By KERA News & Wire Services
Dallas, TX –
Emergency crews have found a body in the wreckage where a small plane smashed into an Austin office building. Police Chief Art Acevedo said Thursday that the body was found in the building. He declined to say whether it was the pilot.
Authorities say a software engineer furious with the Internal Revenue Service launched a suicide attack on the agency by crashing his small plane into the building that contains nearly 200 IRS employees. The crash set off a raging fire that sent workers running for their lives.
Acevedo says along with the pilot there is only one other person unaccounted for.
Texas gasoline prices keep falling
Retail gasoline prices continued to fall for a fifth week in a row this week.
The weekly AAA Texas survey released Thursday shows the average price of regular unleaded fell 2 cents to $2.46 per gallon. Nationally, the average price fell 3 cents to $2.61 per gallon.
Motorists in Houston and Fort Worth are paying the lowest price in the survey at $2.42 per gallon, down 3 cents in Houston from last week and down a penny in Fort Worth. The costliest gasoline remains in El Paso, where it fell 2 cents this week to $2.58 per gallon.
An auto club statement cites crude oil prices remaining below $80 per barrel, a lack of market support for the speculation that drove crude prices higher earlier this year and continued weak demand for gasoline.
FAA oversight of American Airlines is faulted
A report by a government watchdog is finding fault with the Federal Aviation Administration's oversight of aircraft maintenance at American Airlines. The report says the case raises questions about the effectiveness of the FAA's maintenance oversight of airlines in general.
The report released Thursday by the Transportation Department's inspector general is based on an investigation of complaints lodged in February 2008 by the pilots union at American Airlines.
FAA and American officials say the problems are old issues that have been addressed.
However, the report says FAA is still working on some of the issues and that the effectiveness of the agency's actions is still uncertain.
Wife of televangelist Benny Hinn files for divorce
The wife of televangelist Benny Hinn has filed for divorce in Southern California.
Suzanne Hinn filed papers in Orange County Superior Court on Feb. 1, citing irreconcilable differences. The couple has been married for more than 30 years.
Benny Hinn Ministries is headquartered in Grapevine, Texas, but Hinn operates a church and television studio in Aliso Viejo, Calif. He is one of six televangelists under investigation by Republican Sen. Charles Grassley of Iowa.
Grassley sent letters to six Christian ministries, including Hinn's, in 2007 asking about spending on private planes, oceanside mansions, board oversight and involvement in for-profit businesses.
The ministries have denied wrongdoing.