High floodwaters kill at least one

More than 5 inches of rain fell Sunday in parts of North Texas, causing high-rising floodwaters that killed at least one person and forced several rescues, officials said.

A woman’s body was recovered from Turtle Creek, where officials believe her car was swept off the road and into the water, police Sr. Cpl. Max Geron said.

“There are houses that have water coming in them, and there are cars that are submerged” across the Dallas-Fort Worth area, said Ted Ryan, a National Weather Service meteorologist.

Officials evacuated several homes in west Dallas because of rising floodwaters, Geron said. At least two high-water rescues were reported in Arlington, Ryan said.

The storms were expected to continue through early today, Ryan said.

Washington

Durbin wants Bush ‘held accountable’

A top Senate Democrat said Sunday that President Bush should be held responsible if he violated the law in authorizing the domestic spy program.

But Sen. Dick Durbin of Illinois said it is too early to tell if either censure or impeachment of Bush would be appropriate.

“I can’t rule anything out until the investigation is complete. I don’t want to prejudge it,” said Durbin, the Senate’s No. 2 Democrat. “But if this president or any president violates the law, he has to be held accountable.”

Durbin’s colleague, Sen. Russell Feingold, D-Wis., last week introduced censure legislation, saying Bush violated the law in not fully informing Congress or getting approval from a secretive court to conduct the eavesdropping program.

Appearing on “Fox News Sunday,” Durbin said he so far has not heard a valid legal justification for the spy program that was put in place after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. But he said considering censure is not a “valuable discussion at this point.”

MUNISING, Mich.

Rosa Parks’ robber shares remorse

A man who beat civil rights icon Rosa Parks and took $53 from her during a break-in at her Detroit home in 1994 says he dreams of redemption.

In a prison interview published Sunday in the Detroit News, Joseph Skipper, 40, repeatedly apologized for the attack and said he cried when he learned that Parks died in October.

Skipper is serving an eight- to 15-year sentence at the Alger Maximum Correctional Facility in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula. He told the newspaper he had hoped for a face-to-face apology someday.

“I will go down in history as the man who robbed Rosa Parks,” Skipper said. “I’m sorry that she died. I was hoping to get out in time to tell her I was sorry. I have to draw strength from God.”

Skipper, who broke into Parks’ home, hit her on the face and robbed her, blamed the crime on a drug problem. He pleaded guilty and apologized at his 1995 sentencing.

Compiled from wire reports