Navy carrier’s last landing is at bottom of sea as reef
In the Gulf of Mexico – As hundreds of veterans looked on solemnly, Navy divers blew holes in a retired aircraft carrier and sent the 888-foot USS Oriskany to the bottom of the sea Wednesday, forming the world’s largest deliberately created artificial reef.
Clouds of brown and gray smoke rose in the sky after more than 500 pounds of plastic explosives went off. The rusted hulk took about 37 minutes to slip beneath the waves, about four and a half hours faster than predicted.
Korean and Vietnam War veterans aboard charter boats watched from beyond a one-mile safety perimeter as the “Mighty O” went down in 212 feet of water, about 24 miles off Pensacola Beach.
The Oriskany became the first vessel sunk under a new Navy program to dispose of old warships by turning them into reefs that can attract fish and other marine life.
Over the years, other ships have been turned into reefs, including the warship USS Spiegel Grove, a cargo vessel that was scuttled in 2002 off Key Largo. But that was a civilian project, paid for with a combination of county and private money.
The Oriskany, commissioned in 1950 and named after a Revolutionary War battle, saw duty during the Korean War and was home to John McCain when the future senator served in Vietnam.
PORTLAND, Ore.
Court voids award against Philip Morris
A $150 million jury verdict against cigarette maker Philip Morris was vacated Wednesday by the Oregon Court of Appeals, which ordered a new trial after a trial judge ruled the verdict was excessive.
A jury in 2002 ordered the tobacco company to pay $150 million in punitive damages to the estate of Michelle Schwarz, who died of lung cancer in 1999 at age 53. But Multnomah County Circuit Judge Roosevelt Robinson found that amount “grossly excessive” and reduced it by a third, to $100 million.
The appeals court vacated the verdict and remanded the case for a new trial solely to determine the amount of punitive damages.
VIRGINIA BEACH, Va.
Robertson: U.S. will be lashed by storms
In another in a series of notable pronouncements, religious broadcaster Pat Robertson says God told him storms and possibly a tsunami will hit America’s coastline this year.
Robertson has made the predictions at least four times in the past two weeks on his news-and-talk television show “The 700 Club” on the Christian Broadcasting Network, which he founded.
Robertson said the revelations about this year’s weather came to him during his annual personal prayer retreat in January.
“If I heard the Lord right about 2006, the coasts of America will be lashed by storms,” Robertson said May 8. On Wednesday, he added, “There well may be something as bad as a tsunami in the Pacific Northwest.”
Robertson has come under intense criticism in recent months for suggesting that American agents should assassinate Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez and that Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon’s stroke was divine retribution for Israel’s pullout from the Gaza Strip.
BOGOTA, Colombia
Cops nab long-hunted trafficking suspect
One of the world’s most hunted drug traffickers – accused of shipping more than 70 tons of cocaine to the United States – has been arrested in Brazil, Colombian police said Wednesday.
Colombian-born Pablo Rayo Montano, who had been on the run for a decade, was captured Tuesday in São Paulo as part of an operation coordinated by the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration.
More than three dozen others were arrested during simultaneous raids in the United States and Latin America, officials said.
TOKYO
New claim for oldest to scale Mt. Everest
A mountaineering company claimed that a 70-year-old Japanese man on one of its expeditions Wednesday became the oldest person to scale Mount Everest, edging the record-holder by three days.
A spokesman for Guinness World Records in London said it couldn’t immediately confirm the feat.
Takao Arayama, age 70 years, 7 months and 13 days, scaled the 29,035-foot peak, according to Toshinori Koya, who heads Tokyo-based company Adventure Guides, which planned the climb.
The Guinness World Records website says the record has been held by Yuichiro Miura, also of Japan, who reached the summit at the age of 70 years, 7 months and 10 days, on May 22, 2003.
KANSAS CITY, Mo.
Ruling validates expired lottery ticket
The state of Missouri must pay up on a $100,000 Powerball ticket that the winner’s wife found nearly a year after it was purchased, an appeals court ruled.
Paul E. Barnett, of Dyersburg, Tenn., bought the ticket in December 2002, but the family didn’t realize it was a winner until his wife discovered it about 11 months later as she was cleaning out his pickup truck.
The lottery’s 180-day deadline for claiming prize money had passed, and the state argued it didn’t have to pay.
Barnett sued in 2004, and a lower court judge ordered the state to hand over the winnings last year. Tuesday’s ruling upheld that decision.
The state appeals court ruled the deadline was illegally imposed because it was not properly publicized.
