Arizona

Bee stings prove fatal to 46-year-old

A Sunizona woman was stung at least 80 times by a swarm of bees and told her boyfriend she loved him just before she died.

Cheryl McClain and Ted Richard were attacked on Tuesday while moving items into a storage shed behind their home. They sprayed themselves with water and tore at their clothes, Richard said from his hospital bed.

Finally, he said, McClain looked at him and said, “I love you, Ted.”

“I love you, too, Cheryl. It’ll be OK, Cheryl,” he answered as she collapsed.

McClain, 46, died from anaphylactic shock, the coroner’s office said. She was the fifth person in Arizona to die from a bee attack since 1993.

North Carolina

Green Beret training restarts after death

With new precautions in place, the Army on Friday launched its first full-scale military exercise for Green Beret candidates since a trainee was shot to death in a case of mistaken identity.

The “Robin Sage” exercises have been staged for 40 years and are a venerable part of Green Beret training at Fort Bragg. The training takes place in 10 counties, where troops try to help residents of the mythical country of “Pineland” overthrow a repressive government.

The exercise has traditionally drawn on a huge cast of civilian volunteers and local law enforcement to help organize and carry out the training.

In February, 1st Lt. Tallas Tomeny, 31, of Montgomery, Ala., was killed and Sgt. Stephen Phelps was wounded in a confrontation with a Moore County sheriff’s deputy who didn’t know Robin Sage troops were in his area.

Florida

State gets new elections official

Gov. Jeb Bush appointed a temporary secretary of state Friday to replace Katherine Harris, who has been criticized by Democrats for mishandling her resignation to run for Congress.

Jim Smith, a former secretary of state, will be back at his old job until the post is eliminated in January.

He becomes Florida’s top elections official as the state prepares to hold its first general and state primary elections since 2000, when the election ended in a presidential recount watched around the world.

Texas

Electrical outage widespread in El Paso

A power line short-circuited Friday, cutting power to more than 750,000 people in El Paso and several towns in New Mexico and West Texas, authorities said.

Power was restored within 45 minutes to about half of El Paso, but remained out in several towns spanning about 180 miles between Hatch, N.M., and Van Horn, Tex., El Paso Electric spokesman Henry Quintana said.

Public Service Company of New Mexico was investigating why a 345-kilovolt line that ran between Albuquerque and El Paso short-circuited.