John Glenn, wife hurt in accident
Former senator and astronaut John Glenn and his wife were recovering at a hospital Saturday after a car accident a day earlier, Glenn’s former press secretary said.
Glenn, 85, and his wife, Annie, 86, were in fair condition Saturday afternoon at Grant Medical Center, nursing supervisor Louis Tejada said. They were expected to be released today after a few final tests, said Dale Butland, a friend of the couple who formerly worked for Glenn.
Glenn and his wife were returning home from a fundraiser late Friday when he tried to make a left turn onto a highway ramp, Butland said.
“He saw a lot of cars in the distance, but did not see this car that was right up on him,” Butland said.
The oncoming car hit the front end of Glenn’s car. The driver, Amy Myers of suburban New Albany, was not injured and told the Columbus Dispatch that Glenn was “very sincerely sorry.”
Butland said Glenn was sore, especially in the chest where he was hit when his car’s air bag deployed. He and his wife suffered bumps and bruises.
INDIANAPOLIS
Officers mobilize as violence spikes
Police officials mobilized more officers Saturday and began to clear more jail space in response to a recent spike in violent crime that included overnight shootings that killed five people.
“This is an extreme emergency and we’ve got to pull together and do whatever it takes,” Mayor Bart Peterson said after stopping at the scene of a shootout hours earlier that killed two people and injured two others.
The Indianapolis Police Department immediately boosted the number of patrolmen on the streets. Officials plan to lengthen court hours and work to free up space in Marion County’s overcrowded jail to make room for those arrested during the crackdown.
Overnight, police found the body of Maurice White, 26, in a car parked in an alley behind a downtown bar. Four men who had been to the same bar were shot minutes later about a block away; Antonio Jones, 23, and Richard Taylor, 18, were killed but the others survived.
A separate shooting killed 16-year-old Jack Berry. And on the city’s near east side, Gregory Bryant, 44, was found shot to death in his backyard.
OAK RIDGE, Tenn.
Protesters arrested at N-weapons plant
Eight protesters were arrested Saturday, a day before the 61st anniversary of the world’s first atomic bomb attack, after refusing to leave the entrance of a nuclear weapons plant.
Much of the work that went into producing the bomb was conducted at the Y-12 plant in the once-secret city for the World War II-era Manhattan Project. The U.S. dropped the bomb on Hiroshima, Japan, on Aug. 6, 1945.
About 300 people participated in the rally and march, in which activists chanted, pinned paper peace cranes to the barricades and fences, and sang while the eight who were arrested sat on the hot asphalt as an act of civil disobedience.
Another peace ceremony was planned for dawn with the reading of names of those who died in the atomic blast. Additional events are planned for Aug. 9, the anniversary of the bombing of Nagasaki, Japan.