Nation roundup for Sept. 3

‘Raindrops’
lyricist, 91, dies

LOS ANGELES (AP) — Hal David was a man of simple words.

A writer by trade — and a journalist by education — David had a knack for encapsulating love, earnestness and a wry sense of humor into a melody that was just a few minutes long. “Wishin’ and Hopin’,” the 1960s earworm he wrote with Burt Bacharach, was a rhyming how-to for gals looking to snag a man. With a wink, it snagged a new generation of fans when it opened the 1997 Julia Roberts film “My Best Friend’s Wedding.”

Through theater, film and TV, David’s songs transcended the time they were written to become classics. With Bacharach, he was one of the most successful songwriting teams in modern history.

The 91-year-old, who died Saturday of complications from a stroke four days earlier in Los Angeles, “always had a song in his head,” said his wife, Eunice David.

Bacharach and David’s hits included “Raindrops Keep Fallin’ On My Head” and “(They Long to Be) Close to You.” Many of the top acts of their time, from Barbra Streisand to Frank Sinatra and Aretha Franklin, recorded their music. But the collaboration for which they were best known came in 1962, when they began writing for a young singer named Dionne Warwick.

Together the trio created a chain of hits: “Don’t Make Me Over,” “Walk On By,” ”I Say a Little Prayer” and “Do You Know the Way to San Jose.”

Texas pilot killed in air show crash

DAVENPORT, Iowa (AP) — A Texas pilot was killed when his plane crashed during an air show in eastern Iowa, authorities said Sunday.

Glenn A. Smith, of Frisco, Texas, was flying a Soviet-era retired military jet in the Quad-City Air Show in Davenport when the crash occurred.

Authorities said the jet was flying in formation with other members of the HopperFlight jet team when it failed to pull out of a 45-degree bank and crashed into a field north of Interstate 80 about 1:25 p.m. Saturday.

Assistant Davenport Police Chief Don Schaeffer said at a news conference Saturday that the plane flew directly into the ground.

“He never had an opportunity to come out of it,” he said.

Nobody on the ground was hurt, but crowds watching the show saw the plane go down and erupt in flames.

The Federal Aviation Administration is investigating the accident. Smith was CEO of the Warbird Educational Foundation that owned the Soviet-era jet he was flying.

Man throws acid in daughter’s face

NEW YORK (AP) — A man hurled acid in his daughter’s face in a gruesome attack that sent her into a street screaming for help as her skin peeled and her clothes disintegrated, police and witnesses said.

As his 49-year-old daughter sat on his couch in Brooklyn on Saturday afternoon, Jerome Lynch abruptly left the room, returned with a cup of what she thought was water and doused her with it, she later told a cousin.

Then the corrosive burning started, and Darlene Lynch ran outside as her clothes disintegrated and her skin fell from her face, witnesses said.

“You could see the smoke coming off her body,” Clarissa Shakespeare said. “Everyone was just traumatized and scared. Her skin looked like melting wax.”

Bystanders poured water on the victim, helped pull away her clothes and covered her with a sheet, witnesses said.

Her 69-year-old father was arrested on an assault charge. Darlene Lynch is the main caregiver for her father, who uses a wheelchair and has been deteriorating mentally in recent years, said a cousin, Dominique Goodwin.

The daughter was taken to a hospital in critical condition, police said.

ICE chief of staff quits over scandal

WASHINGTON (AP) — A senior Obama administration political appointee and longtime aide to Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano resigned Saturday amid allegations of inappropriate sexual behavior lodged by at least three Immigration and Customs Enforcement employees.

Suzanne Barr, chief of staff to ICE Director John Morton, said in her resignation letter that the allegations against her are “unfounded.”

But she said she was stepping down anyway to end distractions within the agency. ICE, a division of the Homeland Security Department, confirmed Barr had resigned.

Barr is accused of sexually inappropriate behavior toward employees.

The complaints are related to a sexual discrimination and retaliation lawsuit filed by a senior ICE agent in May.

In her letter to Morton, Barr said she has been the subject of “unfounded allegations designed to destroy my reputation” and is resigning “with great regret.”

“Of greater concern however, is the threat these allegations represent to the reputation of this agency and the men and women who proudly serve their country by advancing ICE’s mission,” Barr wrote. “As such, I feel it is incumbent upon me to take every step necessary to prevent further harm to the agency and to prevent this from further distracting from our critical work.”

Barr went on leave last month after the New York Post reported on the lawsuit filed by James T. Hayes Jr., ICE’s special agent in charge in New York. Additional employees came forward with their allegations around the same time.

House Homeland Security Committee Chairman Peter King, R-N.Y., said in a statement Saturday that Barr’s resignation “raises the most serious questions about management practices and personnel policies at the Department of Homeland Security.” He said his committee will continue to review the case and personnel practices at DHS.

