Students hospitalized after Sumner Co school bus wreckBy CHRISTIAN BOTTORFFStaff Writer
Three Sumner County students have been hospitalized this morning after their school bus was involved in a wreck with another car, said Sumner County schools spokesman Steve Doremus.
The students were being taken to Knox Doss Middle School and Station Camp High School when the crash happened at about 8 a.m. at the intersection of Big Station Camp Boulevard and Long Hollow Pike, Doremus said.
The students were not critically injured, Doremus said. One of the students has been released from the hospital, he said.The bus driver and six other students who were on the school bus were not hospitalized, Doremus said.A motorist inside the other vehicle was transported to the hospital, but that person's condition was not immediately known, Doremus said.
Friday, May 18, 2007
Search continues for missing woman in Cannon Co
WOODBURY, Tenn. (AP) -- Searchers continued looking Friday for an 86-year-old woman suffering from Alzheimer's disease whose car was found unoccupied on a mountain road.
Viella Estes has been missing since Tuesday on Short Mountain, a steep and heavily wooded area near Woodbury, about 18 miles east of Murfreesboro.Search and rescue teams were joined by volunteers searching several trails on the mountain where her car was found with her purse inside."She was raised on this mountain. She lived on various parts of this mountain and she knows this mountain," said Estes' daughter Betty Tanner."We're at a critical time," neighbor and family friend Linda Parton said Thursday afternoon -- more than two days since Estes was last known to have eaten and taken her medication.
Viella Estes has been missing since Tuesday on Short Mountain, a steep and heavily wooded area near Woodbury, about 18 miles east of Murfreesboro.Search and rescue teams were joined by volunteers searching several trails on the mountain where her car was found with her purse inside."She was raised on this mountain. She lived on various parts of this mountain and she knows this mountain," said Estes' daughter Betty Tanner."We're at a critical time," neighbor and family friend Linda Parton said Thursday afternoon -- more than two days since Estes was last known to have eaten and taken her medication.
Maury County raid chills immigrant community
By CLAY CAREY,BRAD SCHRADEand JANELL ROSSStaff Writers
COLUMBIA, Tenn. — Two dozen illegal immigrants were arrested and processed for deportation this week after happening upon a mobile home where police and federal agents were investigating a case, residents of a local trailer park said Thursday.
The arrests and apparently imminent deportation of 23 males and one female in Maury County sent shockwaves through the Midstate's Hispanic community, where some feared the raid could create a rift between Hispanics and law enforcement that would be very difficult to repair.
"These types of actions send ripples of fear throughout a community," said Jessica Baba, public awareness coordinator with the Tennessee Immigrant and Refugee Rights Coalition.
"Fear causes people to stop reporting crimes and talking to police. That is a threat to public safety," Baba said. "Going after one person is one thing. We're not going to dispute that. Going after an entire community is entirely different."
Others, like Theresa Harmon, co-founder of Tennesseans for Responsible Immigration Policies, think the arrests are a step in the right direction.
"If (police) have a reasonable suspicion that I'm driving drunk, they're going to pull me over to find out. The same thing usually applies across the board to everything except illegal aliens," Harmon said.
"That's got to stop. … As long as our law enforcement agencies look the other way, that makes us a sanctuary" for illegal immigrants, Harmon said.
Many law enforcement agencies, like the Metro Police Department, have said their officers will not take part in immigration enforcement, fearing that such actions could lead immigrants to be uncooperative with police. Several attempts to call Maury County Sheriff's Department officials and federal authorities on Thursday were unsuccessful.
Details of arrests hazy
Two days after the raid, details of the arrests are hazy.
Sheriff's deputies and federal immigration agents have said they went to the Countryside Mobile Village Tuesday morning in search of a teenage boy and his mother. Police learned the two were in the United States illegally after the boy brought a gun to school.
While they were there, they took 22 more illegal Mexican immigrants into custody.
"I couldn't believe what I was seeing. They (immigration agents and officers) were everywhere," said Antonio Gonzalez, 20, a neighbor and acquaintance of several of the people arrested.
Angela Leyva, sister-in-law and aunt of two of the arrestees and a legal U.S. citizen, said the family's trailer had been surrounded by patrol cars.
Two immigration officials entered the house. People who lived nearby gathered to watch, Leyva said. Then, immigration officials began asking people in the crowd about their immigration status. Some people were followed back to their trailers, asked to produce documents, and then arrested when they could not, Leyva said.
Barbara Haskins said her fiancé, Luis Enrique Sanchez Castro, told her a similar story Tuesday night when she found him locked in the Maury County Jail. Sanchez Castro pulled up in front of a trailer a few doors down from the Leyvas' Tuesday morning. He was there to pick up a co-worker.
