Briefs

LOCAL & VCU

Chemical in Hopewell leak identified

A chemical leak and fire caused minor damage early Wednesday at a Hopewell shampoo factory, but the incident prompted police to close a three-mile stretch of state Route 10 in the city and neighboring Prince George County.

Evonic Goldschmidt Corp., owner of the plant at 914 E. Randolph Road, said a small amount of sodium chlorite, used to make shampoo, leaked from a storage drum and ignited about 3:30 a.m. Plant employees extinguished the fire, which caused minor damage and no injuries, according to Evonic spokesman Mike Sheridan.

Sodium chlorite can cause skin irritation, but is not flammable unless it is dried, which Sheridan said is what happened Wednesday.

Brief by the Richmond Times-Dispatch

Taliaferro family, friends protest at courthouse

About 30 friends and family of slain Powhatan teenager Tahliek Taliaferro marched Wednesday morning in front of the county courthouse in protest of the verdict and sentence of his convicted killer.

Kaa Caputo, Tahliek’s mother, organized the march, which she said was synchronized with Stephanie Reynolds’ appearance Wednesday afternoon in court. Reynolds, who was driving the car that shooter Ethan Parrish was riding in, is facing a charge of first-degree murder.

Ethan Parrish, 25, and his cousin Joseph “Joey” Parrish, 18, were both convicted this week of involuntary manslaughter in Taliaferro’s death last June. A jury recommended a sentence of 10 years for Ethan for the shooting death, plus another year for assault and battery for the wounding of another young man, Courtney Jones. He will be sentenced next month. Joey Parrish’s sentence will be determined by the judge because he was a minor at the time of the shooting.

Brief by the Richmond Times-Dispatch

Woman uses pepper spray to fight off Richmond attacker

A woman used pepper spray late Tuesday night to fend off an attacker in Richmond’s Oregon Hill area.

Richmond police Capt. Dave Martin said the 18-year-old victim “was a little scraped up but she refused medical treatment.”

The woman told police the attack occurred at 11:50 p.m. in the 300 block of South Cherry Street, just south of VCU’s Monroe Park campus, when an older male approached her and tried to forcibly take her backpack.

When the man punched her, she sprayed him with pepper spray and was able to run to safety, Martin said.

Brief by the Richmond Times-Dispatch

NATIONAL & INTERNATIONAL

Obama defends his budget as essential to recovery

President Obama presented a sober assessment of the state of the economy in his prime time news conference Tuesday, but he insisted his administration has a strategy in place to “attack this crisis on all fronts.”

“It took many years and many failures to lead us here. And it will take many months and many different solutions to lead us out. There are no quick fixes, and there are no silver bullets,” Obama said.

“We’ll recover from this recession, but it will take time, it will take patience, and it will take an understanding that, when we all work together, when each of us looks beyond our own short-term interest to the wider set of obligations we have towards each other, that’s when we succeed,” Obama said.

The president defended his budget, which has come under criticism for its hefty price, saying the plan he proposed is “inseparable” from the overall strategy for economic recovery.

Brief by CNN.com

Ice jams still threaten flooding in North Dakota

One ice jam clogging the Missouri River prevented more water from pouring downstream into the flood-threatened city of Bismarck Wednesday, but officials considered dynamiting another jam of car-sized ice chunks that backed water upstream into the metro area.

Officials had called for more volunteers to help with sandbagging as residents of some low-lying areas were told to evacuate.

Gov. John Hoeven said Wednesday that although some water was flowing around the upstream ice jam the river appeared to be holding steady.

“Since midnight, the Missouri River has not risen,” Bismarck Mayor John Warford said at a news conference.

The National Weather Service backed off a report that the upstream ice jam had broken, in an area known as Double Ditch, releasing as much as one to two feet of water toward the city. However, meteorologist Joshua Scheck said the ice jam was unpredictable and the weather service was maintaining its flash flood warning for a three-county area.

Brief by The Associated Press

French strikers hold 3M exec hostage amid talks

Striking French workers for U.S. manufacturer 3M held their boss hostage amid labor talks Wednesday at a plant south of Paris, as anger over layoffs and cutbacks mounted around the country.

While the situation at the 3M plant outside Pithiviers was calm, worker rage elsewhere boiled over into an angry march on the presidential palace in Paris and a bonfire of tires set alight by Continental AG employees whose auto parts factory was being shut down.

The French division of 3M – a diversified U.S. manufacturer known for Post-It notes and Scotch tape – recently announced layoffs and job transfers among its 2,700 workers at 13 French sites. Among those targeted are 110 of the Pithiviers factory’s 235 workers.

A few dozen workers at Pithiviers took turns standing guard Wednesday outside factory offices where the director of 3M’s French operations, Luc Rousselet, has been holed up since Tuesday. The workers did not threaten any violence and the atmosphere was calm.

Brief by The Associated Press

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