WOMI Daystarter July 24 — Politics, Honors, Training, Cardinals

FANCY FARM

McConnell calls for backup at Fancy Farm picnic

FRANKFORT, Ky. (AP) — Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell has placed robo calls to GOP voters in Kentucky urging them to attend a church picnic in the western Kentucky community of Fancy Farm next week.

The picnic doubles as a raucous political showdown between Republicans and Democrats during an afternoon of stump speeches. It's especially important to McConnell this year because he's running for re-election, and he will have to share the stage with Democratic contender Alison Lundergan Grimes.

McConnell said he will kick off his re-election campaign at the picnic, which he billed as "the summer event you won't want to miss."

The political speeches are part of a fundraiser for St. Jerome Parish that typically draws some 10,000 people and generates about $250,000.

WKU PROFESSOR HONORED

WKU professor honored for work with older adults

BOWLING GREEN, Ky. (AP) — A Western Kentucky University assistant professor has been recognized for his work focusing on exercise among older adults.

Jason Crandall recently received the Distinguished Educator Achievement Award from the Kentucky Association for Gerontology. The award recognizes exceptional effort as a teacher in gerontology and geriatrics.

Crandall is an assistant professor of exercise science at Western.

His research focuses on physical activity interventions for special populations, and he is especially interested in physical activity for older adults.

BUSINESS TRAINING

Training program offers aid to entrepreneurs

LOUISVILLE, Ky. (AP) — Louisville-area entrepreneurs can learn how to launch their products or businesses at an upcoming training program.

The program, called LaunchIt, is a 10-week course that starts Sept. 3. It's offered by Nucleus: Kentucky's Innovation Center.

It will be the sixth entrepreneur training program offered by Nucleus, which is an arm of the University of Louisville Foundation.

Nucleus CEO Vickie Yates Brown says the course will give start-up owners the training to successfully launch their businesses while avoiding the pitfalls others have encountered.

Applications for the course will be accepted through Aug. 23, and organizers say space is limited.

OBAMA-NCAA-LOUISVILLE

Obama congratulates Louisville for bracket bust

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Barack Obama congratulated the University of Louisville men's basketball team on working toward a single goal — "to bust my bracket."

Obama picked Indiana to win the 2013 NCAA tournament, but Louisville came out on top. For that, the Cardinals were rewarded with an appearance with the president in the White House East Room.

Obama teased coach Rick Pitino for shirtless photos on the internet that prove he didn't "chicken out" on his promise to get a tattoo if the team won the championship.

Pitino gave Obama a team jersey and a red Louisville Slugger baseball bat commemorating the victory. Pitino joked it may come in handy at difficult press conferences.

MISSING TEEN

New Ky. State Police search fails to find teen

RICHMOND, Ky. (AP) — Authorities have searched more than 16,000 acres in three Kentucky counties but failed to find a teenager who was reported missing last month.

Kentucky State Police Trooper Paul Blanton says Tuesday's search was done by foot, on horseback and aboard ATVs.

Teams expanded the search area near where 18-year-old Brookelyn Farthing was last seen June 22.

Most of the search Tuesday was in Madison County but also stretched into Rockcastle and Jackson counties. Blanton says a lake and three ponds also were searched.

In late June, police discontinued foot searches that covered several hundred acres.

Blanton said police had not received any specific information that prompted the new search.

Farthing was last seen at a house that caught fire later that night. Blanton said the fire remains under investigation.

PLANE WRECK

2 Iowa men escape Ky. plane wreck unharmed

ELKTON, Ky. (AP) — Two Iowa men flying home from Florida have escaped unharmed when the pilot tried to land the small plane on a southern Kentucky highway and wound up in a field.

Kentucky State Police say the crash happened north of Elkton in Todd County when the plane apparently experienced mechanical problems.

Police say 69-year-old Roger L. Pointer of Maxwell, Iowa, was piloting the 1946 Aeronca 7AC around 9:30 a.m. CDT Tuesday and tried to land on Kentucky 181, but the plane went off the road and into a field.

Police said neither Pointer nor 52-year-old passenger Michael D. Callison of Des Moines was hurt.

The Federal Aviation Administration will investigate.

AQUARIUM-SHARK RAY

Newport Aquarium's newest shark ray dies

NEWPORT, Ky. (AP) — A shark ray who was just added to the Newport Aquarium's exhibit last week has died.

Aquarium General Curator Mark Dvornak told The Kentucky Enquirer that the female shark ray died Monday of internal bleeding. He says she was probably injured by a male shark ray trying to mate with her.

The shark ray's age was estimated at 6 years. She was introduced to the exhibit last Wednesday, joining four other shark rays in the 385,000-gallon exhibit. She was collected from the waters surrounding Taiwan.

