Texas

Store clerk’s killer executed by injection

A man was executed by lethal injection Thursday evening for fatally shooting a video store clerk eight years ago in College Station.

When the warden asked if he had a last statement, Stanley Baker said he was “just sorry” about what he did.

Prosecutors said Baker, dressed in green fatigues, walked into the adult video store Sept. 28, 1994, carrying a 12-gauge shotgun. He shot the clerk, Wayne Walters, in the back of the head as the clerk was lying on the floor.

Baker was driving the victim’s truck and had about $50 taken from the store when he was arrested a few hours later.

Baker, who did not testify at his trial, said he was at a loss to explain what set him off. “I ask myself that, too,” he said in a recent interview on death row.

WASHINGTON

Letter carriers ratify five-year contract

The National Association of Letter Carriers ratified a new five-year contract with the Postal Service, the union announced Thursday, with the approval of 7 out of 8 voters.

The vote was 94,732 to 12,866, according to Joseph DeRossi of Brooklyn, N.Y., chairman of the panel that supervised the count.

NALC represents city delivery carriers nationwide.

The new contract will be retroactive to last November, when the previous deal expired.

The contract calls for raises totaling 7.1 percent over the term of the deal, plus cost-of-living increases. Currently letter carriers earn between $32,156 and $43,660 annually, depending on grade and length of service.