‘Tarzan’ actor Joe Lara, 6 others killed in Tenn. plane crash
“Tarzan: The Epic Adventures” actor Joe Lara was killed in a plane crash that left his wife and five others dead in Tennessee over the weekend.
The 58-year-old was with his wife, church founder Gwen Shamblin Lara, when the plane crashed into Percy Priest Lake outside of Nashville, Rutherford County Fire & Rescue said.
Joe Lara first portrayed the titular adventurer in 1989′s “Tarzan in Manhattan,” a made-for-TV movie in which the character travels from Africa to New York City.
He took on the role again in the “Tarzan: The Epic Adventures” series, which aired for one season beginning in 1996 and centered on Tarzan’s feats in Africa.
Officials say Lara, his wife and five others were aboard a small jet when it crashed into the lake shortly after it took off before 11 a.m. Saturday. The jet had been traveling from Smyrna Airport, located about 24 miles southeast of Nashville, to Palm Beach International Airport in Florida.
Authorities say human remains and components of the jet have been recovered.
“The debris field is approximately a half of a mile wide,” Ingle said Sunday.
—New York Daily News
Colorado man seriously injured by bear attack inside his home
COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. — Colorado Parks and Wildlife officials say a man was seriously injured and needed surgery after being attacked by a bear at his home near Steamboat Springs late Sunday.
Officials said the man realized the door to his garage — where he stores birdseed and other attractants — was open around 11 p.m. Sunday. When he entered the garage he was greeted by a sow and two cubs, according to a news release.
Despite the man slowly backing away from the garage, the sow attacked him and caused serious injuries, including severe lacerations to the man's head and legs that required surgery.
He was in stable condition Monday, and his injuries are considered non-life threatening, according to the release.
After receiving the report of the attack, CPW wildlife officers and park rangers began searching for the bear and cubs. Teams located the sow near the home and euthanized it, CPW officials said.
—The Gazette
Turkey to send Russian missile experts home in signal to Biden
ANKARA, Turkey — Turkey said it will send home Russian missile experts overseeing the S-400 air defense technology that has strained ties with the United States, addressing one of Washington’s concerns with the system while ruling out scrapping it altogether.
The remarks, which come ahead of a planned meeting between Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and President Joe Biden on the sidelines of a NATO summit in Brussels mid-June, signal Ankara’s readiness to compromise on one element of U.S. concerns. Washington has said Turkey should end the presence of Russian personnel in the country to help with training and assembly of the missiles.
But Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu, who said the system would be under Turkish control when the experts left, reiterated Ankara would not budge on Washington’s broader demand to get rid of the missiles in order for related U.S. sanctions to be lifted.
“The S-400s will be under our 100% control. We’ve sent many technicians for training. The Russian military experts won’t stay in Turkey,” Cavusoglu said on a visit to Greece, state-run TRT television reported Monday. But he rejected U.S. calls on Turkey not to activate the missiles. “It is not possible to accept calls from another country to “not use” them,” he said.
Cavusoglu said he would meet U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken either in Washington or Ankara before the leaders’ meeting.
—Bloomberg News
Correctional officers in Epstein case planned to slam prison system at trial
NEW YORK — Two federal correctional officers who neglected their duties while Jeffrey Epstein killed himself inside a troubled lower Manhattan jail planned to defend themselves as scapegoats for a deeply dysfunctional system had they gone on trial, sources told the Daily News.
Tova Noel and Michael Thomas reached a deferred prosecution agreement from Manhattan federal prosecutors last Tuesday, admitting they falsely filled out paperwork certifying they’d conducted required rounds and inmate head counts at the Metropolitan Correctional Center in the hours before Epstein was found dead in his cell early on Aug. 10, 2019.
Sources close to the pair, as well as insiders at the Metropolitan Correctional Center, offered possible reasons why the feds backed off of the case. The sources said falsification of documents is common at the jail and throughout the Bureau of Prisons.
One source described falsely filling out paperwork as “closer to a norm than an anomaly” in federal lockups.
Tyrone Covington, a correctional officer who serves as union rep at the Metropolitan Correctional Center, said lack of staff at the jail makes doing the job completely by the book impossible.
“These facilities are severely understaffed. You have to figure out what you’re going to do. There are some decisions sometimes you have to make that are just not following through with the policy. The manpower doesn’t allow you to do it,” said Covington, president of the American Federation of Government Employees Local 3148.
He noted that supervisors are also supposed to file paperwork certifying they made rounds.
“If you’re going to charge (Noel and Thomas), you have to charge the whole system. Because the whole system is broken,” Covington added.
—New York Daily News
