By HARRY R. WEBER, Associated Press Writer,

Saturday, September 25, 2010 at 12:59 p.m.

NEW ORLEANS ?
Victims of the Gulf of Mexico oil spill should start getting bigger payments faster, the administrator of the fund set up to help them said Saturday.

Kenneth Feinberg said he was responding to criticism from residents and businesses.

“Over the past few weeks, I have heard from the people of the Gulf, elected officials, and others that payments remain too slow and not generous enough,” Feinberg said in a statement. “I am implementing new procedures that will make this program more efficient, more accelerated and more generous.”

Anthony Kennon, mayor of hard-hit Orange Beach, Ala., said he wasn’t moved by the news. He said people in his community need action now, and they don’t feel they are getting it. He said he doesn’t believe Feinberg has truly been addressing their main concern about wanting a seat at the decision-making table.

“They feel despair, they feel helpless, they feel abandoned,” Kennon said. “These are all mom-and-pop shops. We are devastated. I’ve got people knocking on my door saying, ‘I’m leaving, great knowing you mayor. I’m losing my business, my home.’”

Because tourism has taken such a hit in his community, doctors who rely on walk-in tourists for patients in the summer have seen business fall off a cliff. But, Kennon said those doctors’ claims to the compensation fund are being summarily denied because of the type of industry they are in.

“I am having a hard time understanding how he is our advocate,” Kennon said of Feinberg.

According to Feinberg, claims from now on will be sorted by industry to allow those reviewing the claims to apply a more specific, uniform set of standards when deciding how much a person or business will be paid. Feinberg did not provide details, and it was unclear if the new processing guidelines would benefit people in industries not directly tied to the ocean or simply make payments to victims in industries that are being compensated more consistent.

Claims still will be reviewed individually but they will be clustered so they are easier to compare, he said.

The Gulf Coast is still recovering from the spill triggered April 20, when a rig explosion killed 11 workers and led to 206 million gallons of oil spewing from BP PLC’s undersea well.

In less than five weeks, the dedicated $20 billion fund that BP set up has paid out over $400 million to more than 30,000 claimants, Feinberg said. Kennon scoffed at the claim about how much has been paid, noting that it is 2 percent of the total amount that BP agreed to set aside.

“That number is very misleading,” Kennon said. “$400 million across the entire Gulf Coast is nothing. What if there has already been $10 billion lost across the Gulf Coast?”

Currently, people are getting an emergency payment from the fund and then, down the road, they will receive a lump-sum final payment. The final payment requires recipients agree not to sue BP.

Earlier this week, Feinberg made a key concession to victims when he said he would waive a requirement that wages earned by spill cleanup workers be subtracted from their claims of lost revenue.

Feinberg said that will help fishermen who have been working on spill response while they couldn’t fish.

By The Associated Press,

Saturday, September 18, 2010 at 8:50 p.m.

ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. ?
Shaky Smith went untouched on a 73-yard punt return touchdown, capping a surge of three touchdowns in a span of 4:16 for No. 14 Utah in a 56-14 victory against hapless New Mexico on Saturday night.

After A.J. Butler returned a fumble 27 yards for touchdown to pull the Lobos (0-3, 0-1 Mountain West Conference) within 21-7 to open the third quarter, the Utes (3-0, 2-0 in conference play) responded quickly.

Terrance Cain, who went 20 for 23 for 248 yards and three touchdowns, found Jereme Brooks for a 75-yard score and on New Mexico’s next possession, linebacker Matt Martinez went 36 yards with an interception return for a score.

Smith followed with his touchdown and finished with 223 total return yards.

New Mexico played without starting quarterback B.R. Holbrook because of a knee injury. Replacement Brad Gruner went 3 for 8 for 33 yards and ran for 32 yards before leaving with an injury.

By The Associated Press,

Saturday, September 18, 2010 at 5:39 p.m.

BOWLING GREEN, Ky. ?
Ben Chappell passed for a career-high 366 yards as Indiana defeated Western Kentucky 38-21 on Saturday, giving the Hilltoppers their 23rd straight defeat.

Chappell completed 32 of 42 passes to break his old record of 333 yards against Illinois last year.

After Western Kentucky (0-3) went 91 yards for a touchdown on its opening drive, Indiana (2-0) scored 31 unanswered points in the second and third quarters.

The Hilltoppers managed only 197 total yards after their first successful drive.

Two Hoosiers had at least eight receptions as Demarlo Belcher caught nine passes for 118 yards and Terrance Turner had eight receptions for 55 yards.

