NAACP will trim staff to meet budget shortfall
Published 9:00 pm Wednesday, June 6, 2007
BALTIMORE – The NAACP is cutting about 40 percent of its staff positions at its Baltimore headquarters and plans to temporarily close its seven regional offices to cover a budget deficit three years in the making. The NAACP’s interim president said Wednesday that the organization’s staff level of 119 would be reduced to 70 through layoffs and attrition. He would not say how many people are losing their jobs but said the cuts are necessary to prevent the organization from dipping into its diminishing reserve account. He said the organization is not in debt, but has used $10 million in reserve funds to cover shortfalls.
California: Water short in L.A.
Los Angeles city officials urged residents Wednesday to reduce water consumption by 10 percent as weather forecasters predicted the region’s historic dry spell will combine with a summer of record-setting temperatures. The mayor’s call for conservation – the first water-reduction goal the city has issued in more than a decade – comes as water agencies around Southern California are trying to deal with the driest season on record. The Metropolitan Water District’s general manager said the agency might consider interrupting water deliveries to agriculture next year.
Chinese can seek U.S. asylum
A federal appeals court in San Francisco ruled Wednesday that women who are forced to abort their pregnancies by governments such as China’s can be awarded asylum in the United States. Courts previously have allowed victims of forced sterilization to seek asylum here. On Wednesday, the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said the same protection should be given to victims of forced abortions and their spouses. China’s family planning policy limits most urban couples to one child and families in some rural areas to two.
Texas: Former deputy executed
A former sheriff’s deputy was executed in Huntsville on Wednesday for the robbery, rape and fatal stabbing of a Houston woman at her family’s flower shop. Asked by the warden if he had a final statement, Michael Griffith said “No, sir.” As the drugs began taking effect, Griffith said in a barely audible whisper, “Please take my spirit to the Lord.” He was pronounced dead nine minutes after the lethal dose was administered. Griffith, 56, was one of the few former lawmen ever sent to death row in Texas.
JFK death certificate for sale
A document said to be the flawed original version of President John F. Kennedy’s death certificate is up for sale, 43 years after a typo helped make it void. Don McElroy, a funeral home worker who helped load Kennedy’s casket into the hearse at Dallas Parkland Hospital, believes he has the first death certificate from the Nov. 22, 1963, assassination. The document mistakenly lists Kennedy’s address as “600 Pennsylvania Ave.” – not 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. The certificate also omits Kennedy’s Social Security number, another error that forced the certificate to be amended.
Wisconsin: Man drowns in sewer
A 41-year-old Sheboygan man drowned Wednesday after getting stuck in a storm sewer trying to retrieve a cell phone, police said. They said the man pulled the iron gate off trying to get the cell phone. The man weighed more that 300 pounds and was wedged with his head and shoulders underwater in a vertical storm drain in front of his home, police said. Officials said it ultimately took six firefighters to pull the man from the sewer. A coroner ruled the man’s death as an accidental drowning.
