Monday, September 14, 2015
Poll: US gas prices fall
CAMARILLO, Calif.
The U.S. average price of gasoline dropped 27 cents over the past three weeks, to $2.44 a gallon.
Industry analyst Trilby Lundberg said Sunday that the pump price fell even though crude oil prices gained strength, as gasoline supply outweighed demand.
Further price drops are likely if crude oil prices don’t skyrocket, because the Sept. 15 change to winter grade gasoline comes with a cost cut in much of the U.S.
Center to train for gas-well emergencies
CHARTIERS, PA.
Officials say a new half-million-dollar training center in western Pennsylvania will help prepare first responders in several states for emergencies at natural-gas well sites and production facilities.
Fire commissioner Tim Solobay called the facility at Washington County Fire Academy the most complete training facility of its kind in the state.
After years of cuts, teacher shortages
LOS ANGELES
After years of recession-related layoffs and hiring freezes, school systems across the United States are in urgent need of more qualified teachers.
Shortages have surfaced in places such as Tampa, Fla., and Las Vegas, where billboards calling for new teachers dot the highways, as well as in states such as Georgia, Indiana and North Dakota that have long struggled to attract education graduates.
California educates more children than any other state, but has seen the number of teaching certificates issued drop by half in the last decade. Meanwhile, the state’s school districts estimate they will need 21,000 new teachers annually over the next five years.
3 arrested in copycat cases of shootings
PHOENIX
Three teenagers were arrested Sunday after purportedly shooting at cars with a slingshot, but the incidents were not related to a recent string of Phoenix-area freeway shootings, authorities said.
Three men, all age 18, were in jail after admitting to flinging rocks at pedestrians and vehicles, Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio said. Arpaio also told reporters Sunday that a couple whose car window was shattered Saturday east of Phoenix noted a license-plate number of a vehicle that purportedly pulled up alongside them. Deputies and the state Department of Public Safety found the vehicle.
DPS Director Frank Milstead said the incidents are copycats and there was nothing linking them to any of the 11 incidents his agency has been investigating.
Police ID suspect shot at Union Station
WASHINGTON
Police identified a man fatally shot by a security officer at Washington’s Union Station after an apparent domestic dispute Friday, and the man’s family mourned his death even as they raised questions Sunday about the security guard’s actions that led to his death.
District of Columbia police said the dead suspect was 57-year-old William Thomas Wilson Jr. of southeast Washington. Wilson was shot by a security officer Friday, and investigators said he had stabbed and wounded a woman. Wilson was chased and fatally shot after police said he pointed his knife at a security guard and lunged forward.
The violence Friday frightened commuters already wary on the 14th anniversary of the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks. The incident sent some people running for safety, while others hid amid the initial confusion about what was happening.
Union Station is home to Amtrak’s headquarters. About 90,000 people pass through the station each day.
Associated Press