Print

Email story

Comment

Letter to the editor

Digest

Schoomaker is army surgeon general choice

By Times Wires
Published October 3, 2007

WASHINGTON

Maj. Gen. Eric Schoomaker, the general brought in to command Walter Reed Army Medical Center in the wake of a scandal over conditions at the hospital, was nominated by Defense Secretary Robert Gates Tuesday as the new surgeon general of the Army.

Schoomaker came to Walter Reed in March to replace Maj. Gen. George Weightman following disclosures of poor living conditions and bureaucratic nightmares experienced by some patients recovering from wounds suffered in Iraq and Afghanistan.

To replace Schoomaker at Walter Reed, the Army named Maj. Gen. Carla Hawley-Bowland, commanding general of Tripler Army Medical Center and the Pacific Regional Medical Command in Hawaii. Schoomaker's nomination is subject to congressional approval.

GEORGETOWN, Colo.

Fire at power plant traps five workers

A chemical fire at a hydroelectric plant outside a mountain town trapped five workers about 1,000 feet inside an empty water tunnel Tuesday. All five were communicating with rescuers and no one was injured, officials said. The structural integrity of the dam was not compromised. Firefighters were battling the fire from the end of the pipe as rescuers prepared to rappel into the tunnel. It was not clear how much time it would take to reach them.

SANTA MONICA, Calif.

Real or not, Simpson's Rolex goes to Goldman

O.J. Simpson was minus one Rolex watch Tuesday after a judge ordered him to hand it and other assets over to Fred Goldman, the father of slaying victim Ron Goldman.

Superior Court Judge Gerald Rosenberg also ordered the former football star to turn over any future royalties from a video game in which he appears and any of the disputed memorabilia items recently seized by Las Vegas authorities that are found to be legally his.

Simpson attorney Ronald Slates turned over the watch but questioned whether it's a real Rolex.

"Know any Rolex watches that sell for 125 bucks?" he asked, adding that's what Simpson told him he paid for it. Goldman attorney David Cook estimated the watch's value between $5,000 and more than $20,000.

HOUSTON

Texas appeals court bars execution today

The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals stopped today's execution of Heliberto Chi, 28, who killed a clothing store manager 6 1/2 years ago. Lawyers had asked for a reprieve in light of a U.S. Supreme Court decision last week to review lethal injection in Kentucky. The Supreme Court had stopped one execution in Texas last week but allowed another.

WASHINGTON

Utah mine inspection showed cave-in risk

At least three years before the deadly August accident at Utah's Crandall Canyon Mine, Bureau of Land Management inspectors noted serious structural problems that they feared could cause the mine's roof to collapse, Congress was told. Yet the U.S. mine safety office didn't know of the bureau's concerns until after the accident, a mine safety administrator said.

WASHINGTON

Army squeaks by on its recruiting goal

The Army announced that it met its recruiting goal of 80,000 new active-duty soldiers for fiscal 2007, but officials said the service fell short of a larger internal goal of several thousand more troops needed to expand the overall force. To meet its 80,000 goal, the Army rushed enlistees into its ranks more quickly than usual, depleting the number in the pipeline for next year to less than 7,000 - the smallest in more than a decade. That portends an even tougher recruiting year in 2008, said Lt. Gen. Benjamin Freakley.

Elsewhere

Hill speaks: Anita Hill, whose sexual harassment allegations against Clarence Thomas nearly derailed his Supreme Court nomination, said Tuesday she stood by her account, disputing his assertions in a new book.

[Last modified October 3, 2007, 01:18:27]