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MONDAY, AUGUST 26, 2013
Briefs • Girl who had double lung-transplant patient improvin PHILADELPHIA (AP) — The mother of a 10-year-old Pennsylvania girl recovering from two double lung transplants says the girl has been taken off oxygen and is doing well. Janet Murnaghan said Sunday that her daughter Sarah was taken off oxygen but still gets support from a machine that helps her breathe. Murnaghan says that in the last few days Sarah has started to walk around the hospital with the aid of a walker and has even gone outside briefly. The Newtown Square girl with end-stage cystic fibrosis received the transplants at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia after a federal judge intervened in her parents’ lawsuit challenging national transplant rules. Sarah’s first set of adult lungs failed after a transplant June 12. A second set was transplanted three days later.
Driver in deadly crash admits to drinking beer JEFFERSON TOWNSHIP, N.J. (AP) — A pregnant woman and a child were among three people killed in an SUV crash that left six others injured in northern New Jersey, authorities said Sunday. The crash happened Saturday night on Route 15 near an intersection in Jefferson Township. Investigators said the vehicle suddenly swerved and left the roadway before overturning, ejecting several passengers. Lucila Colon, 62, and Tevia Booth, 11, died at the scene, while Julissa Colon, 36, died later at a hospital, Morris County prosecutors said. Julissa Colon was five months pregnant, and her fetus didn’t survive. It wasn’t immediately clear if the two Colons were related. The SUV’s driver, 37-year-old Luis Torres of Jersey City, was being held Sunday on $750,000 cash bail. He’s charged with three counts each of aggravated manslaughter and vehicular homicide and five counts of assault by auto. Jefferson Township police say Torres told them he and his passengers had attended a family gathering that day. Polie say Torres also admitted he had been drinking beer for most of the day.
People • Young boy with rare amoeba virus put on ventilator MIAMI (AP) — Family members of a 12-year-old boy who was infected by a rare and deadly amoeba say he’s on a ventilator. Zachary Reyna has fought the brain infection for weeks. Family members say he was infected Reyna while knee boarding with friends in a ditch near his family’s LaBelle home on Aug. 3. His uncle, Homer Villarreal, said doctors told family members on Saturday that the boy’s brain isn’t showing any activity. “The doctors did all they could do. It’s up to the good man upstairs,” he said, adding that the family was praying. “I just wish a miracle would happen.” Last week, the family had reported on a Facebook page that antibiotics had defeated the infection and tests showed negative activity from the amoeba. But on Sunday, Villarreal told The Associated Press that the infection had resulted in extensive brain damage.
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Florida shooter was friends with one victim LAKE BUTLER, Fla. (AP) — A longtime employee of a Florida trucking company was once very close with his former boss, even described as his right-hand man. But police say Hubert Allen Jr. drove around Saturday and shot former co-workers and his onetime boss, killing the ex-employer and another man before turning a gun on himself. On Sunday, residents in this close-knit community near Jacksonville mourned and tried to piece together
what happened. Police didn’t release any new details or information on a possible motive. “Mr. Hubert was a real quiet guy,” said the Rev. Patrick Maxwell of the Victory Christian Center. “He wasn’t the type who would go around and say I have a grudge against anyone.” Maxwell said he visited Allen’s daughter and grandchildren after the shootings. The family was as surprised as the rest of the town and had no idea
what sparked the shootings, Maxwell said. Allen’s wife died in the late 1990s and he lived alone. Maxwell said he had developed a serious heart disease and his church had prayed for him recently. Allen, 72, didn’t attend the church, but his daughter and grandchildren did. It wasn’t yet clear why Allen stopped working for Pritchett Trucking Inc. On Saturday, Allen drove to a location owned by his former boss, Marvin
Pritchett. He shot and killed former co-worker Rolando Gonzalez-Delgado, 28, around 9 a.m., then went a short distance and killed Pritchett, 80, who founded the company in 1980. A few minutes later, Allen pulled over where another former co-worker was driving a farm tractor, exchanged words with him and fired a shotgun, authorities said. The victim, 66-year-old Lewis Mabrey Jr., was in good condition Sunday, hospital spokeswoman Nickie Doria
said. Allen then went to the company’s headquarters in Lake Butler and shot 44-yearold David Griffis in the stomach, the sheriff’s office said. Griffis was in critical condition Sunday. Allen killed himself at his nearby home. It was clear to everyone in town that Allen and Pritchett had a good relationship at one point. “You had the assumption, no, the conviction, that they were close,” Maxwell said.
U.S. overhauls how it recognizes Indian tribes KENT, Conn. (AP) — His tribe once controlled huge swaths of what is now New York and Connecticut, but the shrunken reservation presided over by Alan Russell today hosts little more than four mostly dilapidated homes and a pair of rattlesnake dens. The Schaghticoke Indian Tribe leader believes its fortunes may soon be improving. As the U.S. Interior Department overhauls its rules for recognizing American Indian tribes, a nod from the federal government appears within reach, potentially bolstering its claims to surrounding land and opening the door to a tribal-owned casino. “It’s the future generations we’re fighting for,” Russell said. The rules floated by the Bureau of Indian Affairs, intended to streamline the approval process, are seen by some as lowering the bar through changes such as one requiring that tribes demonstrate political continuity since 1934 and not “first contact” with European settlers. Across the country, the push is setting up battles with host communities and already recognized tribes who fear upheaval. In Kent, a small Berkshires Mountains town with one of New England’s oldest covered bridges, residents have been calling the selectman’s office
with their concerns. The tribe claims land including property held by the Kent School, a boarding school, and many residents put up their own money a decade ago to fight a recognition bid by another faction of the Schaghticokes. Members of the state’s congressional delegation also have been in touch with the first selectman, Bruce Adams, who said he fears court battles over land claims and the possibility the tribe would open its own businesses as a sovereign nation within town boundaries. “Everybody is on board that we have to do what we can to prevent this from happening,” he said. The new rules were proposed in June by the Bureau of Indian Affairs, which invited public comment at hearings over the summer in Oregon, California, Michigan, Maine and Louisiana. President Barack Obama’s administration intends to improve a recognition process that has been criticized as slow, inconsistent and overly susceptible to political influence. Federal recognition, which has been granted to 566 American tribes, is coveted because it brings increased health and education benefits to tribal members in addition to land protections and opportunities for commercial development.
