LAWMAKERS APOLOGIZE FOR BAR FIGHT
LA.» Two BATON ROUGE,
Louisiana lawmakers say they regret getting into a bar fight over legislation.
State Rep. Stuart Bishop says Sen. Norby Chabert punched him several times at a downtown Baton Rouge bar, but he didn’t strike back. They left before police arrived, and no arrests were made.
The News-Star reports that Bishop, of Lafayette, said: “We had a gentleman’s disagreement and settled it with our hands.”
Chabert said: “I love Stuart like a brother, and sometimes brothers fight.”
Bishop says Chabert, of Houma, was angry one of his bills was blocked.
Officer shoots armed former student at Illinois high school.
police officer at a northern Illinois high school was hailed as a hero Wednesday for shooting and arresting a former student who fired on him in a hallway while staff members and seniors were meeting for a graduation rehearsal.
The 19-year-old former Dixon High School student suffered wounds that weren’t life-threatening, according to police, who didn’t release his name. The school resource officer, Mark Dallas, took the gunman into custody after shooting him.
The shooting happened shortly after 8 a.m. while staff members and students were gathered for a graduation rehearsal.
Email challenges Pruitt account on motorcade lights, siren.
Lawmakers at a Senate hearing Wednesday hammered Scott Pruitt with his toughest questioning to date amid federal investigations on his spending, bodyguards and ties with lobbyists, in exchanges that included dramatic production of a newly released internal email that appeared to contradict the embattled Environmental Protection Agency administrator.
Pruitt, appearing before a Senate appropriations subcommittee, denied direct responsibility for alleged ethical missteps that have prompted about a dozen probes, including ones by Congress, the EPA’s inspector general, the Government Accountability Office and the Office of Management of Budget. He stuck to his practice in a previous round of congressional hearings of deflecting blame onto subordinates at the EPA, including its security agents and publicaffairs workers.
Sen. Tom Udall of New Mexico, the panel’s top Democrat and a former state attorney general, as Pruitt is, led Democrats’ questioning.
At one point, Udall asked Pruitt about news reports that the agency chief liked his motorcade to switch on flashing lights and sirens to cut through traffic.
Signs of bomb found at site of deadly explosion.
CALIF.» A deadly ALISO VIEJO, explosion that ripped through a Southern California day spa was a crime, investigators said Wednesday as they identified the owner as the likely victim and looked into whether she was targeted and why.
Authorities declined to say if they believed the spa owner was targeted, but one official briefed on the investigation told The Associated Press that she had been the intended recipient of an explosive package.
Remnants of an explosive device were found inside the badly damaged spa where the powerful explosion Tuesday afternoon shook the city of Aliso Viejo, about 50 miles south of Los Angeles and tore a corner off the building housing medical offices. Two patrons were injured seriously.
Autopsy report: Exploding vape pen killed man.
FLA.» An
ST. PETERSBURG, exploding vape pen hurled fragments into a Florida man’s head, killing him and starting a fire that burned most of his body, an autopsy report said.
The Pinellas-Pasco medical examiner’s autopsy report released Tuesday confirms the vape pen was responsible for the May 5 death of Tallmadge D’Elia, 38, in St. Petersburg.
Such accidents aren’t unheard of: According to a U.S. Fire Administration report , at least 195 electronic cigarettes exploded or caught fire from 2009 to 2016. And although no deaths were recorded in that time, the explosions caused 133 injuries, 38 of them severe.
— Denver Post wire services