National anthem in Spanish planned
Mexican pop diva Gloria Trevi, Puerto Rican reggaeton artist Ivy Queen and Tito El Bambino and other Latino performers are recording a Spanish-language version of the U.S. national anthem in a show of support for migrants in the United States.
The Latino-oriented record label Urban Box Office (UBO) said Saturday it plans to release the new version of “The Star-Spangled Banner” to coincide with the U.S. Senate’s debate on immigration legislation next week.
“We chose to re-record ‘The Star-Spangled Banner’ to show our solidarity with the undocumented immigrants and their quest for basic civil rights,” UBO President Adam Kidron said in a news release.
The recording, dubbed “Nuestro Himno” or “Our Anthem,” is set to a “rhythmic Latin musical arrangement” but respects the song’s traditional structure, UBO said. The song will be primarily in Spanish with a few words sung in English.
Fairbanks, Alaska
6 teens accused of massacre plot
Six middle school students in a small Alaska town were arrested Saturday on suspicion of plotting to bring guns and knives to school and kill fellow students.
The arrests stem from an investigation into rumors reported to police earlier in the week about the students’ plans in North Pole, a town of 1,600 people about 14 miles southeast of Fairbanks, said Police Chief Paul Lindhag.
The unidentified students wanted to seek revenge for being picked on by other students to disliking staff and students, Lindhag said.
The students had planned to disable North Pole Middle School’s power and telephone systems, allotting time to kill their victims and escape out of town.
Indianapolis
Rites honor five killed in crash
Some 700 people joined in a memorial service for five Indiana University music school graduate students killed when their small plane crashed, and many others sought to participate in a memorial concert.
The service was held at First United Methodist Church, where crash victim Zachary Novak was worship coordinator and directed the Wesley choir and children’s choirs.
The students were in a single-engine Cessna that crashed late Thursday in dense fog near the Monroe County Airport. Federal investigators had no immediate answers to why the plane crashed. The small plane had no cockpit voice recorder and the pilot, student Georgina Joshi, made no distress call, they said.
Joshi, 24, of South Bend, studied at the Royal College of Music in London and sang in Wales. The other students on the plane were identified as Novak, 25, of Anderson; Robert Clayton Samels, 24, of Medina, Ohio; Garth Eppley, 25, of Wabash, Ind.; and Chris Bates Carducci, 28, of Monroe, Mich.