In one complaint, Barr is accused of telling a male subordinate he was “sexy” and asking a personal question about his anatomy during an office party. In a separate complaint, she is accused of offering to perform a sex act with a male subordinate during a business trip in Bogota, Colombia. She’s also accused of calling a male subordinate from her hotel room and offering to perform a sex act. The names of two of Barr’s accusers were censored in affidavits reviewed by AP.

Homeland Security’s office of professional responsibility and inspector general have been investigating the allegations.

Prior to the lawsuit, there were no complaints about Barr, according to a homeland security official who spoke to the AP on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak publicly about the matter.

In the lawsuit, Hayes described a “frat house” atmosphere at ICE designed to humiliate male employees under Barr’s leadership. Hayes, who was transferred to New York from ICE headquarters in Washington, is asking for more than $4 million that, among other things, would cover compensation he believes he is owed for relocation expenses and financial losses associated with his transfer.

Hayes’ lawyer, Morris Fischer of Silver Spring, Md., has declined to comment.

The Justice Department is seeking to dismiss Hayes’ lawsuit on the basis that he did not state a claim for retaliation.

Barr, a 1995 graduate of the University of Arizona, was among Napolitano’s first appointments after she became secretary in 2009. Barr started working for Napolitano in 2004, while Napolitano was governor of Arizona. Prior to that, Barr worked for Arizona Republican Sens. Jon Kyl and John McCain.

Federal government ending Wyoming wolf protections

CHEYENNE, Wyo. (AP) — The federal government will end its protections for wolves in Wyoming, where the species was introduced two decades ago to revive it from near extinction in the United States.

The announcement Friday by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service will entrust the state with managing wolf numbers and endorses a plan that allows for them to be shot on sight in most of the state, while keeping them permanently protected in designated areas like Yellowstone National Park. Wyoming will take over management of the wolves at the end of September.

The decision of the announcement quickly sparked promises of legal challenges from environmental groups that argue wolves still need protection to maintain their successful recovery. Dan Ashe, the agency’s director, acknowledged the “emotional reaction to wolf hunting” but said it would not be “detrimental to long-term conservation of wolves.”

“Quite the contrary, it will support long-term conservation of wolves as it has other predators like mountain lion and grizzly bear and black bear,” Ashe said.

Wyoming has been chaffing under federal wolf protections for years, with ranchers and hunters complaining that wolves kill other wildlife and many cattle.

North America was once home to as many as 2 million gray wolves, but by the 1930s, fur traders, bounty hunters and government agents had poisoned, trapped and shot them to near extinction in the continental United States. An effort to revive their numbers emerged and centered on starting the recovery in Yellowstone.

Overcoming protests from Wyoming farmers and ranchers who feared wolves would prey on their livestock, wildlife managers transplanted 14 wolves from Canada into Yellowstone in the mid-1990s. The effort exceeded all expectations as wolf numbers quickly multiplied, and Friday’s action means Wyoming can now take measures to control their population outside the Greater Yellowstone vicinity.

“The wolf population in Wyoming is recovered, and it is appropriate that the responsibility for wolf management be returned to the state,” Gov. Matt Mead said Friday in support of the federal decision.

There are about 270 wolves in Wyoming outside Yellowstone. There are about another 1,100 or so in Montana and Idaho, where wolves were delisted several years ago, and still more in Washington and Oregon.

Wyoming’s management plan, which was agreed to last year by Gov. Matt Mead and U.S. Interior Secretary Ken Salazar, calls for the state to maintain at least 10 breeding pairs of wolves and at least 100 individual animals. Additional wolves inside Yellowstone and Grand Teton national parks, the John D. Rockefeller Jr. Memorial Parkway — which is located between Yellowstone and Grand Teton — and the Wind River Indian Reservation in central Wyoming will maintain protection from being hunted.

The state will classify wolves in the remaining 90 percent of Wyoming as predators, subject to being killed anytime by anyone.

The Wyoming Game Commission has approved wolf hunts starting on Oct. 1, the day after the state’s management plan goes into effect. The state is prepared to issue unlimited hunting licenses but will call a halt after hunters kill 52 wolves.

Wildlife advocates said Wyoming’s management plan allows the state too much freedom to hunt wolves.

“From our perspective the Wyoming wolf management plan is just a disaster for the wolf. It drastically reduces the population and basically eliminates wolves from a large part of the state,” said Noah Greenwald with the Center for Biological Diversity.

Jamie Rappaport Clark, president of Defenders of Wildlife, said in a statement that the organization would pursue legal action “to ensure that a healthy, sustainable wolf population.”

Bryce Reece, executive vice president of the Wyoming Wool Growers Association, said ranchers for too long had their hands tied in trying to stop wolves attacking their livestock.

“The reality is my folks aren’t in any big rush to get there to try to kill a wolf. They just want the ability to protect their livestock,” Reece said. “We are hopeful, by putting some pressure on them, they’ll move back into areas where it’s less habited and there’s less livestock.”