Officials ask speedy aid in the wake of Ike
WASHINGTON: Gulf Coast officials asked lawmakers yesterday for fast federal money for hurricane recovery and a minimum of bureaucratic red tape. Texas is looking at $11.4 billion in damage from Ike, including $16 million in damage to Houston, Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst said. Devastation in Galveston is $2 billion, that city's mayor said. Louisiana is facing $1 billion in damage from Ike and Gustav, Lt. Gov. Mitch Landrieu said. New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin said in prepared testimony that the $40 million cost of evacuating his city for Hurricane Gustav has led to hiring freezes and a halt of any new expenditures until disaster costs are reimbursed. Houston Mayor Bill White asked that money be sent directly to the city for immediate use to streamline the reimbursement process.
Pa. mother pleads guilty to getting son weapons
NORRISTOWN, Pa.: A woman admitted she helped her troubled, bullied 14-year-old son build a weapons cache by buying a rifle and gunpowder, but investigators still don't know whether she knew her son was planning a deadly school attack. Michele Cossey, 46, pleaded guilty yesterday in Montgomery County Court to one count of child endangerment. She admitted that she gave her son access to a rifle with a laser scope and to gunpowder, which investigators said he was using to build grenades. Prosecutors said her son, Dillon, bullied over his weight, had left public school in seventh grade and was being home-schooled. Montgomery County Assistant District Attorney Christopher Parisi said he thought purchasing the weapons was "an attempt to boost his self-esteem."
Myanmar says it freed 9,002 prisoners
YANGON, Myanmar: Myanmar's military government said it freed 9,002 prisoners yesterday, including the country's longest-serving political prisoner, Win Tin, and four people elected to Parliament in the landslide victory of opposition parties in 1990, a win the junta has never recognized. Win Tin, a poet and journalist now in his 70s, is an ally of the country's democracy leader, Aung San Suu Kyi, and was convicted of having Communist affiliations in 1989. He was kept in solitary confinement for most of his 19 years in prison; Suu Kyi has been under house arrest for most of that time.
Iraqi trade officials fired in anti-corruption drive
