No injuries were reported on the bridge or boat, which carried space-rocket parts from Decatur, Ala. U.S. Coast Guard officials investigating the collision declined to comment on a possible cause. - AP
Hull House, out of money, closes
CHICAGO - Hull House, the Chicago social-services organization founded in 1889 by Nobel Peace Prize winner Jane Addams, closed Friday after running out of money.
The Jane Addams Hull House Association said earlier this month that it planned to close in the spring, but the shutdown came unexpectedly. More than 300 people are losing their jobs.
Hull House was the best known of the 400 settlement houses in the United States a century ago. They provided services to immigrants and poor people while uplifting them through culture, education and recreation. In recent years, Hull House has provided child care, domestic-violence counseling, job training, housing assistance, and other services for 60,000 people a year at nearly four dozen sites in the Chicago area. - AP
2d man gets death in Conn. killings
NEW HAVEN, Conn. - Joshua Komisarjevsky, 31, expressed regret but steadfastly blamed his accomplice as he was sentenced to die Friday for a deadly 2007 home invasion that unsettled suburbia and halted momentum to abolish Connecticut's death penalty. The sole survivor of the attack, Dr. William Petit, called the loss of his wife and two daughters a "personal holocaust" as the final chapter closed on the case.
Komisarjevsky described his regrets and the devastating consequences of his decisions as he spoke in court but denied any part in the killings. "I did not want those innocent women to die," he said. He joins his accomplice, Steven Hayes, and nine other men on Connecticut's death row.
The two paroled burglars tormented Petit's family in the affluent New Haven suburb of Cheshire before killing Jennifer Hawke-Petit, 48, and leaving her daughters, Hayley, 17, and Michaela, 11, to die in a fire. William Petit was beaten with a baseball bat and tied up but escaped. - AP
Elsewhere:
A floor collapsed into a V shape Friday at the construction site of a new Cincinnati casino, sending workers sliding down to the ground and injuring at least a dozen. Steve Rosenthal, of casino co-developer Rock Gaming LLC said it was too soon to determine what caused the collapse.
