The following stories have been hand-selected by the Assignment Desk at News4:
REMEMBERING MANUTE BOL
Manute Bol, who became a basketball sensation in the 1980s as a skeletally thin shot-blocking giant with the Washington Bullets and other professional teams, and who devoted his post-basketball life to improving the lot of his fellow natives of Sudan, died June 19 at the University of Virginia Medical Center in Charlottesville. He was 47. His cousin George Bol said Mr. Bol had internal bleeding and other complications from Stevens-Johnson syndrome, a rare skin disease that he contracted from a medication he received in Africa. Mr. Bol, one of the two tallest players in NBA history, was also one of its most exotic and endearing -- and surely the only one to have killed a lion with a spear. When the Bullets drafted him in the second round in 1985, he was measured at 7 feet 6¾ inches in his bare feet -- usually rounded up to 7-7 -- and he weighed a mere 190 pounds.
(WASHINGTON POST)
DEPUTY KILLED IN BOATING ACCIDENT
A Spotsylvania County Sheriff's deputy was killed Saturday in a boating accident on Lake Anna. Deputy Dean Ridings, 52, was on marine patrol when the accident happened around 12:40p.m. He was taken to Mary Washington Hospital where he died as a result of his injuries. The boating accident is under investigation by the Virginia Department of Game and Inland Fisheries Law Enforcement Division. Ridings had been a member of the Spotsylvania County Sheriff's Office since 2004. Funeral arrangements are incomplete at this time.
(WTOP)
FIRST FENTY, NOW JENNA BUSH HAS BIKES STOLEN
Baltimore police are searching for two Trek mountain bicycles that were stolen from the rear garage of the South Baltimore rowhouse owned by former President George W. Bush's daughter, Jenna Bush Hager, and her husband. The break-in occurred Friday afternoon, but officers who initially responded to a burglar alarm reported at 1:22 p.m. did not find signs of a break-in and left, according to city police spokesman Anthony Guglielmi. But the private alarm company notified the Hagers, who were out of town, and they called a neighbor and asked him to check the South Charles Street rowhouse when he returned home from work.
(BALTIMORE SUN)
LOCAL MAN'S IDEA FOR THE GULF SPILL
Russell Payne has a plan to save the Gulf of Mexico from any more spewing oil. After weeks of trying to contact everyone from the White House to BP, Payne finally was able to bend someone's ear. Last week, Payne presented to his plan to Virginia Sen. Charles Colgan, and the elder politician who repre-sents Manassas, Manassas Park, parts of Prince William told Payne he would send his plan down to a contact with the Louisiana Senate. "It's interesting," Colgan said of Payne's idea. "He's trying, so you got to give him credit for that." He also left a message for U.S. Sen. James Webb, whose secretary said he would be willing to listen to the idea.
(INSIDENOVA.COM)
