Eleven children found caged in Ohio home
WAKEMAN, Ohio — Sheriff’s deputies removed 11 children from a home where they were locked in cages less than 3 1/2 feet high, authorities said.
The children’s adoptive and foster parents, Mike and Sharen Gravelle, denied that they’d abused or neglected the children during a custody hearing Monday in Huron County. No charges had been filed as of Monday night.
The Gravelles said a psychiatrist recommended they make the children–ages 1 to 14, with conditions that included autism and fetal alcohol syndrome–sleep in the cages at night. The cages were stacked in bedrooms on the second floor of their house, said prosecutor Russell Leffler, who was reviewing the case.
A children’s services investigator found the children Friday when he stopped by the Gravelles’ home outside Wakeman, about 50 miles west of Cleveland. Some of the cages were rigged with alarms, Sommers said; others had heavy furniture blocking their doors. The children didn’t have blankets or pillows.
One of the boys said he’d slept in the cage for three years, Sommers said.
The children were placed with four foster families Monday.
At least 45 corpses found at flooded hospital
NEW ORLEANS — On a day when President Bush declared “there is recovery on the way” in New Orleans, officials made a ghastly discovery of more than 40 bodies inside an evacuated hospital.
It was not immediately clear how the patients died. One hospital official said at least a few of the patients were dead before the storm, while another said the rising temperature in the hospital afterward likely contributed to some of the deaths.
The discovery of the corpses raised Louisiana’s official death toll to nearly 280. The exact number of bodies recovered Sunday from the 317-bed Memorial Medical Center was unclear. A state official said there were 45 patients found; a hospital administrator said there were 44, plus three on the grounds.
The recovery process has already made some progress, as nearly two-thirds of southeastern Louisiana’s water treatment plants were up and running, and 41 of New Orleans’ 174 permanent pumps were operational. Officials expect the still half-flooded city to be completely drained by Oct. 8.
Career firefighter selected to replace former FEMA director
WASHINGTON — Federal Emergency Management Agency director Mike Brown resigned Monday, three days after losing his onsite command of the Hurricane Katrina relief effort. The White House picked a top FEMA official with three decades of firefighting experience as his replacement.
R. David Paulison, head of FEMA’s emergency preparedness force, will lead the beleaguered agency, according to three administration sources who spoke on the condition of anonymity because the announcement had not yet been made.
Paulison is a career firefighter from Miami who was among emergency workers responding to Hurricane Andrew in 1992 and the crash of ValuJet Flight 592 in the Florida Everglades in 1996, according to a biography posted on FEMA’s Web site.
Chief Justice nominee John Roberts pledges to judge cases by rule of law
WASHINGTON — John Roberts says he would judge cases “according to the rule of law, without fear or favor” as the nation’s 17th chief justice.
After an opening day of speeches and platitudes, Democrats on the Senate Judiciary Committee are ready to test that statement. They begin grilling the conservative federal judge Tuesday on his views on the Constitution, abortion, presidential power and dozens of other issues.
“This is a confirmation proceeding … not a coronation,” said Sen. Russ Feingold, D-Wis. “It is a Senate Judiciary Committee’s job to ask tough questions. We are tasked by the Senate with getting a complete picture of your qualifications, your temperament and how you will carry out your duties.”
Republicans will pose tough questions of their own to the 50-year-old appeals court judge and Reagan administration lawyer, picked by President Bush to succeed the late Chief Justice William Rehnquist. But they will also try to block Democrats from getting too aggressive in getting Roberts to answer questions about hot-button issues.