Something about the blue Ford must have caught law enforcement's attention. Officers headed toward the car. One occupant hopped out and ran. But Sanchez and three co-workers were arrested.
Sheriff Enoch George and his staff were unavailable to discuss the raid Thursday, but on Wednesday Capt. Nathan Johns said carloads of illegal immigrants approached them.
Angela Leyva said she heard from her nephew — the boy who brought the gun to school — on Wednesday. He said he was in a holding facility, he thought in New Jersey. Last the family heard from her sister-in-law, she was in a holding facility in Franklin, expecting to go to Texas for a hearing before being deported to Mexico.
"For (authorities) to say they can't tell us anything — that's not right," Leyva said. "(Where) they're going or how we can find out what's happening to them; they're not letting us know anything."
'Right to remain silent'
People crossing border checkpoints can be searched, questioned or detained even if there's no obvious proof that they're entering illegally, said Jerry Gonzalez, a Nashville civil rights attorney.
Once they're here, a law enforcement officer has the authority to walk up and ask them if they're here illegally — but that doesn't always mean they'll be arrested.
If an immigrant doesn't make that admission, but an officer has an "objectively reasonable suspicion" that the immigrant is a criminal, the officer can detain him for questioning, Gonzalez said.
That detention is only supposed to last as long as it takes to figure out if the crime was committed. "We're talking 20 minutes," he said.
But most immigrants who are deported convict themselves under police questioning, Gonzalez said.
"Most illegal aliens are determined to be illegal because an (immigration) agent asks them 'are you illegal' and they say 'oh, you got me. I'm illegal.' And then they take them. Generally, everybody has the right to remain silent. … Nobody can compel them to speak."
Though some police officers will take it upon themselves to question Hispanics about their immigration status, "most enlightened law enforcement agencies" frown on the practice, said Elliott Ozment, a Nashville attorney who specializes in immigration issues.
"It could expose that law enforcement agency to very serious charges of discrimination," he said.
None of that mattered much to those left behind at the Countryside Mobile Village. Leyva said she had to explain to her daughters where their cousin and their aunt had gone.
"I told them they came and got them and took them back to Mexico," Leyva said, explaining that her 6-year-old was particularly confused. "She wanted to know why. How do you explain that to a kid?"
COLUMBIA, Tenn. — Two dozen illegal immigrants were arrested and processed for deportation this week after happening upon a mobile home where police and federal agents were investigating a case, residents of a local trailer park said Thursday.
The arrests and apparently imminent deportation of 23 males and one female in Maury County sent shockwaves through the Midstate's Hispanic community, where some feared the raid could create a rift between Hispanics and law enforcement that would be very difficult to repair.
"These types of actions send ripples of fear throughout a community," said Jessica Baba, public awareness coordinator with the Tennessee Immigrant and Refugee Rights Coalition.
"Fear causes people to stop reporting crimes and talking to police. That is a threat to public safety," Baba said. "Going after one person is one thing. We're not going to dispute that. Going after an entire community is entirely different."
Others, like Theresa Harmon, co-founder of Tennesseans for Responsible Immigration Policies, think the arrests are a step in the right direction.
"If (police) have a reasonable suspicion that I'm driving drunk, they're going to pull me over to find out. The same thing usually applies across the board to everything except illegal aliens," Harmon said.
"That's got to stop. … As long as our law enforcement agencies look the other way, that makes us a sanctuary" for illegal immigrants, Harmon said.
Many law enforcement agencies, like the Metro Police Department, have said their officers will not take part in immigration enforcement, fearing that such actions could lead immigrants to be uncooperative with police. Several attempts to call Maury County Sheriff's Department officials and federal authorities on Thursday were unsuccessful.
Details of arrests hazy
Two days after the raid, details of the arrests are hazy.
Sheriff's deputies and federal immigration agents have said they went to the Countryside Mobile Village Tuesday morning in search of a teenage boy and his mother. Police learned the two were in the United States illegally after the boy brought a gun to school.
While they were there, they took 22 more illegal Mexican immigrants into custody.
"I couldn't believe what I was seeing. They (immigration agents and officers) were everywhere," said Antonio Gonzalez, 20, a neighbor and acquaintance of several of the people arrested.
Angela Leyva, sister-in-law and aunt of two of the arrestees and a legal U.S. citizen, said the family's trailer had been surrounded by patrol cars.
