TEXAS TEEN IMPALED ON HORN OF BULL STATUE: LUBBOCK, Texas (AP) — A 14-year-old West Texas boy is dead after he ran into a bull statue on the Texas Tech University campus and impaled himself on one of its horns.
University spokesman Chris Cook says Miguel Martinez impaled himself while playing hide-and-seek with friends in the pre-dawn hours of Saturday morning.
Campus police say Martinez was at the museum with two adults and two minors when police were called to the scene. Police say Martinez was running on the National Ranching Heritage Museum on the Texas Tech campus when the horn pierced his chest.
BUS CRASHES INTO MASS. HOUSE; DRIVER AMONG 7 HURT: AUBURN, Mass. (AP) — A bus has crashed into a house in a central Massachusetts town, injuring the driver and six other people.
Auburn fire Capt. Eric Otterson says the driver of the Worcester Regional Transit Authority bus was trapped for more than an hour Monday afternoon and has been hospitalized with serious injuries.
Otterson says three children and an adult were in the house when the bus struck it. He says they escaped with minor cuts even though the house was knocked off its foundation by 7 to 10 feet. He says two bus passengers were injured.
Police Chief Andrew Sluckis tells the Worcester Telegram & Gazette newspaper (http://bit.ly/15Af4E1of) a boy was watching television just a few feet from where the bus hit.
INDIANA GRAIN ELEVATOR BLAST KILLS 1 WORKER: UNION MILLS, Ind. (AP) — An explosion Monday inside a grain elevator killed a worker at a sprawling northwestern Indiana farm co-op, authorities said.
The cause of the blast at the Union Mills Co-op remained unknown Monday evening several hours after the blast. The U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firms and Explosives and the Indiana Occupational Safety and Health Administration were among the agencies sending investigators to the scene.
It wasn't clear where the victim, James Swank, 67, of Union Mills, was at time of the blast, but he might have been loading grain into train cars with two other workers, Maj. John Boyd of the LaPorte County Sheriff's Department said.
All other employees were accounted for and no other injuries were reported.
WHAT FLOATS THESE BOATS? CONCRETE: HOMER, Ill. (AP) — Does concrete float? For the hundreds of civil engineering students at the annual National Concrete Canoe Competition, the answer is "yes."
Teams representing 23 schools vied last week to design, build and race canoes made of concrete. Some vessels were as long as 22 feet and weighed as much as 180 pounds. A wooden canoe of the same size weighs about 40 pounds.
Alicia Welling, manager of the California Polytechnic State University team, says the trick to making concrete float is to mix it with glass bubbles and other lightweight objects.
Welling says the three-day American Society of Civil Engineers event gives students practical experience in finding creative engineering solutions and working as part of a team.
SQUIRREL CAUSES WICHITA POWER OUTAGE: WICHITA, Kan. (AP) — One small rodent is getting the blame for a massive power outage in southern and eastern sections of Wichita.
Nearly 10,000 customers of Westar Energy were affected by the outage Monday afternoon.
Authorities say a squirrel crawled into equipment at a substation, causing a transformer to blow out. A fire then broke out at the substation. Firefighters were quickly able to bring it under control.
Power was restored to the Westar customers in about one hour.
DISNEY RENAMES MOUSEKETEER STAGE FOR FUNICELLO: BURBANK (AP) — The stage at Walt Disney Studios where "The Mickey Mouse Club" was filmed is now officially the Annette Funicello Stage.
Disney chief Bob Iger led a ceremony Monday dedicating the soundstage to Funicello, the Mouseketeer-turned-movie star who died in April at age 70.
Iger confessed to having a crush on Funicello when he was growing up, as many who watched the perky brunette on TV did.
Former Mouseketeers, Funicello's family and colleagues and Mickey Mouse himself also participated in Monday's dedication. Frankie Avalon, Richard Sherman and Leonard Maltin were among those honoring the late actress.
Julie Andrews is the only other entertainer to have a namesake stage at Disney studios.
TIGHTROPE WALK OVER ARIZ. GORGE DRAWS 13M VIEWERS: LITTLE COLORADO RIVER GORGE, Ariz. (AP) — Aerialist Nik Wallenda's tightrope walk over a gorge near the Grand Canyon drew nearly 13 million viewers to the live television broadcast.
The Discovery Channel said Monday that the quarter-mile stunt at the Little Colorado River Gorge was among the most highly viewed shows in the station's history.
It also prompted 1.3 million tweets Sunday, making it one of the top trending topics.
Wallenda took 22 minutes to cross the 2-inch-thick steel cable, 1,500 feet above the dry river bed. He did it without a harness or safety net.
The well-known daredevil contended with the wind and repeatedly called on God to calm the swaying cable.
He wore a microphone and two cameras, one that looked down on the river bed and one that faced straight ahead.
2 MICH. MCDONALD'S DROP HALAL FOOD AFTER SUIT: DETROIT (AP) — The only two McDonald's restaurants in the United States that were serving food prepared according to Islamic law have stopped several weeks after a $700,000 settlement over a lawsuit that alleged the items weren't consistently halal.
The fast-food giant said in a statement Monday that the locations in the Detroit suburb of Dearborn, which has a large Muslim population, are no longer offering a halal McChicken sandwich or Chicken McNuggets in order "to focus on our national core menu."
The corporation added it takes into account "local and dietary preferences," and supports its franchisees in Dearborn. Neither the statement nor a spokeswoman said whether McDonald's decision was related to the lawsuit.
The lawsuit, brought by customer Ahmed Ahmed in 2011, technically covered anyone who bought the halal-advertised products between September 2005 and January from the restaurant on Ford Road and another one in Dearborn with a different owner. The second location wasn't a defendant or a focus of the investigation.