Bobby Rainey carried 21 times for 105 yards and two touchdowns for Western Kentucky, but had only 42 yards after the first drive of the game.

Indiana converted 10 of 12 third-down opportunities, punting only once all game.

By The Associated Press,

Saturday, September 18, 2010 at 12:13 p.m.

SAN BRUNO, Calif. ?
A resident of the neighborhood evacuated by a deadly gas line explosion in San Bruno is suing Pacific Gas and Electric Co.

Steve Dare filed the lawsuit on Friday in San Mateo County Superior Court. He says the company should turn over a $100 million recovery fund for blast victims to a third party and pay other monetary damages.

The lawsuit claims PG&E could withhold funding or not follow through on its promise if the money is not placed in a court-supervised account.

PG&E spokesman Paul Moreno told the San Mateo Daily Journal he didn’t know if the company had been served yet, so he couldn’t comment on the lawsuit.

Dare rents a home that did not sustain damage in the fire, but was evacuated for three days.

The blast on Sept. 9 destroyed nearly 40 homes and claimed at least four lives.

—

Information from: SAN MATEO DAILY JOURNAL,

http://www.smdailyjournal.com/

By The Associated Press

Tuesday, September 14, 2010 at 4:10 a.m.

NEW YORK ?
Mets closer Francisco Rodriguez is due in court in New York City on assault charges. He is accused of attacking his girlfriend’s father outside a family lounge at Citi Field.

Rodriguez is scheduled for a routine hearing on Tuesday.

He was arrested after the Mets lost to Colorado on Aug. 11.

He tore a ligament in the thumb on his pitching hand during the altercation and had to have surgery. He was placed on the disqualified list. The team says he wouldn’t be paid until he’s off the list.

Prosecutors say the four-time All-Star was angry after the loss and took it out on his family.

After his initial court appearance, the judge issued orders of protection for Rodriguez to stay away from his girlfriend and her father.

By The Associated Press

Tuesday, September 14, 2010 at 2:15 a.m.

MOGADISHU, Somalia ?
Authorities in the self-declared republic of Somaliland say their troops have surrounded up to 300 hundred Ethiopian rebels they say entered their territory illegally.

Somaliland’s military chief Gen. Elmi Robleh Furur said Tuesday the men were part of Ethiopia’s Ogaden National Liberation Front. He displayed weapons, military training manuals written in Amharic and Somali and a wad of Eritrean bank notes allegedly seized from two men who had become separated from the group.

Eritrea has long been accused of financing and supporting rebels in its much larger neighbor, Ethiopia, with whom Somaliland enjoys good relations.

Somaliland has declared itself independent of war-ravaged Somalia but is not recognized by most countries.

By GEORGE TIBBITS, Associated Press Writer

Tuesday, September 14, 2010 at 2:47 a.m.

SEATTLE ?
The dilapidated factory that helped make Seattle a high-tech town is being demolished after 75 years, a casualty of time, technology and tails that grew too tall.

Boeing Co.’s Plant 2, a sprawling but long outdated building between Boeing Field and south Seattle’s Duwamish River, gave birth to some of the world’s most significant aircraft. It was the site of Seattle’s biggest disappearing act and a home to “Rosie the Riveter,” women who built thousands of World War II planes.

It’s also where the mostly unskilled workers of a fish-and-timber town first learned the art of assembling aluminum, engines and electronics into sophisticated flying machines.

As the danger of global conflict grew, Boeing opened the factory in 1936 to build the prototype for the B-17 Flying Fortress. Eventually, nearly 13,000 of the bombers would be built, half of them at Plant 2.

Later in the war, it was where Boeing developed the B-29, a revolutionary plane with advanced radios, radars and computer-aided machine guns, that dropped the atom bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

“These were incredibly advanced pieces of engineering and they were being made by people who would spend those war years learning how to be essentially the high-tech workers of their day,” says Leonard Garfield, executive director of Seattle’s Museum of History and Industry. “So when we think about Seattle as a hotbed of high-tech innovation, it’s not just from the recent years, it really can be traced very much to what happened in Plant 2.”

Under an agreement with the state and federal governments and Indian tribes, Boeing will tear down the nearly empty factory to restore more than a half-mile of the Duwamish and create nearly 5 acres of wetlands. Demolition should begin this fall, Boeing spokeswoman Kathleen Spicer said.

Plant 2 is about a mile up upriver from Boeing’s original Plant 1, a site sold decades ago.

