Hawaii faces teacher shortage

Hawaii faces teacher shortage

HONOLULU

The Hawaii Department of Education has been seeking out educators from the mainland to deal with the state’s growing teacher shortage.

Officials expect as many as 1,600 vacancies throughout the state next school year. The department has responded by sending teams to meet with potential applicants in major cities across the U.S., including Chicago, New York, Portland and Los Angeles, Hawaii News Now reported.

“Teachers are in such demand everywhere. Every school district is trying to steal from the other’s district,” said Barbara Krieg, assistant superintendent for the Office of Human Resources.

Texas executes killer of 12-year-old

HUNTSVILLE, Texas

A South Texas man was executed Wednesday for the 1998 slaying of a 12-year-old boy whose blood the convicted killer said he drank after beating the seventh-grader with a pipe and slitting his throat.

Pablo Lucio Vasquez told police he was drunk and high when voices convinced him to kill David Cardenas in Donna, a Texas border town about 225 miles south of San Antonio. He also told detectives in a videotaped statement that he drank some of the boy’s blood.

Official: Erosion led to sewage leak

MEMPHIS, Tenn.

The public-works department in Memphis had identified erosion near a sewer line before it broke and began dumping 50 million gallons of untreated wastewater into a creek and a lake per day, leading to a massive fish kill and warnings of extremely high levels of the E. coli bacteria, officials said Wednesday.

Robert Knecht, director of the Memphis Public Works Division, said the department had been taking bids for a project to stabilize the area near the pipe before the 96-inch sewer line ruptured last Thursday.

Knecht said record rainfall amounts in March caused the soil to erode and an embankment to fail, leading to the sewer line break. The erosion was first identified sometime “after January,” Knecht said. The bids were due Friday, he said.

Official to seek to become Iceland PM

REYKJAVIK, Iceland

Iceland’s fisheries and agriculture minister Sigurdur Ingi Johannsson said Wednesday he will seek the president’s approval to become the country’s next prime minister after the previous leader resigned because of revelations he had offshore accounts.

Johannsson said Iceland’s center-right governing coalition remains intact despite the turmoil that started Sunday after a massive leak of documents from a Panamanian law firm showed it created offshore accounts for Prime Minister Sigmundur David Gunnlaugsson and his wife. Gunnlaugsson stepped down two days later.

Ivanka Trump scarves recalled

Made-in-China Ivanka Trump-brand scarves are being recalled because they are too flammable and pose a “burn risk” to consumers.

The U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission said Wednesday that no injuries have been reported.

The recall involves about 20,000 rayon scarves, sold from October 2014 through January 2016 in department stores and online. They cost from $12 to $68.

Trump’s father, Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump, has criticized companies that move manufacturing outside the U.S. and has threatened to impose steep tariffs on Chinese imports if elected. He has acknowledged, however, that some of his own products were made outside the U.S.

Associated Press