Nation: Two killed in crash of news helicopter

Oct 14, 2008 (Tulsa World - McClatchy-Tribune Information Services via COMTEX) -- DIS | Quote | Chart | News | PowerRating -- CONROE, Texas -- A pilot and television camera operator died Monday when their helicopter crashed near Houston on the way to cover a news story.

KTRK, an affiliate of ABC, reported that the helicopter it had leased was flying to the scene of a shooting when it crashed in a state forest near Conroe, on the northern edge of Houston's suburbs.

The aircraft, a Bell 206L4, was owned by Helicopters Inc., the company's spokeswoman Seva Kaiser told the Houston Chronicle. The company leases aircraft to about 70 news organizations around the country.

Death penalty appeal based on obesity fails

CINCINNATI -- The U.S. Supreme Court has rejected an appeal from an Ohio prisoner who argued that he is too obese to be executed. The inmate, Richard Cooey, is scheduled to be put to death Tuesday.

The court denied his request for a stay without comment Monday. Cooey is 5-foot-7 and weighs 267 pounds.

State officials said prison staff members examined Cooey's veins and found no problems that would interfere with the execution.

Cooey, 41, raped and killed two college students in 1986.

He has one more appeal pending before

the court. It argues that Ohio's method for lethal injections violates the constitutional prohibition against cruel and unusual punishment.

Lawmaker's injuries went unseen for week

CINCINNATI -- U.S. Rep. Jean Schmidt, R-Ohio, suffered broken ribs and vertebrae when she was struck by a car while jogging last week, but the damage wasn't discovered until after she fainted from pain on an overseas trip, her spokesman said Monday.

The lawmaker was heading to a weekend fact-finding visit to Afghanistan when severe pain caused her to pass out while the plane was landing at a U.S. Air Force base in Germany. A hospital examination found the breaks in two ribs and two vertebrae, her spokesman Bruce Pfaff said.

Schmidt, 56, flew back to Ohio and was resting Monday in her home just east of Cincinnati, the spokesman said.

Police haven't found the driver of the car that hit Schmidt.

Three visitors killed by high surf in Hawaii

HONOLULU -- Two sisters-in-law were struck by large waves on the Kauai shore and were pulled out to sea, and a snorkeler also died over the weekend as high surf hit Hawaii.

The women were strolling along Queen's Bath in Princeville on Sunday when a large wave knocked one down and a second wave swept both into the water, said Clayton Arinaga, Kauai's assistant police chief for patrol services.

The women were identified as Heather Westphal, 33, of Washington, D.C., and Tonya Cataldo, 38, of Parker, Colo.

Earlier Sunday, a body surfer at a beach in Kapaa found the body of a snorkeler in the water. Arinaga said the man was Hiroaki Kinjo, 74, of Saitama Ken, Japan.

New techniques tried to aid kidney patients

WASHINGTON -- Nearly one in three patients who need a kidney transplant may never get one because their bodies are abnormally primed to attack a donated organ.

Now doctors are trying new ways to outwit the immune system and save more of those so-called "highly sensitized" patients -- often with kidneys donated by living donors, considered the optimal kind.

"I feel very lucky. Our son saved my life," said Cynthia Preloh of Arlington, Va., after an unusual combination of blood cleansing and a cancer drug allowed her to receive a kidney from her son that her body otherwise would have destroyed.

It's promising work that comes as the country's kidney distribution system is beginning a major overhaul. Together, the two efforts aim to make a long-needed dent in the years of waiting it can take to get a kidney transplant.

More than 77,000 people are on the national waiting list to receive a kidney from a deceased donor. Yet fewer than 17,000 transplants a year are performed. About 10,500 of the kidneys come from deceased donors and just more than 6,000 from living donors, relatives or friends who offer to help a specific patient. The wait can stretch four to five years, and more than 4,000 patients die while on the waiting list each year.

Defamation suit filed in atomic science flap

WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. -- A Purdue University scientist who was reprimanded for research misconduct over claims that he produced nuclear fusion in tabletop experiments is suing two other faculty members for alleged defamation.

Rusi P. Taleyarkhan, a professor of nuclear engineering, said in a complaint filed in Tippecanoe Superior Court that Lefteri Tsoukalas and Tatjana Jevremovic made false and malicious public statements that led to "a successful campaign to ruin Taleyarkhan and his sonofusion research."From wire reports

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