FRIDAY, OCTOBER 6, 2006
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Volume 5 Issue 282
Santa Monica Daily Press A newspaper with issues
Weller trial headed for jury
DAILY LOTTERY 6 19 32 33 40 Meganumber: 39 Jackpot: $25M 12 15 32 43 45 Meganumber: 11 Jackpot: $33M 10 13 23 25 32 MIDDAY: 2 1 0 EVENING: 6 4 8 1st: 04 Big Ben 2nd: 05 California Classic 3rd: 08 Gorgeous George RACE TIME: 1:43.72 Although every effort is made to ensure the accuracy of the winning number information, mistakes can occur. In the event of any discrepancies, California State laws and California Lottery regulations will prevail. Complete game information and prize claiming instructions are available at California Lottery retailers. Visit the California State Lottery web site at http://www.calottery.com
NEWS OF THE WEIRD BY
CHUCK
BY KEVIN HERRERA
SHEPARD
Daily Press Staff Writer
In September, police in New Zealand dropped the dangerous-driving charge against the armless driver reported in News of the Weird in April, satisfied that he steers well enough with his left foot (though his speeding ticket remained). In August, though, the St. Petersburg Times profiled Michael Wiley, 39, of Port Richey, Fla., an enthusiastic driver despite having lost both arms and half a leg in a childhood accident. Wrote the Times, “He guides the key into the ignition with his mouth. Turns it with his toes. Shifts with his knee. Bites the headlight switch. Jams his stump of a left arm into the steering wheel and whips it around.” On the minus side, his license was revoked long ago, and reckless driving charges flourish, including the latest, one day after the Times story ran. (And in September, he was charged with domestic assault, with his head.)
TODAY IN HISTORY Today is the 279th day of 2006. There are 86 days left in the year. The era of talking pictures arrived with the opening of 1927 “The Jazz Singer,” a movie starring Al Jolson which featured both silent and sound-synchronized scenes. Democrat Lloyd Bentsen lambasted Republican Dan Quayle during their vice-presidential debate, telling Quayle, “Senator, you’re no Jack Kennedy.”
1988 INDEX
Horoscopes Say yes tonight, Virgo
2
Surf Report Water temperature: 66°
3
Opinion Republicans on the defense for fall
4
Crime Watch A tired situation
6
National Farmers crops need wells
10
Entertainment An artists haven
14
People in the News Lucas’ new ‘War’
21
MOVIETIMES Catch a flick!
21
Comics Yak it up, yakmeister
22
RALPHS
See WELLER TRIAL, page 8
Fabian Lewkowicz/Daily Press William Turner, owner of the Berman/Turner Projects Gallery talks with Sess Dutchman about the ‘Robert Sean Coons Deception’ that is currently shown in the gallery at Bergamot Station on Thursday. For more on Bergamot go to page 14.
NATIONAL
Deer illness spread thru their saliva BY LAURAN NEERGAARD AP Medical Writer
WASHINGTON — Deer probably spread a brain-destroying illness called chronic wasting disease through their saliva, concludes a study that finally pins down a longsuspected culprit. The key was that Colorado researchers tested some special deer. Chronic wasting disease is in the same family of fatal brain illnesses as mad cow disease and its human equivalent. There is no evidence that people have ever caught chronic wasting disease from infected deer or elk. But CWD is unusual because, unlike its very hard-to-spread relatives, it seems to spread fairly easily from animal to animal. Scientists were not sure how, primarily because studying large wild animals is a logistical nightmare.
Mike Tittinger/Daily Press
PROPS: The political action committee, Election Watchdog, sponsors the No on Prop. W campaign and launched a billboard for supporting their efforts.
Signs of election season BY MAYA LI MEINERT Special to the Daily Press
MID-CITY — The No on Prop. W campaign put up a billboard Thursday that changes the famous Santa Monica Pier sign to read: “Santa Monica: For Sale by City Council.” The billboard, located on Olympic Boulevard between Cloverfield Boulevard and 26th Street, directs voters to the group’s web site in efforts to sway them from See MAD DEER, page 16 supporting a council-generated pro-
23-27 VONS
See BILLBOARD, page 7
Where art thou?
Classifieds Ad space odyssey
posal to overturn a law limiting kickbacks from those doing business with City Hall. The No on Prop. W campaign is being waged by Election Watchdog, a political action committee sponsored by the Campaign for Consumer Rights, a nonprofit group. Carmen Balber, spokesperson for the campaign, said the billboard will run through the election at a cost of $2,000. As of 1999, there were 27
DOWNTOWN LA — George Russell Weller had several opportunities to maneuver his Buick LaSabre away from a crowded Farmers’ Market more than three years ago, but instead chose to drive straight through it, slamming into unsuspecting shoppers who had nothing more to protect them than a “bag of strawberries,” a prosecutor said Thursday during closing statements in the 89-year-old’s criminal trial. With pictures of broken and bloodied bodies and the word “OOPS!” projected on a screen behind her, Deputy District Attorney Ann Ambrose derided claims by Weller’s defense that his actions on July 16, 2003, were accidental; the tragic result of “pedal error.” Instead of listening to expert witnesses who were not at the scene of the accident, Ambrose told jurors to concentrate on the testimony of more than 30 witnesses who said they saw Weller driving with intent, his hands planted firmly on the steering wheel as he swerved to avoid hitting trucks that might have stopped his sedan from ramming into one body after another, sending unsuspecting victims flying over his car hood. One witness testified that he saw one of Weller’s victims flutter on the ground “as if you cut a chicken’s neck. I knew her spine was severed.” In total, 68 people were injured and 10 killed, including a 7-monthold baby, on July 16, 2003, when Weller’s car sped through the bustling Farmers’ Market on Arizona Avenue in downtown Santa Monica. “These people’s lives were not an ‘Oops,’” Ambrose said. “They all had a right to walk the streets assuming (Weller) would take caution and
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