Van driver charged in 3 passengers’ deaths

Van driver charged
in 3 passengers’ deaths

SPRING, Texas — A van whose driver disregarded a warning signal at a train crossing was hit by a freight train, killing three and critically injuring another, police said. The driver was the only occupant of the van to survive and was hospitalized in critical condition. By Friday he was in fair condition in the medical ward of the Harris County Jail on bonds totaling $105,000, said sheriff’s Lt. John Martin. The 25-year-old driver was charged with three counts of manslaughter. The driver steered around a crossing arm to beat the train, authorities said.

Shoppers hide in mall

ALLENTOWN, Pa. — Shoppers took refuge inside a mall Friday morning after police fired shots at a motorist who they say tried to run down an officer in the parking lot. No one was injured in the chaotic situation outside the South Mall, police said.

The suspect fled the scene and was eventually arrested at an apartment complex after a standoff, authorities said. Avbuime Akade, 24, of Easton, will face charges of aggravated assault and other offenses, they said. Bank of America spokesman Ernesto Anguilla said the shooting was related to an attempted holdup of an armored car.

Fall kills window washer

NEW YORK — A window washer fell 47 stories to his death and his brother was critically injured Friday when the scaffolding on a high-rise apartment building gave way, authorities said. The brothers were getting onto the scaffolding from the roof of the 47-story building when the platform gave way, Fire Department spokesman Seth Andrews said. A 30-year-old man was pronounced dead at the scene; his 37-year-old brother was in critical condition at a hospital, officials said. The brothers were employed by City Wide Window Cleaning, officials said.

Huckabee moves up

WASHINGTON — Mike Huckabee has vaulted from nowhere into second place in the Republican presidential race, riding a burst of support from evangelicals, Southerners and conservatives, a nationwide poll showed Friday. The surge by the former Arkansas governor has come largely at the expense of Fred Thompson, according to the national survey by The Associated Press and Ipsos. Thompson has dropped after failing to galvanize the party’s right-wing core as much as some had expected. Rudy Giuliani remains the front-runner, yet while his support long has been steady it shows signs of fraying. Huckabee’s growing strength in the South has come as the former New York mayor’s support there has dropped, the poll found.

The Democratic race showed virtually no change from last month. In the new AP-Ipsos national survey, Hillary Rodham Clinton has about a 2-to-1 lead over Barack Obama, 45 percent to 23 percent, with John Edwards at 12 percent, though a recent AP-Pew poll showed a three-way battle among them in Iowa.

Oil cleanup effort

SEOUL, South Korea — South Korea’s Coast Guard dispatched dozens of ships Friday to try to contain 2.7 million gallons of oil from a supertanker spill and keep it from reaching an ecologically sensitive shoreline on the country’s west coast. Strong winds and currents early Saturday threatened to carry the oil slick toward fishing grounds and fish farms along the shore, the Coast Guard said in a statement. Crude oil gushed from a 146,000-ton Hong Kong-registered tanker after a Samsung Corp. vessel slammed into it.

Bombers kill at least 22

BAGHDAD, Iraq — A woman with explosives strapped to her body attacked the office of a Sunni group that had turned against al-Qaida in Iraq — one of two suicide bombings in Diyala province northeast of Baghdad that left at least 22 people dead Friday. An Iraqi official claimed the woman was seeking revenge for her two sons who were killed fighting for al-Qaida. The two brazen attacks were the latest in a series of al-Qaida assaults against members of the new “awakening groups” — mostly Sunnis including former insurgents who have begun cooperating with the Americans to rid their communities of extremists.

The first attack occurred at midmorning in Muqdadiyah when a woman detonated explosives in front of the building housing the office of the 1920 Revolution Brigade, a Sunni insurgent group whose members joined the fight against al-Qaida. Later Friday, a suicide car bomber struck at a checkpoint about 10 miles away, killing seven Iraqi soldiers and three members of a local anti-al-Qaida group.

Associated Press