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    Around the state

    Compiled from Times wires
    © St. Petersburg Times
    published December 5, 2002


    Stomach virus hits 117 on another cruise ship

    MIAMI -- Another cruise ship that sailed from Fort Lauderdale to the Caribbean has reported 117 cases of gastrointestinal illness.

    The Centers for Disease Control said Wednesday that 114 of 1,859 passengers and three of 868 crew members aboard P&O Cruises of London's Oceana, which departed Port Everglades on Nov. 29, have contracted a stomach virus.

    All passengers on the 14-day cruise originated in the United Kingdom and flew on chartered aircraft to Fort Lauderdale, said CDC spokeswoman Bernadette Burden. Most of the ill passengers were reported to be from one chartered flight.

    The ship is scheduled to return to Fort Lauderdale Dec. 13. CDC staff are to board the vessel this week to collect specimens to identify the virus. A Norwalk-like virus has stricken passengers on several cruise ships in recent weeks with nausea, vomiting, diarrhea and abdominal pain.

    Meanwhile, Holland America's Amsterdam, which departed Fort Lauderdale Sunday, reported two passengers and one crew member with gastrointestinal illness by Wednesday afternoon, the CDC said. The ship had been taken out of service for 10 days to be thoroughly cleaned and disinfected, after 524 passengers and crew on four sailings were stricken.

    Homosassa man killed in South Dakota accident

    SUMMIT, S.D. -- Two men, one from Florida, were killed when their truck rolled off an interstate in northeastern South Dakota and into the path of a freight train.

    Bobby Price, 68, of Homosassa, and Richard Anderson, 48, of Keosauqua, Iowa, the truck driver, were killed.

    Anderson tried to pass another vehicle on snow-packed Interstate 29, lost control and went down an embankment onto the tracks at an underpass, said Lt. Rod Olerud of the state highway patrol. A witness tried to flag down the Burlington Northern-Santa Fe train, but the engineer did not see his flashlight in the blowing snow, Olerud said.

    Man gets 3 years in killing of ex-wife, a cancer victim

    NAPLES -- A Fort Myers man was sentenced Wednesday to three years in prison followed by five years' probation for fatally shooting his ex-wife, a cancer victim, outside her doctor's office.

    Joseph Lasco, 63, a barbershop owner, originally was charged with first-degree murder for what he claimed was a mercy killing.

    Lasco shot Sylvia Lasco, 62, on Feb. 1, 2001 outside the Naples office of Dr. Lillian Love.

    According to police reports, when told of her death, Lasco said, "Good. She's not suffering."

    A judge ruled Lasco mentally incompetent to stand trial in March. He then pleaded no contest to a lesser charge of manslaughter.

    INS agent killed, woman shot during dispute

    PEMBROKE PINES -- An Immigration and Naturalization Service detention officer was killed and a woman was critically wounded outside a shopping center in what police called an apparent murder-suicide attempt.

    Pembroke Pines police said witnesses saw Willard Williams, 41, and Antoinette Crumpler, 29, of Hollywood, arguing in the parking lot of the Pembroke Commons Shopping Center before gunfire broke out Tuesday night. Both were shot in the face.

    Williams' body was found slumped over the front seat of his parked Lincoln Navigator. Crumpler was taken to Memorial Regional Hospital in Hollywood.

    Lt. Dave Golt, a police spokesman, said investigators were awaiting autopsy results to try to determine who fired a .40-caliber Beretta pistol registered to Williams.

    An INS spokeswoman said Williams had worked for the agency since June 1992 as a detention enforcement officer at the Krome Detention Center.

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