Denton Record-Chronicle (Denton, Tex.), Vol. 111, No. 153, Ed. 1 Friday, January 2, 2015 Page: 1 of 19
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INSIDE TODAY
ALSO INSIDE
Turnovers burn Pioneers in conference opener / Sports, IB
Retrial ordered for three
journalists in Egypt
International, 7A
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UNT men, women taking second stab at C-USA play / Sports, IB
Denton Record-Chronicle
An edition of JJaUa^Portmtg
DentonRC.com
Vol. Ill, No. 153 / 20 pages, 3 sections
Friday, January 2, 2015
One dollar
Denton, Texas
Mixture of rain, sleet hits Denton
expected to reach 50 degrees.
“[The Texas Department of Trans-
portation] had it all covered before the
storm got here, so we didn’t have any
problems besides people driving too
fast on wet roads,” said Donna Huerta, a
spokeswoman with TxDOT.
The department did pre-treating on
Wednesday, which helped keep the
roads from freezing. Throughout the
day Thursday, crews have been check-
ing hot spots and potential problem ar-
eas, but by early evening didn’t have any
reports of icing on the roads, Huerta
said.
635 in Dallas to U.S. Highway 380 in
Denton.
More trucks with sand were on hand
By Jenna Duncan
Staff Writer
jduncan@dentonrc.com
Denton managed to avoid a full
freeze on New Year’s Day, but the rain is
going to keep coming.
Rain will stay in the area until late
Saturday morning, and will end from
west to east, said Dennis Cavanaugh, a
forecaster with the National Weather
Service in Fort Worth.
“It’s just above freezing, so it should
just be a very uncomfortable, low-im-
pact event,” he said. “You wouldn’t want
to stand out in it or anything, but it’s not
too bad.”
Temperatures will remain between
32 and 40 degrees until Saturday
morning, keeping the roads free from
ice. Earlier predictions had warned ice
was possible, but there have been few
icy spots on the roads. Saturday’s high is
in case of problems, but weren’t needed
during the day Thursday, she said.
While the warning in Denton Coun-
ty expired Thursday, the winter adviso-
ry in West Texas was extended to noon
today.
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Roads and highways in the Panhan-
dle region, including Interstate 20, are
still dangerous and black ice and sleet
cover large portions of the lanes.
Freezing drizzle also continued in
Lubbock, despite warmer tempera-
l!'
Crews with the 35Express project al-
so worked proactively, and sanded In-
terstate 35E on Wednesday night as
rain began, said Kim Sims, a spokes-
person for 35Express, which is the
name of the project that is expanding
Interstate 35E/35 between Interstate
tures.
The Associated Press contributed to
this report.
JENNA DUNCAN can be reached
at 940-566-6889 and via Twitter at
@JennaFDuncan.
Al Key/DRC
Umbrellas were out on University Drive on New Year’s Day as a mixture of
freezing rain, sleet and rain fell in Denton. Temperatures hovered around
freezing, keeping ice from accumulating on most roads and surfaces.
Government
working to
devise
block grant
TODAY
IN DENTON
'Ll
lY
7i
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Cold and rainy
High: 38
Low: 34
Three-day forecast, 2A
7/
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By Will Weissert
Associated Press
AUSTIN — The White House’s signa-
ture health care law is loathed by Texas’
political leadership, and the idea of ex-
panding Medicaid likely remains a non-
starter when the Legislature reconvenes
this month.
But Gov.-elect Greg Abbott and many
top conservatives support working with
Washington to devise a federal block grant
that would allow the state to remake Med-
icaid, a joint state-federal program that
provides health care for the poor and disa-
bled. Such an agreement could also earn
Texas much of the up to $10 billion in an-
nual subsidies that would have otherwise
come via Medicaid expansion.
That idea may shape Texas’ renegotia-
tions with the U.S. Centers for Medicare
and Medicaid Services over an existing
five-year, nearly $30 billion Medicaid
waiver mostly used to reimburse hospitals
for uninsured care and set to expire in
September 2016.
Federal officials insist they don’t intend
to use the expiring waiver as leverage to
push Texas’ Legislature toward embracing
Medicaid expansion. Still, advocacy
groups say Obama administration officials
aren’t likely to offer a block grant-like wav-
ier without extracting at least some con-
cessions.
“It’s not a matter of going and dictating
that the feds write us a blank check,” said
Anne Dunkelberg, associate director of
the health and wellness program at the
left-leaning advocacy group Center for
Public Policy Priorities.
Texas leads the nation in uninsured,
with nearly a quarter of its population —
6.4 million people — lacking health insur-
ance. President Barack Obama’s health
care law mandates expanding Medicaid to
i
NATIONAL
x
V-
Inside the hospital at the
National Institutes of
Health, researchers are
testing a possible new
treatment using a replica
of a fully stocked bar.
