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Darryl DYck / The Canadian Press via AP

Nation

vancouver water fight is a gas

Tucson, Arizona | Published: 07.13.2008
illinois
Fetish for hosiery leads to man's arrest
BELLEVILLE — A 36-year-old man whose admitted hankering for hosiery has landed him three prison stints and repeated judicial scoldings is accused of burglarizing a home last week, then stealing away with ladies' socks police say they found in his bedroom.
James Dowdy's arrest in this St. Louis suburb came while he was free on bond awaiting trial on attempted burglary and disorderly conduct charges filed last year in another supposed sock caper.
His mother pressed publicly for the legal system to institutionalize her live-in son for psychiatric treatment for the fixation she says has tormented him most of his life.
Prison, Linda Dowdy insisted, won't do him any good in tackling his fetish — which she thinks took hold when he clung to some of her socks as keepsakes while he was forced to live for a year with his dad as a child.
"He cries to me all the time, 'Mom, I hate myself. I'd rather be dead than live like this,' " his 59-year-old mother, her voice cracking, told The Associated Press. "He doesn't hurt anybody, and he never takes anything of value. He takes nothing but socks."
Yet she fears, as do police, that he may eventually be killed as an intruder.
IOWA
Flight is delayed after tick discovery
DES MOINES — Some wayward ticks delayed a United Airlines flight from Denver to Des Moines.
Flight 1178 was delayed for nearly six hours on Tuesday after a passenger informed a flight attendant that she had found a tick in economy class during a flight from Washington, D.C., to Denver.
The airline decided it couldn't fly the plane until it was cleaned of ticks, so passengers had to wait while another plane was flown from Colorado Springs to Denver. The flight was further delayed because of thunderstorms in the Denver area.
United spokeswoman Robin Urbanski said between one and three ticks were discovered. Urbanski said the airline hasn't figured out how the ticks got on the plane or what type of ticks were found.
The replacement plane took the 107 passengers to Des Moines.
INDIANA
State's tax revenues from gambling drop
INDIANAPOLIS — Indiana's gambling tax revenues are down for the first time in more than a decade — a sign that the normally booming industry is not immune to economic downturns.
For the first six months of 2008, the state collected $465 million in tax money from casinos, down from $488.6 million for the same period last year. The 2008 number includes taxes from the state's 11 casinos, plus two slot machine facilities that opened in June at the state's pari-mutuel tracks.
"To have everyone competing, the pie's just not big enough," said Mark Bommarito, vice president of sales and marketing for the French Lick Resort Casino.
But Indiana Gaming Commissioner Ernie Yelton cautioned against reading too much into the decline. "Historically, the industry has been resistant to the economy," Yelton said.
Most of Indiana's casinos had less revenue last month than in June 2007.
The gambling industry is considered somewhat recession-proof, but a combination of factors has contributed to the recent decline in Indiana, said Ball State University economist Michael Hicks. Gas prices are high, and recent flooding could have kept some gamblers at home, he said.
MICHIGAN
Delta leaves Lansing over fuel-price jump
LANSING — Delta Air Lines Inc. says high fuel costs are to blame for its decision to leave the Lansing market, taking with it 26 jobs and three flights to Cincinnati.
The Atlanta-based airline said last week that it will end service through its Comair Inc. commuter carrier at the end of August.
The Lansing State Journal says Delta dropped service from Lansing to Atlanta late last year.
Northwest Airlines Corp., UAL Corp.'s United Express and Allegiant Air will remain at Capital Region International Airport.
Minnesota
Hospital reports a busy birth day
ST. PAUL — Sixteen babies — eight boys and eight girls — were born in 17 hours Tuesday at Regions Hospital. Normally, the hospital has about five births a day.
Debbie McIlhon, a charge nurse for the hospital's Birth Center, says the nurses were "running all day just to keep up." The hospital had to call in extra nurses.
