$77M fund created for air-race victims

$77M fund created for air-race victims

RENO, Nev.

Organizers of the Reno National Championship Air Races have established a $77 million fund to be distributed to those who suffered injuries or lost family members in last year’s mass-casualty crash in Nevada.

Kenneth Feinberg, who oversaw a federal compensation fund for victims of the 9/11 terror attacks, will be the new fund’s administrator.

A modified World War II P-51 Mustang crashed in front of VIP boxes last September at the air races, killing 11 people and injuring about 70 others.

Mexican police fire on US vehicle

MEXICO CITY

Mexican federal police fired on a U.S. Embassy vehicle and wounded two U.S. government employees Friday after their vehicle drove into a rural, mountainous area outside the capital where the officers were looking for criminals, Mexican and U.S. officials said.

The two embassy employees were hospitalized, one with a leg wound and the other hit in the stomach and hand, according to a government official who spoke on condition of anonymity. The U.S. Embassy had not released details of the shooting or the names of the victims nearly 12 hours later.

Threats lead to billboards’ removal

CHARLOTTE, N.C.

American Atheists and Adams Outdoor Advertising are removing two Charlotte billboards slamming Christianity and Mormonism after the national atheists’ group said it received an outpouring of public anger and threats.

The billboards, targeting the faiths of President Barack Obama and Mitt Romney, went up about two weeks ago. They were supposed to be present for the duration of the national conventions, though there were billboards only in Charlotte.

Amanda Knief, the managing director of American Atheists, said that a report from Fox News about the billboards Wednesday incited a national outpouring of “vitriol, threats and hate speech against our staff, volunteers and Adams Outdoor Advertising.”

Mexico copes with egg shortage

MEXICO CITY

The Mexican government is battling an egg shortage and hoarding that have caused prices to spike in a country with the highest per-capita egg consumption on Earth.

A summer epidemic of bird flu in the heart of Mexico’s egg industry has doubled the cost of a kilo (2.2 pounds), or about 13 eggs, to more than 40 pesos ($3), a major blow to working- and middle-class consumers in a country that consumes more than 350 eggs per person each year. That’s 100 more eggs per person than in the United States.

Egg prices have dominated the headlines here for a week, spurring Mexico City’s mayor to ship tons of cheap eggs to poor neighborhoods and the federal government to announce emergency programs to get fresh chickens to farms hit by bird flu and to restock supermarket shelves with eggs imported from the U.S. and Central America.

Woman falls to her death in bridal dress

RAWDON, Quebec

A bride-to-be fell to her death while getting her wedding pictures taken, tumbling down from a cliff into a waterfall while she was wearing her wedding dress, police said Friday.

Sgt. Ronald McInnis of the Quebec provincial police said her body was recovered about four hours after she slipped from a rock and fell into Dorwin Falls in Rawdon, north of Montreal. She had chosen the site as the backdrop for her wedding pictures.

McInnis said family members and her fiance were on location Friday evening. McInnis said two witnesses had to be hospitalized and treated for shock.

Combined dispatches