Monday NATIONAL
Indianapolis church mourns 3 who died in bus crash PAGE 11
It’s Where You Live! www.troydailynews.com July 29, 2013
Volume 105, No. 178
INSIDE
Pope draws 3 million to Mass as Brazil trip closes
Signs of declining economic security in U.S. WASHINGTON (AP) — Four out of 5 U.S. adults struggle with joblessness, near-poverty or reliance on welfare for at least parts of their lives, a sign of deteriorating economic security and an elusive American dream. Survey data exclusive to The Associated Press points to an increasingly globalized U.S. economy, the widening gap between rich and poor, and the loss of good-paying manufacturing jobs as reasons for the trend. The findings come as President Barack Obama tries to renew his administration’s emphasis on the economy, saying in recent speeches that his highest priority is to “rebuild ladders of opportunity” and reverse income inequality.
As nonwhites approach a numerical majority in the U.S., one question is how public programs to lift the disadvantaged should be best focused — on the affirmative action that historically has tried to eliminate the racial barriers seen as the major impediment to economic equality, or simply on improving socioeconomic status for all, regardless of race. Hardship is particularly growing among whites, based on several measures. Pessimism among that racial group about their families’ economic futures has climbed to the highest point since at least 1987. In the most recent AP-GfK poll, 63 percent of whites called the economy “poor.”
“I think it’s going to get worse,” said Irene Salyers, 52, of Buchanan County, Va., a declining coal region in Appalachia. Married and divorced three times, Salyers now helps run a fruit and vegetable stand with her boyfriend but it doesn’t generate much income. They live mostly off government disability checks. “If you do try to go apply for a job, they’re not hiring people, and they’re not paying that much to even go to work,” she said. Children, she said, have “nothing better to do than to get on drugs.” While racial and ethnic minorities are more likely to live in poverty, race disparities in the poverty rate have narrowed
substantially since the 1970s, census data show. Economic insecurity among whites also is more pervasive than is shown in the government’s poverty data, engulfing more than 76 percent of white adults by the time they turn 60, according to a new economic gauge being published next year by the Oxford University Press. The gauge defines “economic insecurity” as experiencing unemployment during the year, or a year or more of reliance on government aid such as food stamps or income below 150 percent of the poverty line. Measured across all races, the risk of economic
• See ECONOMIC on page 2
Fla. apartment gunman described as lonely, angry
RIO DE JANEIRO (AP) — An estimated 3 million people poured onto Rio’s Copacabana beach Sunday for the final Mass of Pope Francis’ historic trip to his home continent, cheering the first Latin American pope in one of the biggest turnouts for a papal Mass in recent history.
See Page 11
Adult tricycles could be the next boom for boomer cyclists Tricycles are for tots, right? California businessman Mickey O’Brien is betting that’s not the case. If you’re a baby boomer with health issues, O’Brien predicts that your three-wheeling days may soon return.
See Page 6
INSIDE TODAY Calendar....................3 Entertainment.................8 Deaths.......................3 Charlene Ann Hess Virginia Louise “Ginny” Powell John R. Schwytzer James L. Dembski Carma R. Merkert Rita L. Gallagher Opinion......................4 Sports........................13
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HIALEAH, Fla. (AP) — The gunman who went on a shooting rampage at his South Florida apartment building, killing six people, was a lonely man who spoke about having pent up anger, those who knew him said Sunday. Pedro Vargas, 42, lived on the fourth floor of a barren, concrete apartment complex in the Miami suburb of Hialeah with his elderly mother. He rarely spoke with others there, and confided to a man who worked out at Provided Photos by Linde Sutherly of Linde’s Livestock Photos LLC the same gym that he liked Colin Gump, 17, of Fletcher, shakes hands with the Ohio State Fair Judge Cade Wilson, of Brownwood, Texas, after being selected as to work out his anger by lifting weights and trying the exhibitor of the 2013 Ohio State Fair Grand Champion Jr. Fair market lamb on July 24. to get big. “He’d just say this was the only thing that would keep him normal, pulling out all the anger in the gym,” Jorge Bagos told The Associated Press. By Melanie Yingst Bagos said the gunStaff Writer man expressed frustration myingst@civitasmedia.com over bad experiences with women and losing all his FLETCHER — It’s a handshake hair from using steroids. that Colin Gump likely will never On Friday night, Vargas forget. set a combustible liquid on Judge Cade Wilson, of fire in his apartment, sendBrownwood, Texas, shook 17 yearing the unit into flames, old Colin Gump’s hand selecting police said. Building manhim as the exhibitor of the 2013 ager Italo Pisciotti and Ohio State Fair grand champion his wife went running market lamb on Wednesday, July toward the smoke. Vargas 24. opened his door and shot “I was speechless to be honest,” and killed both of them, said Gump when asked about his Lt. Carl Zogby, a spokesclean sweep of the junior fair mar- Colin Gump, far right, stands in the winner’s circle with his family. Pictured from right, man with the Hialeah ket lamb events. mother Janet Gump, sisters Carly and Chloe and father Kevin Gump. Colin Gump was Gump, 17, a junior at Miami tapped as the exhibitor of the 2013 Ohio State Jr. Fair Grand Champion market lamb • See LONELY on
Grand champion:
• See CHAMPION on page 2
Gump takes top honors at state fair
page 2
on July 24.
Some ankle bracelet alarms go unchecked By NICHOLAS RICCARDI The Associated Press
Three decades after they were introduced as a crime-fighting tool, electronic ankle bracelets used to track an offender’s whereabouts have proliferated so much that officials are struggling to handle an avalanche of monitoring alerts that are often nothing more sinister than a dead battery, lost satellite contact or someone arriving home late from work. Amid all that white noise, alarms are going unchecked, sometimes on defendants now accused of new crimes. Some agencies don’t have clear protocols on how to handle the multitude of alerts, or don’t always follow them. At times, officials took days to act, if they noticed at all, when criminals tampered with their bracelets or
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broke a curfew. “I think the perception … is that these people are being watched 24 hours a day by someone in a command center. That’s just not happening,” said Rob Bains, director of court services for Florida’s Ninth Judicial Circuit Court, which this spring halted its monitoring programs after two people on the devices were accused in separate shootings. At least 100,000 sex offenders, parolees and people free on bail or probation wear ankle bracelets that can sound an alarm if they leave home without permission, fail to show up for work or linger near a playground or school. To assess these monitoring programs, The Associated Press queried a sample of corrections, parole and probation agencies across the U.S. for alarms logged in a
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one-month period and for figures regarding the number of people monitored and the number of officers watching them. The AP also reviewed audits, state and federal reports and studies done of several of these programs, which detailed problems that included officers failing to investigate alarms or take action when offenders racked up multiple violations. Twenty-one agencies that responded to the AP inquiry logged 256,408 alarms for 26,343 offenders in the month of April alone. It adds up for those doing the monitoring. The 230 parole officers with the Texas Department of Criminal Justice handled 944 alerts per day in April. The Delaware Department of Correction, which has 31 field officers, handled 514 alarms per day.
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• See BRACELET on page 2 Eddie Money at 8:30PM
Music all day by the following bands: The Motown Sounds
of Touch, The Chase Classic Rock, Polly Mae, Set the Stage and final concert by Eddie Money at 8:30PM
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