hNursing home evacuated after gas tank overturns

hNursing home evacuated after gas tank overturns

BARTLETT, Tenn. — Residents of a suburban Memphis nursing home were evacuated Friday after a gasoline tanker overturned nearby and began leaking fuel.

No injuries were reported. Most of the 104 evacuees were pushed in wheelchairs to a recreation center about a block from the nursing home. Others in motorized chairs “just followed the caravan,” said police Lt. Rory Mack. About 20 residents were taken away by ambulance.

The tanker apparently overturned and spilled 500 gallons of gas after its wheels slipped off a narrow street in the Memphis suburb of Bartlett, Mack said.

McCain breaks from two televangelists

STOCKTON, Calif. — After enduring embarrassing criticism for weeks, John McCain broke Thursday with two controversial televangelists whose endorsements he once trumpeted in a bid to win support from religious conservative voters.

At a late-afternoon rally in Stockton, McCain said he rejected the endorsement of John Hagee after learning of a recording in which the San Antonio pastor portrayed Adolf Hitler as being sent by God to force Jews “to come back to the land of Israel.”

McCain said he had not been aware of the comments, which were made in a sermon in the late 1990s and turned up recently on the Internet, when Hagee endorsed him in February. “I just think that the statement is crazy and unacceptable,” McCain said.

Later in the day, McCain told The Associated Press that he also repudiated the support of Rod Parsley, an Ohio preacher who has sharply criticized Islam and called the religion inherently violent.

Nipple cream warning

WASHINGTON — The Food and Drug Administration on Friday warned women not to use or buy Mommy’s Bliss Nipple Cream, marketed by MOM Enterprises Inc. of San Rafael, Calif.

The cream, promoted to nursing mothers to help soothe dry or cracked nipples, contains ingredients that may cause respiratory distress, vomiting and diarrhea in infants, the agency said.

The potentially harmful ingredients in the cream are chlorphenesin and phenoxyethanol.

Vallejo bankruptcy filing

SAN FRANCISCO — The city of Vallejo filed for bankruptcy protection Friday to deal with a ballooning budget deficit caused by soaring employee costs and declining tax revenue.

The San Francisco Bay area suburb of about 120,000 residents became the largest California city to seek bankruptcy protection.

Fourth severed foot found

VANCOUVER, British Columbia — For the fourth time in less than a year, a human foot in a running shoe has been found along the British Columbia coast.

Police said Friday that they don’t know if there are any links between the cases of the four severed right feet found on island shorelines in the Vancouver region. Authorities say they haven’t reached any conclusions about the origin of the feet. But local speculation has been rife with some reports claiming they belonged to victims of violent crimes or a plane crash.

A record on Mount Everest

KATMANDU, Nepal — A record 75 climbers reached the summit of Mount Everest in a single day from the Nepal side of the world’s highest mountain, a Nepalese official said Friday.

The mountaineering milestone was confirmed as news came that a Swiss climber had died on his way down from the summit.

Nepalese Tourism Ministry official Ramesh Chetri said Thursday’s official tally surpassed the previous record of 63 summits from the southern approach in one day, set May 16, 2002. The number could be even higher as other reports are confirmed, he said Friday.

Combined dispatches