West Virginia
Suspect in shooting of 2 deputies killed
CRAIGSVILLE, W.Va. – An 84-year-old West Virginia man who shot and injured two deputies was killed by police Saturday after he emerged from his barricaded house with a weapon, police said.
The death of John Evans outside his central West Virginia home escalated after a 911 call from a neighbor who told police Evans threatened him with a firearm over an unspecified dispute, said Sgt. Michael Baylous, a state police spokesman.
When a Nicholas County deputy arrived at Evans’ house, Evans shot him with a shotgun, Baylous said. The second deputy was shot when he responded to the scene.
Both deputies were airlifted to Charleston for treatment of wounds that are not considered life threatening, Baylous said.
Michigan
Man wins his first-ever cherry-pit spitting contest
EAU CLAIRE, Mich. – Matt “BB Gun” Krause won his first-ever International Cherry Pit Spitting Championship on Saturday, returning the crown to a family that has dominated the annual competition in southwestern Michigan for four decades.
Krause was crowned the most “spit-tacular” competitor at the championship event held at Tree-Mendus Fruit Farm, just north of the Indiana border.
But to be the champ, the 30-year-old Krause first had to beat out a competitive field that included fellow family members, who also were former champions. Krause’s father, Rick “Pellet Gun” Krause, and older brother, Brian “Young Gun” Krause, had won 24 of the previous 39 championships.
Washington, D.C.
Solar powered plane on final leg of flight to NYC
WASHINGTON – A solar-powered aircraft lifted off from a suburban Washington airport before dawn Saturday, embarking on the final leg of a history-making cross-country flight.
The Solar Impulse flew out of Dulles International Airport a little before 5 a.m. en route to New York City. The flight plan for the revolutionary plane takes it past the Statue of Liberty before landing at New York’s JFK Airport early today.
“This is a leg where everybody is quite moved,” Bertrand Piccard, one of two pilots who took turns flying the Solar Impulse across the United States, said shortly after the aircraft was in the air.
He stood on the tarmac, giving an enthusiastic thumbs-up as the plane soared into the morning sky.
The Solar Impulse was expected to set down in New York around 2 a.m. Weather for the flight, which will take the plane over Maryland and Delaware, then up the coast past Atlantic City, was expected to be good. Andre Borschberg was piloting the final leg.
GOP presses Democrats for student loan changes
WASHINGTON – Congressional Republicans are pushing to overhaul the government’s student loan program, as both Democrats and the GOP blame each other for letting interest rates on the subsidized loans double last Monday.
In the weekly Republican radio address Saturday, congresswoman Lynn Jenkins of Kansas is pressing Senate Democrats to act on legislation that ties the rate to the financial markets, similar to a proposal from President Barack Obama. Senate Democrats unsuccessfully sought a two-year extension of the current 3.4 percent rate.
Jenkins tells students they deserve a more fair approach, one free of politics that allows students to take advantage of lower rates and have more peace of mind.
The White House predicts a deal will be reached before students return to school from their summer break.
Defense Dept workers face first of 11 furlough days
WASHINGTON – A day without pay, the first of 11 through September, comes next week for more than 650,000 people who hold civilian jobs with the Defense Department. Officials worry that the Pentagon will be hit even harder by layoffs in 2014 if automatic budget cuts continue as planned.
Roughly 85 percent of the department’s nearly 900,000 civilians around the world will be furloughed one day each week over the next three months, according to the latest statistics provided by the Pentagon. But while defense officials were able to shift money around to limit the furloughs this year, thousands of civilian, military and contract jobs could be on the chopping block next year.
Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel is expected to provide senators with more details early next week on how the next wave of across-the-board budget cuts will affect the department, said Pentagon press secretary George Little. But while defense officials have not yet released details on the impact of the cuts, Gen. Ray Odierno, the Army’s chief of staff, has warned that as many as 100,000 more active-duty, National Guard and Reserve soldiers could lose their jobs if Congress allows billions of dollars in automatic budget cuts to continue next year.
Associated Press