Two immigration officials entered the house. People who lived nearby gathered to watch, Leyva said. Then, immigration officials began asking people in the crowd about their immigration status. Some people were followed back to their trailers, asked to produce documents, and then arrested when they could not, Leyva said.
Barbara Haskins said her fiancé, Luis Enrique Sanchez Castro, told her a similar story Tuesday night when she found him locked in the Maury County Jail. Sanchez Castro pulled up in front of a trailer a few doors down from the Leyvas' Tuesday morning. He was there to pick up a co-worker.
Something about the blue Ford must have caught law enforcement's attention. Officers headed toward the car. One occupant hopped out and ran. But Sanchez and three co-workers were arrested.
Sheriff Enoch George and his staff were unavailable to discuss the raid Thursday, but on Wednesday Capt. Nathan Johns said carloads of illegal immigrants approached them.
Angela Leyva said she heard from her nephew — the boy who brought the gun to school — on Wednesday. He said he was in a holding facility, he thought in New Jersey. Last the family heard from her sister-in-law, she was in a holding facility in Franklin, expecting to go to Texas for a hearing before being deported to Mexico.
"For (authorities) to say they can't tell us anything — that's not right," Leyva said. "(Where) they're going or how we can find out what's happening to them; they're not letting us know anything."
'Right to remain silent'
People crossing border checkpoints can be searched, questioned or detained even if there's no obvious proof that they're entering illegally, said Jerry Gonzalez, a Nashville civil rights attorney.
Once they're here, a law enforcement officer has the authority to walk up and ask them if they're here illegally — but that doesn't always mean they'll be arrested.
If an immigrant doesn't make that admission, but an officer has an "objectively reasonable suspicion" that the immigrant is a criminal, the officer can detain him for questioning, Gonzalez said.
That detention is only supposed to last as long as it takes to figure out if the crime was committed. "We're talking 20 minutes," he said.
But most immigrants who are deported convict themselves under police questioning, Gonzalez said.
"Most illegal aliens are determined to be illegal because an (immigration) agent asks them 'are you illegal' and they say 'oh, you got me. I'm illegal.' And then they take them. Generally, everybody has the right to remain silent. … Nobody can compel them to speak."
Though some police officers will take it upon themselves to question Hispanics about their immigration status, "most enlightened law enforcement agencies" frown on the practice, said Elliott Ozment, a Nashville attorney who specializes in immigration issues.
"It could expose that law enforcement agency to very serious charges of discrimination," he said.
None of that mattered much to those left behind at the Countryside Mobile Village. Leyva said she had to explain to her daughters where their cousin and their aunt had gone.
"I told them they came and got them and took them back to Mexico," Leyva said, explaining that her 6-year-old was particularly confused. "She wanted to know why. How do you explain that to a kid?"
Save the Planet: Stop Having Babies
London (CNSNews.com) - Reducing the number of children couples have is the best way to fight climate change, according to a British environmental group.The UK's Optimum Population Trust (OPT) says in a report that population growth is one of the main causes of "global warming" but adds that both politicians and other green groups are loathe to talk about it.Using fewer resources and "greener" technologies helps combat climate change, it said, but the most effective strategy would be to limit the number of humans on the planet.The OPT said that during an 80-year lifespan, a Briton born today will produce 744 tons of carbon dioxide (CO2), the gas many scientists blame for changes in global temperatures.If birth control prevented this hypothetical baby from being born, the group said, then society would be saved from having to deal with his or her environmental cost.Trust co-chairwoman Valerie Stevens said that advocating population control was not going to make her group popular, but that it needed to be done."These are hugely important issues and the unfortunate fact is that both politicians and the environmental movement are in denial about them," she said in a statement. "It's high time we started discussing them like adults and confronting the real challenges of climate change."To achieve the required population reduction, the trust says people should be encouraged to have only one or two children -- not through any form of coercion but by making them aware of the effects of having larger families.The group also wants to limit immigration into the United Kingdom, to keep the population stable, and to provide all British citizens with access to reproductive services including birth control and abortion.Though the trust has been linked to the "voluntary human extinction movement" -- an even more radical philosophy that says all humans should stop reproducing to save the Earth - spokesman David Nicholson said Wednesday that it opposed that concept. He confirmed that some OPT members consider themselves members of the loosely organized extinction movement.Greenpeace spokesman James Holland Thursday declined to comment on the OPT stance and its implied criticism of other environmental groups, while Friends of the Earth spokeswoman Nicola Jackson said that her group had no policy on population growth.In a brief statement, the Green Party of Great Britain said an increased population was not much of a problem as long as it was accompanied by sustainable growth policies.James Casford, an expert in climate change at