In the news
Linda Witson described the scene at an intersection in Newport, Tenn., as “chicken nuggets for blocks,” after a refrigerated tractor-trailer truck packed full of frozen chicken nuggets collided with a train, spilling its cargo and closing the roadway for several hours.
Lorenzo Hernandez, a west Texas county commissioner, pleaded guilty in a scheme in which authorities say he and Carlos Nieto, a former Presidio County School Board member, took bribes to ensure that a document management system company was awarded a contract.
Leon Williams, a former Georgia Department of Administrative Services worker, was sentenced to life in prison without parole for drowning his recently adopted autistic son, Kentae Williams, 10, by holding the boy under scalding bath water as punishment for refusing to bathe and cursing a teacher.
Larray Armstrong, 32, was charged with robbery after a Mississippi couple accused him of assaulting them when they were visiting Armstrong’s girlfriend at his apartment, telling police that he stole their clothes, cellphone and wallet before they escaped in their underwear.
Brian Moyer, 42, was sentenced to 15 years in prison for a crash that killed his two sons, Brian Jr., 10, and Dustin, 6, after he drove up to 100 mph on a Kansas City, Mo., street as he fled the scene of an earlier crash.
Davis Laughlin, 18, and Nathaniel Oakes, 14, both Civil Air Patrol cadets in Georgia, were returning home from an Air Patrol meeting when they happened upon a car partially submerged in a pond and ran to pull the driver to safety.
Raymond Reinke, 55, who had four run-ins with rangers in three national parks in less than a week, was arrested at Glacier National Park in Montana on a warrant issued out of Yellowstone National Park for repeatedly taunting a bison.
Melissa Rose Miller, 38, a bookkeeper for Vivian, La., is accused of one count of malfeasance in office after a misplaced city-owned credit card turned up at a convenience store and investigators say Miller had used it for two unauthorized purchases totaling more than $500 at a Walmart store and a Fred’s store.
Kevin Bay, former owner of a Columbia, Mo., smoke shop, was sentenced to three years in federal prison after he and the store’s co-owner sold between 471 pounds and 1,062 pounds of synthetic marijuana.