Nation in brief: Some residents allowed to return
Hundreds of storm-rattled residents living along the swollen Brazos River finally got some good news Friday when they were allowed to return home, but others had to keep waiting.
The river continued receding and was down to less than a foot above flood stage Friday afternoon, when Parker County officials decided to allow some whose homes had not flooded to return, a day after mandatory evacuations for about 2,000 people.
Meanwhile, President Bush on Friday declared Texas a major disaster area after the storms of June 16-18 and ordered federal aid for six counties. Storms in the Southern Plains have claimed 11 lives since last week in Texas. At least two people are missing.
Chattanooga, Tenn.
Eating champ says jaw injury is real
Takeru Kobayashi dismissed speculation Friday that his recent jaw ailment could be a ploy against his main rival at the Nathan’s hot dog eating championship next week in New York.
“That’s not even funny,” the 29-year-old Japanese eating machine said. “I don’t even have time to think about that.”
After his disclosure this week that he has a creaky jaw and he is getting treatment, some, including ESPN host Tony Kornheiser, suggested that Kobayashi was trying to lull American Joey Chestnut into complacency.
Chestnut gained the hot dog record five weeks ago, eating 59 1/2 dogs to Kobayashi’s 53 3/4. They were expected to be among the competitors at the Fourth of July International Hot Dog Eating Contest at Nathan’s Famous at New York’s Coney Island on Wednesday. Kobayashi is looking for his seventh consecutive title.
Kobayashi said this week that misaligned wisdom teeth and his voracious competitive eating career have led to painful arthritis in his jaw.
“Right now, it’s not so good, but I’ve been talking to professionals and taking their advice,” he said. “They’ve been giving me exercises for relaxing the muscles and giving me some things I can do to relax and heal my jaw.”
Tampa, Fla.
Bank robber gets 149-year term
The serial bank robber known as the Band-Aid Bandit for heists that yielded nearly $1 million was sentenced Friday to 149 years in prison.
“It’s a life sentence and it should be,” U.S. District Judge Steven D. Merryday said at the sentencing of Rafael Angel Rondon.
Rondon, 47, received the maximum sentence for six robberies in Florida from 2000 through 2006. He got his nickname because he often wore a bandage to cover a distinctive mole on his face.
After Rondon’s arrest last July, agents found adhesive bandages, a distinctive silver .357-caliber revolver similar to the one used by the bandit and almost $90,000 in cash – some wads still wrapped in bank bands – in a search of his home in the Orlando suburb of Clermont.