In brief: Six Utah police officers shot serving warrant
OGDEN, Utah – Six police officers were shot and wounded in Ogden late Wednesday night as they tried to serve a drug-related search warrant, authorities said.
The shooting erupted during a police action on Jackson Avenue, police spokesman Lt. Tony Fox said. The officers were hospitalized along with one suspect, Fox said.
He said he didn’t have any information on their conditions, but there have been no reports of any fatalities.
The Standard-Examiner newspaper in Ogden reported that the team serving the search warrant involved officers from the Ogden Police Department and the Weber-Morgan Narcotics Strike Force.
According to the strike force’s website, the drug unit is made up of officers from the Weber County Sheriff’s Office, local police departments and the Federal Drug Enforcement Agency.
Lower lead poisoning threshold recommended
Atlanta – For the first time in 20 years, a federal panel is urging the government to lower the threshold for lead poisoning in children.
If the recommendation is adopted, hundreds of thousands more children could be diagnosed with lead poisoning. Too much lead is harmful to developing brains and can mean a lower IQ.
Recent research persuaded panel members that children could be harmed from lead levels in their blood that are lower than the current standard, officials at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said.
While the number of cases has been falling, health officials think as many as 250,000 children have the problem, many of those undiagnosed. The proposed change could take it to 450,000 cases.
Wednesday’s vote by the Advisory Committee on Childhood Lead Poisoning Prevention would lower the definition of lead poisoning for young children from 10 micrograms of lead per deciliter of blood to 5 micrograms.
Bishop admits fathering two children, resigns
Los Angeles – The resignation of a Los Angeles bishop who fathered two children has shocked the nation’s most populous Roman Catholic archdiocese, where Auxiliary Bishop Gabino Zavala grew up and was an outspoken supporter of causes dear to the huge Hispanic population.
Zavala, 60, who once urged Catholic media to report scandals such as clergy sex abuse “in a spirit of love and mercy,” had his resignation accepted Wednesday by Pope Benedict XVI.
“This is unexpected, sad and disorienting news for many people who know and like Bishop Zavala,” archdiocesan spokesman Tod Tamberg said.
Zavala was one of five auxiliary bishops in the archdiocese and was the primary pastoral and liturgical administrator for 66 churches in the San Gabriel region east of Los Angeles, Tamberg said.
Zavala informed the archbishop last month that he had fathered two children who live with their mother in another state.