In brief: Site of 29 miners’ deaths to be sealed

MORGANTOWN, W.Va. – The new owner of the West Virginia coal mine where 29 men died in an explosion two years ago on Thursday has announced it will soon begin work to permanently seal the underground mine with concrete and finish the job by summer.

Virginia-based Alpha Natural Resources, which acquired the mine when it bought Massey Energy last summer, said it will seal the portals – large tunnels miners use to get underground – at the Upper Big Branch mine.

Meanwhile, the mother and siblings of one of those killed sued former Massey Energy chief Don Blankenship on Wednesday, along with eight other individuals they hold responsible in their lawsuit for the worst U.S. coal mining disaster in four decades.

Former senator hospitalized

SIOUX FALLS, S.D. – Former South Dakota senator and Democratic presidential candidate George McGovern has been hospitalized in Florida, his daughter said Wednesday.

Ann McGovern told the Associated Press her 89-year-old father was admitted to Flagler Hospital in St. Augustine, Fla., on Tuesday evening for tests to figure out why he occasionally passes out and loses his ability to speak, she said.

“He’s comfortable. The tests are continuing to see if they can determine what’s causing this,” Ann McGovern said.

Hospital officials said the elder McGovern is in stable condition. McGovern splits his time between Florida and South Dakota, where he was a South Dakota congressman from 1957 to 1961 and a U.S. senator from 1963 to 1981. He has been hospitalized several times in recent months, including for exhaustion.

Items in Houston’s room revealed

LOS ANGELES – Investigators found a white, crystalline substance and spoon with residue in the Beverly Hills hotel room where Whitney Houston died in February, according to a final coroner’s report released Wednesday.

On a bathroom counter were “a small spoon with a white, crystallike substance in it and a rolled-up piece of white paper, along with other miscellaneous items,” it said. It details the singer’s final day, with the singer complaining of a sore throat and assistants suggesting she take a bath before preparing for a pre-Grammy party.

The singer drowned Feb. 11 in a bathtub at the Beverly Hilton Hotel.