Dvornak said an ultrasound performed after staff members noticed the shark ray wasn't functioning well in the water showed the injury and bleeding.

The new shark ray hadn't yet been named when she died.

Today in History

Today is Wednesday, July 24, the 205th day of 2013. There are 160 days left in the year.

Today's Highlight in History:

On July 24, 1959, during a visit to Moscow, Vice President Richard Nixon engaged in his famous "Kitchen Debate" with Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev.

On this date:

In 1783, Latin American revolutionary Simon Bolivar (see-MOHN' boh-LEE'-vahr) was born in Caracas, Venezuela.

In 1862, Martin Van Buren, the eighth president of the United States, and the first to have been born a U.S. citizen, died at age 79 in Kinderhook, N.Y., the town where he was born in 1782.

In 1866, Tennessee became the first state to be readmitted to the Union after the Civil War.

In 1911, Yale University history professor Hiram Bingham III found the "Lost City of the Incas," Machu Picchu, in Peru.

In 1923, the Treaty of Lausanne, which settled the boundaries of modern Turkey, was concluded in Switzerland.

In 1937, the state of Alabama dropped charges against four of the nine young black men accused of raping two white women in the "Scottsboro Case."

In 1952, President Harry S. Truman announced a settlement in a 53-day steel strike.

In 1969, the Apollo 11 astronauts — two of whom had been the first men to set foot on the moon — splashed down safely in the Pacific.

In 1974, the Supreme Court unanimously ruled that President Richard Nixon had to turn over subpoenaed White House tape recordings to the Watergate special prosecutor.

In 1983, a two-run homer by George Brett of the Kansas City Royals was disallowed and Brett called out after New York Yankees manager Billy Martin pointed out there was too much pine tar on Brett's bat. American League president Lee MacPhail later reinstated the home run. The game was re-completed Aug. 18, 1983, with the Royals beating the Yankees, 5-4.

In 1998, a gunman burst into the U.S. Capitol, killing two police officers before being shot and captured. (The shooter, Russell Eugene Weston Jr., is being held in a federal mental facility.) The motion picture "Saving Private Ryan," starring Tom Hanks and directed by Steven Spielberg, was released.

In 2002, nine coal miners became trapped in a flooded tunnel of the Quecreek Mine in western Pennsylvania; the story ended happily 77 hours later with the rescue of all nine.

Ten years ago: The House and Senate intelligence committees issued their final report on the attacks of September 11, 2001, citing countless blunders, oversights and miscalculations that prevented authorities from stopping the attackers.

Five years ago: Ford Motor Co. posted the worst quarterly performance in its history, losing $8.67 billion. Cheered by an enormous crowd in Berlin, Democratic presidential contender Barack Obama summoned Europeans and Americans together to "defeat terror and dry up the well of extremism that supports it" as surely as they had conquered communism a generation ago. Zvonko Busic, who'd served 32 years in a U.S. prison for hijacking a TWA jetliner and planting a bomb that killed a policeman, was paroled and returned home to Croatia.

One year ago: In his first foreign policy speech since emerging as the likely Republican presidential nominee, Mitt Romney called for an independent investigation into claims the White House had leaked national security information for President Barack Obama's political gain; the White House replied that the president "has made abundantly clear that he has no tolerance for leaks." Actor Chad Everett died in Los Angeles at age 75. Actor Sherman Hemsley died in El Paso, Texas, at age 74.

Today's Birthdays: Actor John Aniston ("Days of Our Lives") is 80. Political cartoonist Pat Oliphant is 78. Comedian Ruth Buzzi is 77. Actor Mark Goddard is 77. Actor Dan Hedaya is 73. Actor Chris Sarandon is 71. Comedian Gallagher is 67. Actor Robert Hays is 66. Former Republican national chairman Marc Racicot (RAWS'-koh) is 65. Actor Michael Richards is 64. Actress Lynda Carter is 62. Movie director Gus Van Sant is 61. Country singer Pam Tillis is 56. Actor Paul Ben-Victor is 51. Actor Kadeem Hardison is 48. Actress-singer Kristin Chenoweth is 45. Actress Laura Leighton is 45. Actor John P. Navin Jr. is 45. Actress-singer Jennifer Lopez is 44. Basketball player-turned-actor Rick Fox is 44. Actor Eric Szmanda is 38. Actress Rose Byrne is 34. Country singer Jerrod Niemann is 34. Actress Summer Glau is 32. Actress Elisabeth Moss is 31. Actress Anna Paquin is 31. Actress Megan Park ("The Secret Life of the American Teenager") is 27. Actress Mara Wilson is 26. Rock singer Jay McGuiness (The Wanted) is 23. TV personality Bindi Irwin is 15.

Thought for Today: "I think all great innovations are built on rejections." — Louise Nevelson, Russian-American artist (1900-1988).