Texas

Rain swamps state; one motorist killed

Heavy rain Monday in the San Antonio and Austin areas flooded streets, stranded cars and closed roads. Rising creeks and streams also threatened some homes, forcing residents to move to higher ground.

San Antonio police reported one death, after a vehicle was swept from a roadway.

In New Braunfels, rescue crews evacuated 24 children from a day care center. Flooding also shut down a large section of the city’s downtown.

Gov. Rick Perry authorized use of three Texas National Guard UH-60 helicopters for search and rescue operations.

Tornado warnings were posted in the Houston area as a string of thunderstorms dumped 2-4 inches of rain an hour. The Colorado River, which flows through Austin and into southeast Texas, swelled its banks in several spots.

Dallas

Nation’s oldest known bank robber dies at 92

J.L. Hunter “Red” Rountree, the nation’s oldest known bank robber, who turned to crime in his 80s, died in a prison hospital. He was 92.

A spokesman for the U.S. Medical Center for Federal Prisoners in Springfield, Mo., said Rountree was transferred there shortly after his sentencing in January for a bank holdup in Abilene when he was 91.

He died Oct. 12, two months shy of his 93rd birthday.

The Abilene job was the last of three bank robberies Rountree began in 1998, when he was 86. In an interview with The Associated Press earlier this year, he said he walked slowly to a teller’s window, handed over an envelope indicating his intent and was greeted with a surprised, “Are you kidding?”

The teller complied anyway, but Rountree was later caught and sentenced to 12 1/2 years in prison — a death sentence for a man of his age.

“You want to know why I rob banks?” Rountree said in the interview. “It’s fun. I feel good, awful good. I feel good for sometimes days, for sometimes hours.”

Wisconsin

Radio host apologizes, sort of, to Rice

A radio host apologized Monday for calling secretary of state nominee Condoleezza Rice “Aunt Jemima,” but refused to back down from his criticism that she is a “black trophy” of the Bush administration.

John “Sly” Sylvester, the program director and morning personality on WTDY-AM in Madison, wrote a letter of apology to local newspapers.

“I’m concerned that I have offended many African-Americans by using a crass term to describe an incompetent, dishonest political appointee of the Bush administration. I apologize,” wrote Sylvester, who is white.

Sylvester wrote he would not, however, apologize for criticizing Rice, saying “she has allowed herself to be used as a black trophy by an administration.”

Texas

Mother charged with killing baby

A woman with a history of postpartum depression cut off the arms of her baby daughter Monday, then called 911 and waited calmly until police arrived, authorities said.

“She wasn’t trying to hide,” police spokesman Carl Duke said.

Dena Schlosser, 35, was charged with capital murder after the girl died at a hospital in Plano, a Dallas suburb. Child-protection authorities said the mother had shown signs of postpartum depression in the past, but there had been no signs of violence.

Authorities said when they arrived at the family’s apartment, they found the nearly 11-month-old baby in a bedroom with her arms severed. Schlosser, covered in blood, was sitting in her living room.

It was not immediately clear what Schlosser used to sever the baby’s arms, police said.

WASHINGTON

Seat-belt use rises

Seat-belt use rates increased in 37 states this year, a fact that federal highway safety officials attribute to increased awareness and police enforcement.

Arizona and Hawaii achieved seat-belt use rates of more than 95 percent, the highest ever reported, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration said. The national seat-belt use rate in 2004 was 80 percent, also a record.

Mississippi improved its seat-belt use rate by 1.6 percent but still had the lowest rate in the nation at 63.2 percent. Massachusetts, Arkansas and South Carolina were the only other states with belt use rates at 65 percent or lower.