Around the Nation

ARKANSAS

Truck hits car, kills mother, 4 children

PINE BLUFF — A tractor-trailer crossed a highway center line and struck a car head on, killing a woman and her four young children, police said.

The truck driver, Roy Lee Jordan, 57, of Benton, Miss., was arrested and jailed after Saturday’s crash, police and a jailer said.

“What it seems like right now is that the driver of the 18-wheeler fell asleep or lost consciousness before his rig crossed the center line,” Trooper Oscar Bullard Jr. said. Blood and urine samples were taken to the state crime laboratory for drug and alcohol tests, state police said.

LaKetria Wells, 26, of Monticello, was killed with her children, LaKiyah Wells, 7; Kaleb Jarrell Stokes, 5; Keyshon Wells, 4; and LaKayla Wells, 2. She was a correctional officer at Cummins prison since April 2006, according to state Correction Department spokeswoman Dina Tyler.

CALIFORNIA

Gore’s daughter marries businessman

BEVERLY HILLS — Al Gore’s youngest daughter, Sarah, was married Saturday night at the Beverly Hills Hotel, according to a family spokeswoman.

Miss Gore, 28, married Bill Lee, 36, a Los Angeles businessman, said spokeswoman Kalee Kreider.

Miss Kreider declined to give any further details.

The daughter of the former vice president and 2000 Democratic presidential nominee is a Harvard graduate and a medical student at the University of California at San Francisco.

Sarah is the third of Al and Tipper Gore’s four children. Their oldest daughter, Karenna, 34, is married to Drew Schiff. Kristin Gore, 30, is married to Paul Cusack. Al Gore III, 24, is single and lives in Los Angeles.

COLORADO

Flag flying irks homeowners

WHEAT RIDGE — An American flag waving upside-down outside a home to protest the Iraq war has touched off a flap with a homeowners association in this Denver suburb. Retired banker Beth Hammer ran up the flag on March 19, the fourth anniversary of the Iraq invasion.

Association board members are considering whether to fine her $500 a day for violating a “patriotic and political expression policy.”

DELAWARE

Legislation requires infection reports

DOVER — Gov. Ruth Ann Minner is expected to sign a law that will require the state’s hospitals and correctional institutions to report infections that patients acquire after they are admitted.

Legislators said the measure would require quarterly reports to the state health department, beginning in June.

INDIANA

Waitress given education fund

ANGOLA — A waitress at a Pizza Hut got $10,000 for her college education from a mother and two sons who are regular customers. The donors, who wish to remain anonymous, presented Jessica Osborne, 20, with a check from an education fund they had set up after a death in the family.

Miss Osborne says she wants to study photography or journalism.

NEVADA

Jury awards millions in malpractice suit

LAS VEGAS — A jury awarded $20.5 million to Jackie Templeton, who sued for medical malpractice after her husband died of lung cancer in 2000. A lawyer for Emergency Physicians Medical Group said his client probably will appeal.

Mrs. Templeton claimed company employees told her husband that chest X-rays were normal, even though the images showed a mass that should have led to follow-up exams.

TEXAS

Lady Bird buried at Johnson ranch

STONEWALL — Lady Bird Johnson arrived at her final resting place beneath a canopy of oak trees yesterday, beside the late President Lyndon Baines Johnson at the family’s ranch in the Texas Hill Country.

Relatives and close friends of the Johnsons said a final goodbye to the former first lady near the banks of the Pedernales River.

Mrs. Johnson, who died Wednesday at 94, was remembered as an astute businesswoman, a woman who worked to preserve nature and the devoted wife of a president. “I’m not sure why she was so preoccupied with this, but she always seemed to be wondering if she had done enough for the world, regardless of her own condition,” her grandson Lyndon Nugent said.

Prayers and “Amazing Grace” completed the brief service, held in the Johnson family cemetery where the late president and more than 30 other extended family members are buried.

WISCONSIN

Woman dies after fall from bungee ride

OSHKOSH — A woman attending a Christian festival died Saturday after plunging about 45 feet from a bungeelike amusement ride.

Workers at the Lifest 2007 event shut down the Air Glory ride after the accident, which occurred about 4:45 p.m. A prayer service was held at 7 p.m., and the music festival resumed about 7:30 p.m.

The woman, whose name and age was not released by Oshkosh police, was pronounced dead at a local hospital several hours after the accident.

Lifest is an annual Christian music festival that also features rides and sports.

An announcement about the death was made from a stage just after 9:30 p.m. The music continued but with more mellow worship songs.

Oshkosh Police Sgt. Todd Wrage said few details were available Saturday night.

“What we do know, from the reports we’ve gotten, is that she apparently fell 40 to 50 feet,” Sgt. Wrage said.

The Air Glory ride is described as a ride whose mechanism is similar to bungee-jumping.

WYOMING

Woman killed singing at bar

CHEYENNE — A woman was fatally shot early yesterday while she sang with a band at a restaurant and bar, police said. They were looking for her estranged husband, a National Guardsman who they said had sniper training.

Robin Munis was shot in the head with one gunshot that came from outside the Old Chicago restaurant where she had been performing just after midnight, Cheyenne police Capt. Jeff Schulz said. No one else in the restaurant was hurt.

Witnesses saw her husband, David Munis, in the area, but no one has reported seeing the shot fired, Capt. Schulz said. No weapon was found, but Capt. Schulz said investigators think a rifle was used.

The couple had recently separated, and Mrs. Munis, 40, of Cheyenne, had complained about receiving harassing calls from her husband as recently as Friday, Capt. Schulz said.

“We are working solely on him being the suspect,” Capt. Schulz said at a press conference. He described Mr. Munis as “very dangerous.”

Mr. Munis, 36, is a second lieutenant in the Wyoming Army National Guard who is attached to the guard’s training camp, according to guard spokeswoman Deidre Forster.

From wire dispatches and staff reports