Crash puts the brakes on student driver’s test

Crash puts the brakes
on student driver’s test

HOUSTON — A student driver passed his test Monday, then crashed the car into the Texas Department of Public Safety building. No one was hurt.

The man was parking the car when the vehicle went over the curb and hit a wall of the brick building, creating a small hole, DPS spokesman Tom Vinger said.

The driving examiner was not in the car, Vinger said.

Storm brings heavy snow

STOWE, Vt. — A winter storm that wreaked havoc on the Upper Midwest began its snowy assault on the East on Monday, spelling trouble for travelers but elation for ski resorts that suffered through an abysmal winter last year.

Drivers in much of the region had to navigate a mix of rain, sleet and snow as the storm — which was blamed for at least 17 deaths — lumbered eastward, blanketing northern New England overnight and threatening to dump as much as 20 inches in places.

At the same time, a new storm system began lashing the West Coast and was expected to give the Midwest a second blast of snow starting today.

No charges to be filed
in MySpace suicide case

ST. LOUIS — People who sent cruel Internet messages to a 13-year-old girl before she committed suicide won’t face criminal charges, a suburban St. Louis prosecutor announced Monday.

St. Charles County prosecutor Jack Banas said that while he understands the public outrage over Megan Meier’s death, he could not find statutes allowing him to charge anyone in the case.

“We were certainly hopeful that there was going to be some sort of prosecution, but I’m certainly not surprised,” said Megan’s mother, Tina Meier.

The Dardenne Prairie girl’s parents say she hanged herself Oct. 16, 2006, minutes after she became distraught over mean messages received through the social networking site MySpace. She died the next day, and weeks later her family learned that a boy she had been communicating with online did not actually exist.

Astronauts arrive at
Cape Canaveral for launch

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. — Seven astronauts arrived for the start of countdown to Thursday’s space shuttle launch as NASA wrapped up repairs on Atlantis’ fuel tank.

Damage was discovered Friday to the insulating foam on the shuttle’s 15-story external tank. NASA doesn’t know how or when the gouges to the foam occurred, but the damage is considered minor.

New patches of foam have been applied. It will take 16 hours for the foam to harden properly, in plenty of time for liftoff late Thursday afternoon, said NASA test director Charlie Blackwell-Thompson.

Now that it’s repaired, the foam should pose no threat to Atlantis during launch, said Blackwell-Thompson. Falling foam was disastrous in the case of Columbia in 2003, and has been a recurring problem.

Judge: Feds ‘overreacted’
in border shooting case

NEW ORLEANS — Federal prosecutors appear to have “overreacted” in their pursuit of a case against two Border Patrol agents convicted of shooting a fleeing drug suspect and hiding evidence, one of three judges considering an appeal said Monday.

Jose Alonso Compean is serving 12 years in prison and Ignacio Ramos is serving 11 years for assault, obstruction of justice and civil rights violations in the wounding of Osvaldo Aldrete Davila on the border near El Paso, Texas, in 2005. The agents want the convictions thrown out; they claim the shooting was a case of self-defense but acknowledge not reporting the incident.

Teacher leaves Sudan

LIVERPOOL, England — Gillian Gibbons’ family gathered with beer, wine and flowers Monday, waiting to welcome home the British teacher jailed by Sudan for allowing her pupils to name a teddy bear Muhammad.

“It’s been a strange old week, very stressful and particularly bad for the family, but now she’s coming home, fingers crossed,” her son, John Gibbons, said after it was announced his mother had been pardoned and left Sudan. “If this week has taught me anything, it is that anything can happen.”

Foreign Secretary David Miliband praised the 54-year-old teacher.

“I did say to her that it must have been very tough over the last week and she did say, ‘Well, it was prison but it wasn’t too bad a prison,’ or words to that effect,” he said.

Associated Press