By KERA News & Wire Services
Dallas, TX – A Dallas bus company involved in a deadly 2007 crash in Arkansas now faces $55,000 in federal fines for violating the Americans with Disabilities Act.
The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration and the Justice Department's Civil Rights Division announced the fines Monday against Tornado Bus Co.
The agencies said that the company must upgrade its fleet by February 2011 or have its operating authority revoked.
An investigation by the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration found Tornado only had one bus in its fleet of 53 that was accessible by disabled passengers. ADA regulations require at least half of a carrier's fleet to be accessible.
A call to the company on Monday was not answered.
The investigation was unrelated to the November 2007 crash that killed four people in Arkansas.
Perry seeks life without parole for repeat rapists
Texas Gov. Rick Perry says he will ask the Legislature to make all repeat sex offenders eligible to be sentenced to life without parole.
Perry's announcement on Monday came hours after a Dallas judge overturned the 1993 conviction of a deaf man sent to prison for raping a 5-year-old girl. The fingerprints of a convicted sexual predator were later found at the crime scene.
Perry says state law currently allows sexual predators who target children to be sentenced to life in prison without parole. He says he wants that expanded to include those who rape adults.
He says he also wants more paroled rapists hooked up to electronic monitoring devices that allow law enforcement to know if they are too close to a park, a school or other off-limit areas.
Granddad charged after toddler shoots self
An east Texas man is charged with a firearms violation after his 2-year-old grandson shot himself accidentally at a rural bar the family runs.
Sixty-year-old Charles Wayne Mclean of Flint is free on $10,000 bond after he was charged Monday with making a firearm accessible to a child with serious bodily injury. That's after Jaden Mclean got a handgun from an office shelf at the Sports Club, about five miles east of Tyler, and shot himself once in the head.
Conviction of the Class A misdemeanor would mean a sentence of up to a year in jail and a fine of up to $4,000.
Mclean says his grandson is home from the hospital and he expects a full recovery. He declined to comment on his case.