Deputy’s killer had lengthy record
HOUSTON – The man charged with capital murder in the fatal shooting of a uniformed suburban Houston sheriff’s deputy had a lengthy criminal record going back a decade, but never spent more than short stints in jail.
Shannon J. Miles, whose criminal record includes convictions for resisting arrest and disorderly conduct with a firearm, was to be arraigned Monday in the shooting of Darren Goforth, a 10-year veteran of the Harris County Sheriff’s Office. Miles’ arrest Saturday came less than 24 hours after authorities said he ambushed Goforth at a suburban Houston Chevron station.
Harris County Sheriff Ron Hickman said the attack was “clearly unprovoked,” and there is no evidence that Goforth knew Miles. Investigators have no information from Miles that would shed light on his motive, Hickman said.
“Our assumption is that he (Goforth) was a target because he wore a uniform,” the sheriff said.
General Mills battles greenhouse gases
GOLDEN VALLEY, Minn. – General Mills has set an ambitious goal of reducing its greenhouse-gas emissions 28 percent by 2025 – not just within its own operations but from farm to fork to landfill.
CEO Ken Powell, in outlining the plan to The Associated Press ahead of the company’s official announcement Monday, said General Mills is compelled to act because climate change ultimately will be bad for business.
General Mills will invest more than $100 million in energy efficiency and clean energy within its own facilities worldwide, and partner with suppliers to foster more sustainable agricultural practices, including sourcing products from an additional 250,000 acres of organic production globally by 2020.
Awakenings neurologist author dies at 82
NEW YORK – There was the blind man who had the disastrous experience of regaining his sight. The surgeon who developed a sudden passion for music after being struck by lightning. And most famously, the man who mistook his wife for a hat.
Those stories and many more, taking the reader to the distant ranges of human experience, came from the pen of Dr. Oliver Sacks.
Sacks, 82, died Sunday at his home in New York City, his assistant, Kate Edgar, said. In February, he had announced that he was terminally ill with a rare eye cancer that had spread to his liver.
As a practicing neurologist, Sacks looked at some of his patients with a writer’s eye and found publishing gold.
Post Office cuts harm delivery speeds
WASHINGTON – Amid a significant downsizing of the money-strapped U.S. Postal Service, the number of letters arriving late has jumped by almost 50 percent since the start of the year.
And that’s as measured against the agency’s own newly relaxed standards. The delays have become so serious that the Postal Service’s watchdog issued an urgent alert earlier this month recommending that postal officials put all further closures of mail-sorting plants on hold until service stabilizes.
Mail that’s supposed to take two days to arrive took longer – anywhere from 6 to 15 percent of the time during the first six months of 2015, investigators found, a decline in service of almost 7 percent from the same period last year. Letters that should take three to five days took longer anywhere from 18 to 44 percent of the time, a 38 percent decline in performance over the same time last year.
Washington Post, AP