Page 6A
1
NATIONAL
Al Key/DRC
Denton County Criminal Court 2 Judge Virgil Vahlenkamp Jr. is sworn into office while one of his grandchildren and
his wife watch on New Year's Day at the Courthouse on the Square in Denton.
Sworn into office
Even as same-sex mar-
riage edges closer to
becoming legal nation-
wide, gay rights ad-
vocates face other chal-
lenges in 2015.
1 the new officials need to be sworn in
first thing,” Horn said. “For example,
when I was tax assessor, I was sworn in
Jan. \ then I went and swore in the peo-
ple who worked for me, or else it was ille-
gal for them to conduct business. So now
they can hit the office on day one.”
For many, the ceremony was a way to
publicly thank their constituents and
family members, and often the elected
officials brought their family members
County officials
made official on
New Year’s Day
morning at the Courthouse on the
Square.
Twenty-four officials took the oath of
office, including County Judge Mary
Horn, who with the new term will be the
longest-serving county judge in Denton
County history.
While New Year’s Day is a national
holiday, Denton and other counties
around Texas, such as Dallas County,
held ceremonies on Thursday.
“Technically, the other elected offi-
cials are in office until Dec. 31, so on Jan.
Page 6A
STATE
By Jenna Duncan
Staff Writer
jduncan @ dentonrc. com
With a holiday wreath still hanging
from a balcony, several Denton County
officials were sworn into office Thursday
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fSfc
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Lawmakers are seeking
ways to combat prescrip-
tion drug abuse.
1st of 9 bodies from AirAsia crash identified
Page 2A
In the thick of Indonesia’s rainy season,
the weather has frequently prevented heli-
copters and divers from operating while
strong sea currents have kept debris mov-
she placed both hands against the pol-
ished wood.
The coffin was then taken to a village
and lowered into a muddy grave, follow-
ing Muslim obligations requiring bodies
to be buried quickly. An imam said a sim-
ple prayer as about 150 people gathered in
the drizzling rain, and red flowers were
sprinkled over the mound of wet dirt
topped by a small white tombstone.
The Airbus A320 crashed into the Java
Sea on Sunday with 162 people on board.
Nine bodies have been recovered so far, in-
cluding two on Thursday. Remains are be-
ing sent initially to Pangkalan Bun, the
closest town on Borneo island, before be-
ing transported to Surabaya, Indonesia’s
second-largest city, where Flight 8501 had
taken off.
not yet be proven as wreckage.”
Sonar images have identified what ap-
peared to be large parts of the plane.
“It’s possible the bodies are in the fuse-
lage,” said Vice Air Marshal Sunarbowo
Sandi, search and rescue coordinator in
Pangkalan Bun. “So it’s a race now against
time and weather.”
The longer the search takes, the more
corpses will decompose and debris scatter.
Aviation expert Geoffrey Thomas in
Australia said there’s a good chance the
plane hit the water largely intact, and that
many passengers remain inside it.
He added that bodies recovered so far
would have come out with a breach in the
fuselage. “But most passengers still should
By Eileen Ng
and Robin Mcdowell
Associated Press
SURABAYA, Indonesia—A passenger
aboard AirAsia Flight 8501 became the
first victim of the crash to be returned to
her family Thursday, one of many painful
reunions to come, as search crews strug-
gled against wind and heavy rain to find
more than 150 people still missing.
Hayati Lutfiah Hamid’s identity was
confirmed by fingerprints and other
means, said Col. Budiyono of East Java’s
Disaster Victim Identification Unit.
Her body, in a dark casket topped with
flowers, was handed over to family mem-
bers during a brief ceremony at a police
hospital in Surabaya, the Indonesian city
where the plane took off. A relative cried as
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Singapore’s navy sent an unmanned
underwater vehicle capable of surveying
the seabed to try to pinpoint the wreckage
and the all-important “black boxes” —
flight data and cockpit voice recorders.
More than 50 ships, mostly from Indone-
sia, were scouring the area with high-tech
detection equipment. Aircraft with metal
detectors also were deployed.
We are “focusing on finding the body of
the plane,” Indonesia air force spokesman
Rear Marshal Hadi Tjahjanto told report-
ers. “There was something like a dark
shadow once seen from a plane, but it can-
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Parks, Scott K. Denton Record-Chronicle (Denton, Tex.), Vol. 111, No. 153, Ed. 1 Friday, January 2, 2015, newspaper, January 2, 2015; Denton, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth1124859/m1/1/: accessed June 24, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu.; .