Durham University, said Thursday that while reducing population growth seemed to be an attractive option, it wasn't the panacea that the trust hoped it would be.So much damage has already been done to the Earth, he said, that the world population would have to be cut by half before anyone could see long-term results."Unless you're going to go out and shoot those people today, it's not going to have much of an effect," he said.However, Casford said the world would have to consider seriously the moral and practical consequences of having large families.How?In the past few decades, Casford said, many environmental groups have looked at the issue of population reduction but now most of them shy away from the sensitive subject.Population reduction was official policy of the British Green Party in the late 1980s, but the Greens eventually dropped it after a barrage of bad publicity, Casford recalled.He also noted that environmental groups were never clear about exactly how the size of families would be kept small."There's an ethical issue about how you reduce people's effort to have children," he said. "That's a question that's never been tackled by the Green movement."One government that has instituted a coercive policy aimed at cutting the population is that of communist China.Introduced in 1979, Beijing's "one-child policy" restricts urban couples to one child, and rural dwellers to two children if their first is a girl. Members of ethnic minorities may have two or three children, and various provinces also allow other exceptions - for example, allowing an additional child if the firstborn is disabled.In China, sons are expected to look after parents in old age, and the policy has led some couples to abort baby girls, even though the government officially has outlawed sex-selective abortions.The restrictions, coercive practices, and abortion of unwanted baby girls have been blamed for a growing gender imbalance in Chinese society.The Chinese government denies that it enforces the one-child policy through any means other than financial incentives and punitive fines, but officials in provinces around the country are accused of violations as they aim to meet birth control quotas set by Beijing.
Why gasoline prices are rising while oil isn't
May 17 2007: 4:32 PM EDT
NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- Last summer when oil traded at a record high near $79 a barrel, gas at the pump went for about $3.03 a gallon. Today, crude's about $65 a barrel and a gallon of regular unleaded costs $3.10
Doesn't seem right, does it? The price of a barrel of crude ought to be a better benchmark for what you pay at the gas pump.
In today's economy, though, that type of formula is out the window, a relic from the days when refineries kept crude stocks high during winter months and Americans didn't drive longer and longer distances to get to home, work and play.
Nowadays, pump prices are determined far more by supply and demand for gasoline than by how much traders buy and sell crude for on the open market.
The bad boys of oil
"Forget everything you ever learned or ever read about the connection of crude oil prices to gasoline, because there is a disconnect today," said petroleum industry consultant Tim Hamilton. "All the price of oil does is establish a floor of what the price is going to be in the country."
Hamilton, who works with Oilwatch.org, a consumer group based in Santa Monica, Calif., advised that instead we should pay attention to the supply of gasoline for delivery to the marketplace, as well as the consumer habits that determine price.
"What's going to tell you the maximum price is going to be the supply of refined product," he said. "Supply of the finished product is short and the price is going up accordingly, and it's all profit for the refineries."
Over the last three months, gasoline stockpiles got drained more quickly than at any time in the history of record-keeping by the Energy Information Administration, the government's top energy forecaster. Couple that with continued high demand, which the EIA said rose about 1.0 percent from last year over that period, and that weighs heavily on the price of gas.
Other factors are at work. Geopolitical tensions, like the war in Iraq, political unrest in Nigeria and last year's nuclear tension in North Korea, also factor in. And this year's cold April caused a spike in demand, particularly in the Northeast, while seasonal changeover at refineries to meet reformulation requirements play a role as well.
The industry also has been hampered somewhat by a spate of outages at refineries, which are running at just 89.5 percent of capacity, rather than the 90-plus typical for this time of year. Finally, the main grade of U.S. crude, West Texas Intermediate, is trading below most other grades of oil worldwide, meaning U.S. refiners are effectively paying more on average for crude oil.
Behind high gas prices: The refinery crunch
In fact, some analysts see nothing particularly unusual about this year's spike in gasoline prices, at least in terms of recent trends, and expect prices to ease somewhat.
"Indeed, if you check a chart of past oil prices you'll see that last year the peak was around this time and prices fell later in the year," said Peter Grossman, an analyst at Butler University. "We should expect to see prices fall toward the end of summer. The futures market certainly expects it. Gasoline futures prices are falling even as pump prices rise."
Don't expect a steep fall, though. The EIA, whose previous per-gallon estimates have been shattered by continuously increasing prices, said in its latest report Wednesday afternoon that demand should keep prices around $3 through the summer.
In any event, if gas prices tumbled suddenly, that could spark a rush of buying that would force prices back up again - or at least put a floor under them.
