NJN/am for Monday, February 4
Published 8:31 am Monday, February 4, 2013
Good Monday morning to you — hey, what happened to the lights?…
Weather: Dreary. Today will be cloudy, with rain moving into the area tonight. Highs will be in the middle to upper 50s, with nighttime lows in the lower 40s and a 40 percent chance of rain. That rain continues into Tuesday morning.
Day 7. The standoff in Midland City, Alabama continues, as negotiators continue to try to get Jimmy Lee Dykes out of his bunker, releasing his 5-year-old hostage. Dykes is permitting medicine and what the Associated Press calls “comfort items” such as a Hot Wheels car to be sent into the bunker through the PVC pipe that they are using for communication. Yesterday was the funeral and burial for the bus driver that police say Dykes shot and killed when he took young Ethan hostage.
Century of an icon. Seamstress Rosa Parks, who famously refused to sit in the back of a Montgomery bus, as required of blacks at the time, was born 100 years ago today in Tuskegee. Her steadfastness in 1955 gave birth to the modern civil rights movement.
And the best Super Bowl commercial was… well, it depends on who you ask, but an online consensus seems to favor a spot that ran late in the game called “Farmer.” The ad for Dodge Ram pickup trucks features a series of photos of farmers and their families, displayed as a 1970s speech by the late newscaster Paul Harvey. You can view the spot here.
Sports: Ravens survive power outage. Something about a power outage that left half of the Mercedes-Benz Superdome without power in the second half of Super Bowl XLVII seemed to energize the San Francisco 49ers, who were down 28-6 to the Baltimore Ravens at that point. The power outage delayed the game for 34 minutes, after which the 49ers came charging back with three touchdowns and a field goal. Quarterback Colin Kaepernick ran for a 15-yard touchdown that brought the Niners to within two, but a two-point conversion failed. Baltimore responded with a field goal, and then held on with a huge goal-line stand in the last two minutes as the 49ers had four chances to score from inside the 10-yard line. The ball went over to the Ravens on downs, and punter Sam Koch took an intentional safety with four seconds left; time expired on the following free kick play, and the Ravens won 34-31. Baltimore QB Joe Flacco was named MVP. It was the last game if Ravens linebacker Ray Lewis’ storied career; he was the only player to be on the franchise’s first Super Bowl win 12 years ago.