news conference that 27-year-old Mohammed Whitaker of Grandview has been charged with 18 felony counts and is being held in lieu of $1 million bond. Baker said Whitaker was charged with two counts of shooting into a motor vehicle and injuring a person, seven counts of shooting into a motor vehicle and nine counts of armed criminal action.
At least six of the shootings occurred near Grandview.
The Kansas City suburb is home to an area known as the Grandview Triangle, where three interstates and U.S. 50 intersect.
Other shootings were reported in the Missouri suburbs of Blue Springs and Lee’s Summit and Leawood, Kan. Two of the wounded drivers were shot in the leg, and the third was shot in the arm. None of their wounds was considered life-threatening.
The last confirmed shooting believed to be connected to the case was reported April 6, about a month after the shootings began.
Texas camp raid nets 80 illegal aliens
McALLEN, Texas - At least 80 aliens suspected of entering the United States illegally were arrested in a makeshift encampment in suburban South Texas.
They were found in an undeveloped patch of scrub near an abandoned tennis club in McAllen. They were camped under tents and huts camouflaged with mesquite branches and cacti.
Some told authorities they had been there sleeping on pieces of cardboard with little food or water for at least a week.
A short time later, the Border Patrol arrested 132 aliens found in two buildings on a property in Alton, about 8 miles west of McAllen, according to KRGV-TV, Channel 5.
The Border Patrol made more than 154,000 arrests on the section of the U.S.-Mexico border in southernmost Texas last year, more than anywhere else on the Southwest border. The majority of the aliens come from Honduras, El Salvador and Guatemala.
Ex-Blue Angels chief relieved of duty
SAN DIEGO - A Navy officer was relieved of duty Friday because of unspecified alleged misconduct while he was commanding officer of the Blue Angels precision flying team, the service said.
Capt. Gregory McWherter was removed from his post as executive officer of Naval Base Coronado, where he had served since November, officials said in a statement.
An investigation continued into recent allegations of an “inappropriate command climate” at the Navy Flight Demonstration Squadron based at Pensacola Naval Air Station, in Florida the statement said.
The allegations refer specifically to the period when McWherter served as Blue Angels commanding officer, from November 2008 to November 2010 and again from May 2011 to November 2012.
The probe, led by an admiral whom the Navy declined to identify, began in March and results from a complaint filed by one person, said Cmdr. Mike Kafka, a spokesman for the Naval Air Force Atlantic Command based in Norfolk, Va.
Sex case stays for California educator
RIVERSIDE, Calif. - A judge on Friday refused to dismiss sexual assault charges against an educator who was confronted with the allegations of abuse in a phone call by a former student who then posted the conversation on YouTube.
Andrea Cardosa, a 40-year-old former assistant principal, was charged in February with 16 felony counts, including five counts of aggravated assault on a child.
Prosecutors said Cardosa abused the former student, who is now 28, from 1997 to 2001, starting when the child was 12 and attending Chemawa Middle School in Riverside.
Another former student came forward after seeing the video, and Cardosa was also charged with abusing her.
In court papers filed for Friday’s hearing, prosecutors said Cardosa molested the girl over 100 times and that the acts were committed in a locker room and Cardosa’s car and at the home of Cardosa’s sister, where the two were almost discovered.
Front Section, Pages 4 on 04/19/2014