AP
In this photo provided by the Smithsonian’s National Zoo, a member of the panda team at the Smithsonian’s National Zoo performs the first neonatal exam Sunday on a giant panda cub born Friday in Washington. The cub appeared to be in excellent health, zookeepers reported after a 10-minute physical exam.
Panda cub doing just fine WASHINGTON (AP) — The giant panda cub at the Smithsonian’s National Zoo appears to be in excellent health, zookeepers reported after a 10-minute physical exam Sunday morning. The panda, born Friday afternoon, weighs 4.8 ounces, is pink with white fur and wriggled and squealed loudly when it was taken away from its mother, zoo officials said. A second cub was stillborn Saturday night, but zookeepers were still overjoyed at the prospect of one healthy cub given that pandas are critically endangered and breeding them in captivity has proved difficult, especially in Washington.
The cub’s mother, Mei Xiang, gave birth to her only surviving cub, a male named Tai Shan, in 2005. Tai Shan enjoyed rock star status before he was returned to China in 2010. China owns the pandas at the National Zoo. The new cub had a full stomach, and veterinarians reported that it has been digesting its food, zoo spokeswoman Pamela Baker-Masson said Sunday. Its heartbeat is steady and its lungs appear to be functioning properly. Mei Xiang gave birth to a cub last year after several years of failed breeding, but the cub died after six days. Its lungs hadn’t fully developed and likely
weren’t sending enough oxygen to its liver. Following that disappointment, zookeepers changed their protocols for newborn pandas in consultation with Chinese breeders. The plan was for veterinarians to get their hands on the panda within 48 hours of its birth, and after two failed attempts on Saturday, panda keeper Marty Dearie was able to pry the cub away from Mei Xiang on Sunday morning. “All the external features looked perfectly normal, so the cub has been described as vibrant, healthy and active,” Baker-Masson said. “My colleagues were very, very happy. This is joyful news.”
‘Butler’ movie stays on top of box office race NEW YORK (AP) — “Lee Daniels’ The Butler” served up a second helping at the box office, topping the weekend with $17 million according to studio estimates Sunday. That was enough to lead all films on a late August weekend known as a dumping ground for studios following their summer blockbusters and before the start of the fall moviegoing season. Daniels’ historical drama about a long-serving White House butler, starring Forest Whitaker and Oprah Winfrey, last weekend opened with $24.6 million for the Weinstein Co. Three new releases failed to catch on. The teen fantasy “Mortal Instruments: City of Bones,” adapted
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from the popular young adult book series, opened tepidly in third with $9.3 million on the weekend and $14 million since opening Wednesday. With franchise hopes, Sony Screen Gems has already started production on a sequel, again starring Lily Collins as a New York teenager who discovers she has mystical powers. Edgar Wright’s pub-crawl-gone-wrong comedy “The World’s End” opened with $8.9 million for Focus Features. That was a better start for “The World’s End,” which stars Simon Pegg, than Wright’s last film with the actor: 2007’s “Hot Fuzz.” It opened with $5.8 million. Playing in 1,549 theaters, “The World’s End”
did its business in less than half the theaters of “The Butler” or “Mortal Instruments.” Despite good reviews, Lionsgate’s home-invasion horror flick “You’re Next” opened weakly with $7.1 million. With a cumulative total of $52.3 million, “The Butler” is headed for a domestic haul of $100 million. It has followed the release pattern of another movie about race and domestic service: the 2011 drama “The Help,” also released in August. The Weinstein Co. hopes that “The Butler” will similarly lead to Oscar nominations. Paul Dergarabedian, analyst for box-office tracker Hollywood.com,
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attributed the success of “The Butler” particularly to the marketing power of Winfrey and a savvy choice of a release date with little competition. “This is a film that you wouldn’t want to open in June or July,” said Dergarabedian. “The release date that the Weinstein Co. picked absolutely paid off for them.” In its third week of release, Warner Bros.’ R-rated road trip comedy “We’re the Millers,” starring Jason Sudeikis and Jennifer Aniston, continued to thrive. It took in $13.5 million CHECK OUT THE LATEST POSTS ON kpcnews.com
over the weekend, bringing its overall total to $91.7 million. Woody Allen’s “Blue Jasmine” became his widest release ever. Sony Pictures Classics expanded Allen’s drama of a ruined socialite starring Cate Blanchett to 1,283 theaters. It made $4.3 million over the weekend after earning more than $10 million in four weeks of limited release. The 3-D release of Universal’s “Jurassic Park,” which opened in North America in April, led the overseas market with $30 million over the weekend,