1 child dead, 14 hurt in day-care crash

1 child dead, 14 hurt in day-care crash

WINTER PARK, Fla.

A car smashed into an Orlando-area day care Wednesday, killing a girl and injuring 14 others, at least a dozen of them children, and authorities were searching for the driver of an SUV who they say started the crash, officials said.

A Toyota Solara convertible went out of control after it was struck by a Dodge Durango, jumped a curb and smashed into the day care, breaking through the wall and into the building, said Florida Highway Patrol spokesman Wanda Diaz. The convertible’s driver was not hurt.

The Durango left the scene but was located almost two hours later after it had been abandoned at a home. The highway patrol said it is looking for 26-year-old Robert Corchado, who has been arrested eight times since 2000, according to Florida Department of Law Enforcement records. Troopers said he was the driver of the Durango.

Putin turns up heat

MOSCOW

Russian President Vladimir Putin turned up the heat on Ukraine on Wednesday by threatening to demand advance payment for gas supplies, a move designed to exert economic pressure as Ukraine confronts possible bankruptcy, a mutiny by pro-Russian separatists in the east and a Russian military buildup across the border.

NATO’s top commander in Europe warned that the alliance could respond to the Russian military threat against Ukraine by deploying U.S. troops to Eastern Europe, but Putin’s latest tactics suggest he may be aiming to secure Russia’s clout with its neighbor without invading.

Clinton: Voting limits are step back

AUSTIN, Texas

Former President Bill Clinton used the 50th anniversary of the Civil Rights Act to criticize efforts in several states to restrict voting, notably photo identification requirements, saying they threaten to roll back half a century of progress.

Clinton spoke Wednesday night during the Civil Rights Summit at the Lyndon B. Johnson Presidential Library at the University of Texas in Austin. The library is hosting the three-day event to mark the anniversary of the landmark 1964 law that banned widespread discrimination against racial and ethnic minorities and women.

President Barack Obama is to give the keynote address today, and former President George. W. Bush will wrap up the summit later today.

Probe begins into attack on journalists

KABUL, Afghanistan

Afghan central government authorities Wednesday began questioning the police commander who killed an Associated Press photographer and wounded an AP reporter, a day after he was transferred by helicopter to the capital — a rare case in which an Afghan officer or soldier who shot a foreigner was captured alive.

Security officials who spoke with the suspect after he first was detained said he seemed a calm, pious man who may have come under the influence of Islamic extremists calling for vengeance against foreigners over drone strikes. Witness and official accounts so far have suggested the shooting was not planned.

Texas execution

HUNTSVILLE, Texas

A man who escaped prison in his native Mexico while serving a murder sentence was executed in Texas on Wednesday for fatally beating a former Baylor University history professor and attacking his wife more than 16 years ago.

Ramiro Hernandez-Llanas, 44, was lethally injected in the state’s death chamber in Huntsville.

He was in the U.S. illegally when he was arrested in the October 1997 slaying of 49-year-old Glen Lich. Just 10 days earlier, Lich had given Hernandez-Llanas a job helping with renovations at his ranch in exchange for living quarters.

Associated Press