Briefly

Texas flash floods kill one person; another missing

San Antonio Torrential thunderstorms caused flash floods that drowned one woman who was swept from a bridge. A second person was missing.

Firefighters discovered the woman’s body late Tuesday. Witnesses told police they saw the woman trying to walk across the bridge over a creek even though a Public Works Department employee warned her not to.

Crews delayed their search Wednesday of the Blanco River near San Marcos for 24-year-old Laurie Pineda, whose car was swept away Sunday as she tried to drive through a low-water crossing. The river had risen 11 feet in two hours.

Several tornados were also reported in the region, including in Austin, San Antonio and Gillespie County.

Many areas around central Texas and the Texas Hill Country received 5 to 8 inches of rain from Sunday through Wednesday morning, the National Weather Service said. The rain stopped in Austin by mid-afternoon.

House GOP aim to kill food-labeling law

Washington Telling consumers where their meat, fruit and vegetables came from seemed such a good idea to U.S. ranchers and farmers in competition with imports that Congress two years ago ordered the food industry to do it. But meatpackers and food processors fought the law from the start, and newly emboldened Republicans now plan to repeal it before Thanksgiving.

As part of the 2002 farm bill, country-of-origin labeling was supposed to have gone into effect this fall. Congress last year postponed it until 2006. Now, House Republicans are trying to wipe it off the books as part of a spending bill they plan to finish this month.

House Majority Whip Roy Blunt, R-Mo., said he expected the Senate to agree to repealing the measure, whose main champion two years ago was Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle, D-S.D.

Those who want the repeal say the labeling system is so expensive that it far outweighs any benefit to consumers. The Agriculture Department has estimated the cost could range from hundreds of millions to billions of dollars in the first year alone.

The issue divides cattlemen and other livestock producers. Many of the bigger livestock and feedlot operations, as well as food processors, do not want mandatory labeling.

Producers in favor of mandatory labels believe consumers will prefer U.S.-grown food over foreign imports. The law requires companies to put country-of-origin labels on meat, vegetables and fruit.

Consumer groups say the issue is whether buyers have a right to know where their food came from.

Man who served 27 years gets $1.4 million

Annapolis, Md. A man who served 27 years in prison before his murder conviction was overturned was awarded $1.4 million Wednesday, Maryland’s largest award for a wrongful conviction.

Michael Austin, 56, was convicted in 1974 of killing a man at a market, but his conviction was overturned and he was freed in 2001.

A witness told police the shooter was a light-skinned black man, about 5-foot-8. Austin is 6-foot-5 and is dark skinned.

The judge who overturned the conviction said Austin’s trial lawyer, who is now dead, was incompetent and the prosecution committed errors at the trial.

The award, to be paid over 10 years, was approved by the state Board of Public Works, made up of the governor, the state treasurer and the state comptroller.

“There isn’t enough money to pay you for all your pain and suffering,” Comptroller William Donald Schaefer told Austin.

TV reporter just barely gets her story

Cleveland A television news anchor appeared on the air nude in a first-person report about an artist’s photographs, drawing a record number of viewers for the time slot, the station said.

Sharon Reed was one of hundreds of people who participated in Spencer Tunick’s nude photo installation in Cleveland in June. Her report, which aired Monday on the 11 p.m. newscast on WOIO-TV, showed far away angles of her nude and some closer seminude shots, as well as other participants.

The station said Wednesday that the story on its Web site attracted nearly 1 million visitors. WOIO news director Steve Doerr said the story was aimed at bringing in ratings during November sweeps when audiences are measured to set advertising rates.

Doerr said the idea was to cover Tunick, a well-known artist, in a different way, and he said the response has been generally positive. Reed said she was praised for “standing up” for what she believed, but also was ridiculed for jeopardizing TV news standards.

The station aired advisories before the piece, and FCC spokeswoman Janice Wise on Wednesday said WOIO followed commission rules that prohibit indecent material from being aired on broadcast television from 6 a.m. to 10 p.m.

Man falls apart into case of ‘leaf rage’

Stamford, Conn. When city employees refused to haul away his raked leaves, Michael Peters blew up. And his meltdown got him arrested for what police describe as “leaf rage.”

Peters, 67, of North Stamford, was charged Monday with breach of peace, a misdemeanor, after accosting municipal workers who told him they collected leaves only on the street and not those on a right of way, where his were stacked.

“He grabbed my jacket and said, ‘You’re not going anywhere,’ ” operations supervisor Robert Gerbert said of Peters. “The guy was spitting and swearing – it was the most disgusting scene I’ve ever seen.”

Peters admitted he lost his cool, frustrated by more than three decades of being ignored by the town at leaf time.

“I went berserk. I got very angry,” Peters said. “After 34 years, things build up. I am a taxpayer … All I am trying to do is get a service that’s being offered to all of my neighbors.”

Crews probably would have come back to Peters’ home – maybe even later that day – had he asked politely, said worker Jim Crabb: “We’re not big, mean ogres.”

Sex-toy businesswoman gets license back

Spring Hill, Tenn. Town officials have restored a woman’s business license weeks after accusing her of trying to sell a sex toy – a vibrating yellow-ducky sponge – at a flea market.

The Nashville suburb agreed Monday to allow Katherine Williams to keep the license for her Passions & Pleasures intimate gifts business if she does not display her wares in public. Williams typically sells her lotions and adult novelties at home parties.