The difference between the two was striking, Boeing corporate historian Mike Lombardi says. Plant 1 was a workshop where biplanes were stitched, glued and nailed together. Plant 2 was a modern assembly line, where metal parts fabricated in the back were transformed into aircraft as they inched toward the front doors.

Thousands of people — at one point nearly half of them women — worked at the plant during World War II, breaking barriers and requiring Boeing to adopt new ways of treating employees.

Eva Vassar was a wartime shipyard welder before being hired at Plant 2 in 1951 as a riveter and mechanic.

“Sometimes I would be the only woman in that area,” she said, “but they enjoyed working with me because I carried my weight. I’m not just bragging, but I did the job just as well.”

Joe Sutter got a summer job at Plant 2 in 1940 while studying aeronautical engineering at the University of Washington. After the war, he came back to Boeing, where he’s known as the “father of the 747″ for being the jumbo jet’s chief engineer.

During World War II, “It was hectic because they needed many workers and they had three shifts going,” Sutter recalled. “I worked the graveyard shift and you met all kinds of people — some people that were hard workers and others would find a boxcar to sleep in. It was pretty wild.”

Plant 2 was so critical that Boeing camouflaged its roof with faux streets and houses of fabric and plywood, making it nearly vanish into nearby neighborhoods.

Beneath the plant, tunnels led to cafeterias, restrooms and classrooms, innovations to make life easier for workers and keep them close to their jobs.

In the late ’40s, Plant 2 was where Boeing developed the B-47, the first large swept-wing jet, and the B-52 bomber, still in service with the Air Force after six decades. In the 1960s it turned out the initial 737, now Boeing’s best-selling jetliner.

But the plant was headed toward obsolescence within 15 years after it opened. Though it had expanded from its original 60,000 square feet to more than 1.7 million, it was too small for modern aircraft. And the roof beams were just 35 feet high.

That was a problem — the tail of the prototype B-52 was 48 feet tall. Boeing’s temporary fix was to put hinges on the early B-52s’ vertical fins, Lombardi said.

Plant 2 was used as a machine shop into the 1980s, but emptied as that work shifted to bigger, more modern facilities. The plant is now overshadowed by Boeing’s nearby complexes for military work, research, offices, flight testing and aircraft deliveries.

Parts of old factory are too dangerous to enter. Mark Calkins, head of facilities for the site, says Boeing has been reluctant to sink more money into the building, which leaks, has been damaged by earthquakes and where broken water mains sometimes flood the tunnels.

The huge production bays now store tools, vehicles and surplus office equipment, plus scattered piles of old computers and other castoffs. Boeing also provides temporary space for Museum of Flight volunteers restoring a B-17, a B-29 and a Lockheed Super Constellation airliner.

“I know it’s got structural difficulties and it’s probably a headache to maintain,” Sutter says, but he’d like at least part of Plant 2 preserved to display such historic planes.

“It’s just sad to see it go.”

Officers freed seven people who were “in a bad position” near the woman and were hiding, said Vanore, who wouldn’t refer to them as hostages. The woman was apprehended about an hour after the shootings started, he said.

Investigators, who didn’t say why the woman had been suspended, were working to piece together more about what led to the sequence of events. They did not identify her.

Television footage showed workers leaving the plant, which used to be known as the Nabisco factory and is about six stories tall. Police surrounded the plant minutes after the shootings, and roads in the area were detoured as officers swarmed nearby.

Dough mixer Andy Ryan, who has worked at the plant for nearly 30 years, said he was on the third floor when the sound of the shots echoed through the building.

“I heard the gunfire, and I ran,” he told The Associated Press, his apron still on. “As I was running down the steps they were yelling, ‘Oh, my God, there’s three people shot!’”

The Philadelphia Inquirer reported that about 100 people were inside the plant but had been cleared out.

Kraft said in a statement that in addition to the three employees who were shot, a contract worker suffered a less serious injury, but it did not elaborate.

“This is a sad day for the Kraft Foods family,” the statement said. “Our thoughts and prayers go out to their families. The loss of a loved one is a great sorrow.”

Kraft said the plant would be closed until further notice and the company would provide employees with counseling.

The Northfield, Ill.-based company’s products include Oreo cookies, Philadelphia cream cheese and Oscar Mayer bacon.

Mass shootings are rarely carried out by women, said Dr. Park Dietz, a forensic psychiatrist and president of Threat Assessment Group Inc., a Newport Beach, Calif.-based violence prevention firm. But Dietz said that doesn’t mean people should discount the violence potential of women.

“It was always a matter of time until we saw more incidents involving women,” Dietz said in a phone interview with the AP early Friday.

