Tornadoes cause havoc in Dallas Tornadoes cause havoc in Dallas ADVERTISING DALLAS (AP) — Tornadoes and violent storms raked through the Dallas area Tuesday, crumbling the wing of a nursing home, peeling roofs from dozens of homes and spiraling big-rig
Tornadoes cause havoc in Dallas
DALLAS (AP) — Tornadoes and violent storms raked through the Dallas area Tuesday, crumbling the wing of a nursing home, peeling roofs from dozens of homes and spiraling big-rig trailers into the air like footballs. More than a dozen injuries were reported.
Overturned cars left streets unnavigable and flattened trucks clogged highway shoulders. Preliminary estimates were that six to 12 tornadoes had touched down in North Texas, senior National Weather Service meteorologist Eric Martello said. But firm numbers would only come after survey teams checked damage today, he said.
In suburban Dallas, Lancaster Police officer Paul Beck said 10 people were injured, two of them severely. Three people were injured in Arlington, including two residents of a nursing home who were taken to a hospital with minor injuries after swirling winds clipped the building, city assistant fire chief Jim Self said.
“Of course the windows were flying out, and my sister is paralyzed, so I had to get someone to help me get her in a wheelchair to get her out of the room,” said Joy Johnston, who was visiting her 79-year-old sister at the Green Oaks Nursing and Rehabilitation Center. “It was terribly loud.”
Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport canceled hundreds of flights.
Rocket carries secret payload
VANDENBERG AIR FORCE BASE, Calif. (AP) — A rocket carrying a top-secret payload blasted off Tuesday from the California coast. The Delta IV rocket lifted off at 4:12 p.m. from the Vandenberg Air Force Base.
“We’ve just seen the successful liftoff” of the rocket, launch commentator Don Spencer said in a webcast.
Since the launch involved a classified cargo for the National Reconnaissance Office, no details were immediately available about whether it was boosted to its intended orbit.
The reconnaissance office, which oversees the nation’s constellation of spy satellites, has kept mum about the purpose of the mission and directed United Launch Alliance to cut off the live broadcast three minutes after liftoff.
Intelligence analysts think the rocket carried a radar imaging satellite capable of seeing at night and through bad weather. In recent years, the United States has worked to phase out its fleet of older, heavier radar reconnaissance satellites with smaller but equally capable ones.
Such radar satellites would be able to zero in on countries of interest and see details that typical Earth satellites can’t, experts said.
Man surrenders in child abduction
LITTLE ROCK, Ark. (AP) — An Arkansas man suspected of abducting his 18-month-old daughter after allegedly beating and stabbing her mother walked into an attorney’s office with his daughter and surrendered late Monday, authorities said.
Ralph Waldo Morrison III turned himself in to the U.S. Marshals Service at the attorney’s office in Texarkana, the Howard County Sheriff’s Department said. Morrison had his daughter, Zahkairi, with him, and she was transported to a local hospital as a precaution, Deputy Bryan McJunkins said.
Zahkairi appeared to be unharmed, officers said.
McJunkins transported Morrison to the Howard County Jail, where he is being detained on a $250,000 bail.
Law enforcement officers began looking for Morrison, 28, and Zahkairi after witnesses told investigators he drove head-on into the car Zahkairi’s mother was driving near Tollette on Sunday.
The witnesses said Morrison then beat Amaria Webster and stabbed her in the shoulders and neck with an ice pick before fleeing with the child into a nearby wooded area. Webster was treated at a hospital and released, Howard County Sheriff Butch Morris said.
Factory orders rose 1.3 percent
WASHINGTON (AP) — Businesses ordered more machinery and equipment from U.S. factories in February, a signal that many are investing in their companies despite the expiration of a tax credit.
Orders to U.S. factories increased 1.3 percent in February, the Commerce Department said. That offset a similar decline in January.
Demand for so-called core capital goods, a gauge of business investment plans, rose 1.7 percent. That was better than the government’s preliminary estimate last week and followed a steep drop in January.
U.S. factory orders have been steadily rising since the recession ended nearly three years. Orders totaled $468.4 billion in February, just 3.4 percent below the previous peak hit in 2008.
Last year, businesses could reduce their taxable profits by an amount equal to the cost of a major investment. The credit spurred a jump in orders for industrial machinery, computers and other capital goods at the end of last year. Spending on core capital goods surged 3.5 percent in December, then fell by nearly as much in January after the tax credit expired.
Joshua Shapiro, chief economist at MFR Inc., wrote in a note to clients that the rebound in February suggests the tax credit played “a substantial role in the December/January gyrations.”
“There was probably still an element of payback in February, and we would expect levels to normalize in coming months, after which underlying conditions will be more easily discernible,” Shapiro said.
In February, orders for durable goods, items expected to last at least three years, increased 2.4 percent. That was slightly higher than the estimate the government made in last week’s preliminary report.
Transportation orders rose a solid 3.9 percent in February. Demand in the volatile commercial aircraft category increased 6 percent. Orders for cars and auto parts edged up 0.2 percent.
Orders for nondurable goods, such as paper, chemicals and food, rose 0.4 percent in February.
A vibrant manufacturing sector has helped drive the best job growth in two years. The economy added an average of 245,000 jobs per month from December through February. Those gains helped lower the unemployment rate to 8.3 percent. Manufacturers have added more than 100,000 jobs in the past three months, about one-seventh of the total net gain in employment over this period.
The Labor Department will release the March jobs report on Friday. Economists forecast employers added 210,000 jobs and the unemployment rate was unchanged at 8.3 percent.
U.S. factories stepped up hiring and production in March, based on a report Monday from the Institute for Supply Management.
The trade group of purchasing managers said its index of manufacturing activity rose to 53.4 in March, up from a February reading of 52.4. Readings above 50 indicate manufacturing is expanding.
Manufacturing has been a key source of economic growth since the recession ended in June 2009.
The economy grew at an annual rate of 3 percent in the October-December period, up from 1.8 percent growth in the previous quarter.
