Anniversary held for lost freighter
Detroit A crowd of 600 people stood silently Sunday as bells rang 29 times in remembrance of the mariners lost when the Edmund Fitzgerald sank in a vicious storm on Lake Superior 30 years ago.
“The bell is the voice of feelings we feel that are difficult to articulate,” the Rev. Richard Ingalls said as the bells tolled at the Mariners’ Church of Detroit.
Sailors in dress uniforms joined those packed into the small sanctuary, singing “Mariner’s Hymn” and “The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald,” the Gordon Lightfoot ballad that immortalized ship and crew.
The church holds the service every year to honor the crew of the 729-foot freighter, which was caught in a storm Nov. 10, 1975, and sank as it carried a load of iron ore across Lake Superior.
No bodies were ever recovered and the cause of the ship’s sinking is still debated.
Girl, 14, missing after parents killed
Lititz, Pa. A 14-year-old girl was missing after her parents were shot to death in their home Sunday morning, and authorities were searching for her 18-year-old boyfriend, who reportedly abducted her at gunpoint.
Michael and Cathryn Borden, both 50, were found shot to death shortly after 8 a.m., Lititz Police Chief William Seace said.
The couple’s 9-year-old son, David, the youngest of five children, had fled to the home of neighbors, who called 911, Seace said. An older daughter still living at home and two adult sons were also safe, he said.
But Kara Beth Borden, 14, was missing. Police said she was last seen that morning at the family’s home in Warwick Township, about 60 miles west of Philadelphia, and was reportedly abducted at gunpoint by David G. Ludwig.
“The young girl was out during the night, came home, and her parents confronted her. From what we understand, he came to the house,” Seace said.
Stephanie Mannon, a 16-year-old friend who had worked with Ludwig, said he and Kara had been seeing each other secretly.
“Their parents didn’t approve of them being together” because of the age difference, she said. “It wasn’t because he was a shady character, because he wasn’t.”
Georgia-Pacific agrees to buyout
New York Paper products giant Georgia-Pacific Corp., the maker of Brawny paper towels and Angel Soft tissue, has agreed to be acquired for more than $13 billion by Koch Industries Inc., a deal that would create the nation’s biggest private company.
The $13.2 billion cash deal announced Sunday also calls for Koch to assume $7.8 billion in Georgia-Pacific debt and will result in the Atlanta-based company becoming a wholly owned subsidiary of Koch. Koch, based in Wichita, Kan., is a commodities conglomerate that operates refineries and pipelines, trades commodities and manufactures pulp, paper and fibers. With combined annual revenue of some $80 billion from Georgia-Pacific, Koch would become the largest privately held company in the U.S.