Nevertheless, of the 10 to 20 multiple-victim workplace shootings in the U.S. each year, very few involve female shooters, Dietz said. They remain “a rarity,” he added.

PHILADELPHIA
? A woman who had just been suspended from her job and escorted from a Kraft Foods Inc. facility returned with a handgun and opened fire Thursday, killing two people and critically injuring a third before being taken into custody about an hour later, police said.

The shooting happened in the city’s northeast section shortly after 8:30 p.m. inside a plant of the nation’s largest food manufacturer, whose products include Oreo cookies, Philadelphia cream cheese and Oscar Mayer bacon, Lt. Frank Vanore said.

The woman returned to the building in a car 10 minutes after being escorted out and drove through a security barrier before re-entering the building on foot, Vanore said.

As she walked inside, she fired a shot at an employee who had followed her in and had yelled, “Hide, she’s got a gun,” Vanore said. That shot missed.

The woman then shot the three victims, said police, who didn’t immediately know the victims’ identities or whether they had been targeted. Officers responded and isolated the shooter in a room, and she fired a shot at them but missed, Vanore said.

Officers freed seven people who were “in a bad position” near the woman and were hiding, Vanore said, but he wouldn’t refer to them as hostages. The shooter eventually was apprehended around 9:30 p.m., he said.

Television footage showed workers leaving the Northfield, Ill.-based company’s plant, which used to be known as the Nabisco factory and is about six stories tall. Police surrounded the plant minutes after the shooting, and roads in the area were detoured as officers swarmed nearby.

Dough mixer Andy Ryan, who has worked at the plant for nearly 30 years, said he was on the third floor when the sound of the shots echoed through the building.

“I heard the gunfire, and I ran,” he told The Associated Press, his apron still on. “As I was running down the steps they were yelling, ‘Oh, my God, there’s three people shot!’”

The Philadelphia Inquirer newspaper reported that about 100 people were inside the plant but had been cleared out.

Several telephone calls and e-mails to Kraft on Thursday night weren’t immediately returned.

The identity of the suspended worker wasn’t immediately released.

Mass shootings are rarely carried out by women, said Dr. Park Dietz, president of Threat Assessment Group Inc., a Newport Beach, Calif.-based violence prevention firm.

Some notable exceptions include a 1985 rampage at a mall in Springfield, Pa., that left three people dead and seven wounded. Sylvia Seegrist was found guilty of murder but mentally ill in that case and was given three life sentences. She said in 1991 she hoped she wouldn’t have to spend the rest of her life in prison and “maybe 15 or 20 years would be fair.”

Earlier this year, Amy Bishop, a former instructor and researcher at the University of Alabama’s Huntsville campus, was charged with murder in a campus shooting spree that left three biology professors dead and three other employees injured. She claimed the shootings “didn’t happen.”

Thursday’s shooting came just weeks after a driver who had been accused of stealing from a Manchester, Conn., beer distributorship shot and killed eight people and then himself.

The driver, Omar Thornton, had calmly agreed to quit Aug. 3 after being confronted with surveillance video showing him stealing beer. But shortly afterward, he started shooting.

Thornton, who was black, had seethed with a sense of racial injustice in his job at Hartford Distributors, said his girlfriend, Kristi Hannah. Thornton said as much in a chilling call to police dispatchers.

“This place is a racist place,” he said in the call. “They’re treating me bad over here. And treat all other black employees bad over here, too. So I took it to my own hands and handled the problem. I wish I could have got more of the people.”

Hartford Distributors president Ross Hollander said there was no record to support claims of “racial insensitivity” made through the company’s anti-harassment policy, the union grievance process or state and federal agencies. Relatives of the victims also rejected the claims.

By WAYNE PARRY, Associated Press Writer

Thursday, September 9, 2010 at 5:08 p.m.

TRENTON, N.J. ?
New York Yankees left-hander Andy Pettitte began a minor league rehabilitation start Thursday night by breezing through Double-A hitters as he works his way back from a groin injury.

Pettitte allowed two hits in four innings for the Trenton Thunder in an Eastern League playoff game. He struck out four against the New Hampshire Fisher Cats.

Pettitte threw 51 pitches, 37 for strikes. He also uncorked two wild pitches.

A healthy Pettitte is considered crucial to the Yanks’ chances of repeating as World Series champions. The 38-year-old Pettitte is 11-2 with a 2.88 ERA in 18 starts.

The Yankees are closely watching Pettitte’s progress in light of the continued ineffectiveness of starters A.J. Burnett and Javier Vazquez, and the recent inconsistency of Phil Hughes.