One new mother, Pang Yang of St. Paul, gave birth to her baby at home unexpectedly before being brought to the hospital by paramedics. While she was being taken by ambulance, her sister-in-law was giving birth at Regions Hospital.
MISSOURI
$55,000 is found in lockup's bathroom
CLAYTON — A jailer recently made a surprise find in the bathroom of the St. Louis County facility's intake center.
The correctional officer found $55,000 stuffed behind a toilet- paper dispenser at the St. Louis County Justice Center in downtown Clayton.
Police Chief Thomas Byrne says the bundle of money was in $100 and $50 bills.
None of the inmates who were interviewed said they knew anything about it.
Byrne said the money has been placed in a special bank account until the rightful owner is determined.
Nebraska
Motorcyclist ticketed after going 132 mph
LINCOLN — Doing 132 mph wasn't fast enough to outrun the law.
Nebraska State Patrol spokeswoman Deb Collins says a trooper clocked a 2008 Triumph motorcycle with Colorado plates at 132 mph near Seward Tuesday morning.
Soon, traffic helped slow the motorcycle, letting the trooper pull it over.
The motorcyclist was ticketed for careless driving and speeding. He faces a $300 fine and $44 in court costs.
The speed limit on most of Interstate 80 is 75 mph.
OHIO
Cleveland population drops after job losses
CLEVELAND — Hurt by manufacturing job losses, Cleveland had the largest population decline among the nation's big cities in the past year and the second-worst percentage drop since 2000, trailing only Hurricane Ka-trina-devastated New Orleans.
Among Ohio's six biggest cities, only Columbus and Cincinnati managed increases since 2000, the U.S. Census Bureau reported in population estimates released last week.
Cleveland's population dipped from 443,109 in 2006 to 438,042 last year, the biggest numerical drop among big U.S. cities, the Census Bureau said.
The city's 8.3 percent drop from 2000's 477,472 was the second-greatest rate decline in the nation, behind only New Orleans.
NORTH DAKOTA
Petitions to be filed on income-tax cut
BISMARCK — A proposal to cut North Dakota's income-tax rates has enough signatures to qualify for the November ballot and should soon be submitted to Secretary of State Al Jaeger, the campaign's chairman says.
The petition needs signatures from at least 12,844 eligible North Dakota voters. Duane Sand, who is the leader of the initiative campaign, said the petition has more than 13,800 names.
The initiative's drafters say it would reduce North Dakota's individual income tax rates by 50 percent, and its corporate tax rates by 15 percent.
Skeptics of the measure say it was poorly drafted, and that its proposed tax changes are not uniform.
South Dakota
Computer woes plague license-plate system
PIERRE — A team of 14 people is working 18-hour days to resolve problems that have plagued South Dakota's new license plate registration system, a state official said Wednesday.
The new computer system, which started July 1, has been unable to perform some functions and also has been operating too slowly, said Paul Kinsman, secretary of the state Department of Revenue and Regulation.
Gov. Mike Rounds has directed the Revenue Department and the state Bureau of Information and Telecommunications to get the system running properly as soon as possible, Kinsman said.
A law that took effect July 1 requires that license plates will stay with the owner instead of staying on a vehicle that is traded or sold. The computer system designed to carry out that change has been hampered by the problems.
CANADA
Court: Public safety trumps privacy right
WINNIPEG — Manitoba's highest court has ruled that when it comes to guns, the need to protect public safety trumps an individual's right to privacy when police go searching for weapons in homes.
The Court of Appeal decision gives the police more legal breathing room to seek out guns in the absence of a search warrant when they believe firearms might be present.
In a decision handed down last week, the Manitoba Court of Appeal refused Ryan Tereck's bid to have key evidence used to convict him on drug-production charges tossed.
A participant is sprayed during the second annual Vancouver Water Fight at Stanley Park in Vancouver, British Columbia. The gas mask might seem like overprotection, but squirters have been known to overdo soakings. In any event, this participant's get-up Saturday was eye-catching, if not spray-stopping.
The Associated Press
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