Texas: Couple claim Texas-sized jackpot
A police officer and his wife, a customer service representative, have claimed an $85 million Lotto Texas jackpot the state's largest ever.
Robert and Beverly Chody, both 30, received their winnings $51.2 million on Thursday. The couple chose the cash-option payment so they got the smaller amount in a lump sum.
They said they may travel to Hawaii, but otherwise hadn't planned how to spend the winnings. "This is a lot of money and we are going to take our time with it," Robert Chody said Friday.
Beverly Chody said she was unsure if she would continue to work as a customer service representative at AT&T Wireless. Robert Chody said he plans to continue working as a patrol officer for the Austin police department, "but that is something we need to discuss."
WASHINGTON, D.C.: Conservatives complain about Jackson finances
A conservative political group has filed a complaint with the Federal Election Commission against Jesse Jackson's Rainbow/Push Coalition, alleging that Jackson illegally moved Democratic Party money through his nonprofit organization to cover campaign travel expenses.
"These are tax-exempt corporations," said David Keene, chairman of the American Conservative Union. "Under the law, they are not allowed to be involved in partisan political activity." The group, a political opponent of Rainbow/PUSH Coalition, has also urged an Internal Revenue Service audit of Jackson's group.
In releasing its financial records this month, Jackson's group disclosed that $614,000 was spent on his travel, with more than $450,000 of those costs covered by Democratic committees as part of "get-out-the-vote" efforts.
Los ANGELES: Fire-eater blazes trail on DWI defense
Magician and drunken-driving defendant Randall Richman swears he wasn't drinking firewater. But he did eat fire. Richman says he had just taught a fire-eating class in Hollywood when he was pulled over by police in 1999 for driving without his headlights on and going 55 mph in a 35 mph zone.
Police said he was not carrying a license, his eyes were bloodshot, he could not stand and there was "an odor of an unknown alcoholic beverage." A breath test measured his blood alcohol at twice the legal limit.
But the 32-year-old magician will argue at his April 12 trial that it wasn't liquor that was detected; it was three types of lighter fluid. The defense has worked before. In 1991, a San Francisco jury acquitted professional fire-eater Ted Maschal on similar charges.
Mississippi: Cop's son shoots gas shop attendant
A policeman's 3-year-old son shot a gas station attendant in the face with his father's pistol, authorities said. The attendant, James Collins, 43, was in critical condition Friday.
Off-duty Patrolman Randy Tomlinson had brought his truck into the gas station on Thursday, leaving his gun in the back seat and his son in the front, Capt. Danny Hill said.
The boy crawled into the back seat, pointed the pistol at Collins and shot him, Hill said. The police department has not decided on a course of discipline for the patrolman.
MIAMI: Raw sewage spills after ship collision
Raw sewage spewed 4 feet into the air and swimming was banned after a tugboat ruptured a pipe and unleashed millions of gallons of waste into Biscayne Bay.
The 72-inch sewage pipe buried beneath the bay was hit Thursday evening by a tug pushing a barge from the Intracoastal Waterway to the Port of Miami, the Coast Guard said. Eleven to 12 million gallons of untreated sewage spilled out over the next four hours, at times spewing 4 feet high out of the bay, officials said.
Bathing was banned from the Julia Tuttle Causeway, which links Miami Beach to the mainland, south through Biscayne Bay because of possible contamination.
South Carolina: NAACP leader resigns in boycott dispute
The president of the Hilton Head Beach NAACP chapter has resigned, saying he could not support the civil rights group's planned protest at the Worldcom Classic golf tournament here next month.
"It is clear to me that my views are not in accordance with NAACP policy," John Ingram wrote in a letter sent to the group's leaders Thursday.
The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People began the boycott in January 2000 to protest the flying of the Confederate flag atop the Statehouse dome. That flag was removed in July and a similar one was placed at the Confederate Soldier Monument on the Capitol grounds.
Ingram says he opposed the golf protest because of the tournament's positive economic impact on businesses and $67,000 in donations by the tournament to the local NAACP chapter since 1993.
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