Besides, judging by current demand levels, the driving public doesn't seem bothered enough to cut back much or even park their vehicles altogether. And it's that demand, after all, that goes a long way in determining which way prices will go.
"Once we got through a threshold high like last year and broke that $3-a-gallon barrier, the public gets accustomed to it and they go back to buying as normal," Hamilton said. "If it goes to $3.50 will they slow down? We don't know."
NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- Last summer when oil traded at a record high near $79 a barrel, gas at the pump went for about $3.03 a gallon. Today, crude's about $65 a barrel and a gallon of regular unleaded costs $3.10
Doesn't seem right, does it? The price of a barrel of crude ought to be a better benchmark for what you pay at the gas pump.
In today's economy, though, that type of formula is out the window, a relic from the days when refineries kept crude stocks high during winter months and Americans didn't drive longer and longer distances to get to home, work and play.
Nowadays, pump prices are determined far more by supply and demand for gasoline than by how much traders buy and sell crude for on the open market.
The bad boys of oil
"Forget everything you ever learned or ever read about the connection of crude oil prices to gasoline, because there is a disconnect today," said petroleum industry consultant Tim Hamilton. "All the price of oil does is establish a floor of what the price is going to be in the country."
Hamilton, who works with Oilwatch.org, a consumer group based in Santa Monica, Calif., advised that instead we should pay attention to the supply of gasoline for delivery to the marketplace, as well as the consumer habits that determine price.
"What's going to tell you the maximum price is going to be the supply of refined product," he said. "Supply of the finished product is short and the price is going up accordingly, and it's all profit for the refineries."
Over the last three months, gasoline stockpiles got drained more quickly than at any time in the history of record-keeping by the Energy Information Administration, the government's top energy forecaster. Couple that with continued high demand, which the EIA said rose about 1.0 percent from last year over that period, and that weighs heavily on the price of gas.
Other factors are at work. Geopolitical tensions, like the war in Iraq, political unrest in Nigeria and last year's nuclear tension in North Korea, also factor in. And this year's cold April caused a spike in demand, particularly in the Northeast, while seasonal changeover at refineries to meet reformulation requirements play a role as well.
The industry also has been hampered somewhat by a spate of outages at refineries, which are running at just 89.5 percent of capacity, rather than the 90-plus typical for this time of year. Finally, the main grade of U.S. crude, West Texas Intermediate, is trading below most other grades of oil worldwide, meaning U.S. refiners are effectively paying more on average for crude oil.
Behind high gas prices: The refinery crunch
In fact, some analysts see nothing particularly unusual about this year's spike in gasoline prices, at least in terms of recent trends, and expect prices to ease somewhat.
"Indeed, if you check a chart of past oil prices you'll see that last year the peak was around this time and prices fell later in the year," said Peter Grossman, an analyst at Butler University. "We should expect to see prices fall toward the end of summer. The futures market certainly expects it. Gasoline futures prices are falling even as pump prices rise."
Don't expect a steep fall, though. The EIA, whose previous per-gallon estimates have been shattered by continuously increasing prices, said in its latest report Wednesday afternoon that demand should keep prices around $3 through the summer.
In any event, if gas prices tumbled suddenly, that could spark a rush of buying that would force prices back up again - or at least put a floor under them.
Besides, judging by current demand levels, the driving public doesn't seem bothered enough to cut back much or even park their vehicles altogether. And it's that demand, after all, that goes a long way in determining which way prices will go.
"Once we got through a threshold high like last year and broke that $3-a-gallon barrier, the public gets accustomed to it and they go back to buying as normal," Hamilton said. "If it goes to $3.50 will they slow down? We don't know."
Pistons Bounce Bulls In Six Games
(Undated) -- For the fifth straight year, the Detroit Pistons are headed to the NBA's Eastern Conference finals. Detroit moved on last night beating the Chicago Bulls 95-85 in game six of their playoff series. Detroit will play either Cleveland or New Jersey in the East finals. Tonight, the Cavaliers and Nets resume their Eastern Conference semifinal matchup. Out West, it's Game Six of the Western Conference semifinal series between Phoenix and San Antonio. The Spurs hold a 3-2 advantage in the best-of-seven series.
Spain Prosecutor Wants Charges Against Troops Dropped
(Madrid) -- The decision by Spain's high court to charge three U.S. soldiers with murder is being appealed by a prosecutor. The public prosecutor says the soldiers in the U.S. tank that opened fire on a Baghdad hotel were acting in "the context of war" and should not be charged with the murder of a television cameraman. An investigation conducted by the U.S. military found that the tank crew acted within the rules of engagement
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