Texas

President, family worship with soldiers

President Bush attended an Easter service Sunday at Fort Hood where he offered prayers for the well-being of American soldiers and their families.

For a third straight year, the president made the 50-mile helicopter flight from his ranch in Crawford to mark Christianity’s highest holiday at the largest active-duty armored post in the military and one that has contributed thousands of troops to U.S. forces in Iraq.

“I want to wish all the fellow citizens and their families a happy Easter,” Bush told reporters after the service. “We prayed for peace, we prayed for our soldiers and their families. It’s an honor to be here at Fort Hood to celebrate Easter with those who wear the nation’s uniform.”

Joining Bush were his parents, his wife and his twin daughters.

New York City

Organ donation mix-up brings lawsuit

A 54-year-old Bronx native facing death from kidney disease is fighting to sue a transplant organization for giving away a kidney from his childhood friend.

Robert Colavito had lost almost all renal function and was on dialysis when his friend, Peter Lucia, suffered a brain hemorrhage on Aug. 21, 2002, and died the next day.

Lucia’s wife, Debra, says she directed that both of her husband’s kidneys be sent to Florida, where Colavito was living, and used to save his life. But only one of Peter Lucia’s kidneys went to Florida — and it turned out to be defective. The other kidney, which was healthy, went to a woman in New York.

Colavito’s suit names as defendants the New York Organ Donor Network and two of its officials, Good Samaritan Hospital in West Islip and two unnamed doctors.

Texas

Bill takes aim at polygamist group

A Kerrville lawmaker is trying to make it harder for a polygamist group that is building a compound south of San Angelo to practice some of its more controversial beliefs.

Former members of the Fundamentalist Church of Latter-day Saints have accused the group of coercing girls as young as 14 to marry, sometimes to their relatives.

A bill filed by state Rep. Harvey Hilderbran, R-Kerrville, would raise the minimum age of marriage with parental consent from 14 to 16 and make it illegal for stepparents to marry stepchildren.