DEARBORN, Mich.
Ford likely to exceed 30,000 job cuts by ’12
Ford Motor Co. expects to shed 22,000 to 24,000 hourly jobs in North America by the end of next year as part of its turnaround effort, according to published reports.
The automaker also will probably exceed its goal of cutting up to 30,000 hourly workers by 2012, The Detroit News reported Saturday, citing company sources.
Ford spokeswoman Marcey Evans said Saturday that she couldn’t discuss estimates for how many jobs might be cut by the end of 2007 because Ford has released estimates only through the end of this year.
Ford expects 10,000 to 11,000 of its hourly workers will take early retirement or buyout offers this year, Evans said. Including workers leaving through attrition will bring that to about 12,000, she said.
So far, about 5,750 workers have accepted buyouts, she said.
SALEM, Va.
School considers gas detectors after leak
There were no carbon monoxide detectors in the Roanoke College dormitory where one person died and dozens of teenagers and adults were sickened after a leak of the odorless gas, but the school is considering installing them, a spokeswoman said Saturday.
State law doesn’t require carbon monoxide detectors in college dorms, but spokeswoman Teresa Gereaux said the private school would consider installing them.
“We’re in the process right now of investigating the options of what will work with the systems we already have in place,” she said.
A total of 114 people were taken to two hospitals Friday after waking up with headaches, nausea, dizziness and shakiness.
ROANOKE, Va.
Child-porn operator sentenced to 150 years
A Virginia man who helped run a child-pornography business that has been the focus of federal and state investigations as well as congressional hearings was sentenced Friday to 150 years in prison.
The man, Gregory J. Mitchel, 39, pleaded guilty in January to charges involving the sexual exploitation of boys and the operation of illegal websites.
Mitchel was an administrator on several of the sites and admitted in his plea to producing and distributing child pornography.
Mitchel was arrested in September after being implicated by Justin Berry, a 19-year-old California man featured in a December article in The New York Times about teenagers who run for-pay pornography sites, showing images of themselves transmitted by webcams. Berry’s story prompted the hearings before a House subcommittee, and he testified in April.
RICHMOND, Va.
Man picks execution by electric chair
Weeping as one of her captors bound her with duct tape, the young woman made a final desperate plea for her life, telling the two men she was a mother.
Unmoved, Brandon Hedrick and Trevor Jones forced Lisa Crider to a remote bank of the James River.
“Do what you gotta do,” Jones told his friend. Hedrick squeezed the trigger, firing a shotgun blast into Crider’s face.
Barring intervention from the U.S. Supreme Court or Virginia Gov. Timothy Kaine, Hedrick is scheduled to be executed Thursday for the rape and murder of 23-year-old Crider.
Hedrick chose the electric chair instead of lethal injection and would be the first person in the United States to be executed by electrocution in more than two years.
