Pentagon funding new high-tech venture

NEWPORT BEACH, Calif. (AP) — Defense Secretary Ash Carter is announcing that the Pentagon will fund a new venture to develop cutting edge electronics and sensors that can flex and stretch and could be built into clothing or the skins of ships and aircraft.

The high-tech investment could lead to wearable health monitors that could be built into military uniforms or used to assist the elderly. Or it could foster thin, bendable sensors that could be tucked into cracks or crevices on weapons, ships or bridges where bulky wiring could never fit. The sensors could telegraph structural problems or trigger repair alerts.

Carter plans to lay out the details for the newly created high-tech innovation institute in a speech Friday in California’s Silicon Valley.

Robin Williams’ estate dispute back in court

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — Attorneys for Robin Williams’ wife and children are due back in court in the ongoing fight over the late actor’s estate.

The two sides are scheduled to go before a San Francisco judge Friday, as court documents indicate they remain at odds over the division of Williams’ personal items and a reserve fund to maintain Susan Williams in the home she shared with Robin Williams.

The children — Zachary, Zelda and Cody Williams — say the estate’s trustees have determined the division of all of Williams’ personal property.

They also say the trustees have arrived at a figure for a reserve fund for Susan Williams.

Susan Williams says the trustees have refused to explain how they calculated her reserve fund.

Robin Williams committed suicide in August 2014.

Lawyers try to halt man’s execution

OKLAHOMA CITY (AP) — Attorneys for an Oklahoma man sentenced to die for killing his 9-month-old daughter in 2002 say their client has become insane while in prison, and his execution must be halted.

Attorneys for Benjamin Robert Cole of Claremore will present their arguments Friday before a judge in Pittsburg County, where Cole is imprisoned at the Oklahoma State Penitentiary.

The U.S. Supreme Court has said executing an insane person is unconstitutional, and Cole’s attorneys maintain the prison’s warden is violating a state law that requires her to notify the local district attorney when an inmate has become insane.

But Warden Anita Trammel wrote in an affidavit this week that she spoke to Cole and that he understands why he’s being executed.

Cole is scheduled to be executed by lethal injection

Oct. 7.

Petersen Jr., first black Marine aviator, dies

BALTIMORE (AP) — Frank E. Petersen Jr., the first black aviator and brigadier general in Marine Corps, has died.

Frank E. Petersen III says his father died Tuesday at his home in Stevensville, Maryland, of complications from lung cancer. He was 83.

According to a news release on the Marine Corps website, Petersen was commissioned in the corps in 1952. The Marines say Petersen served in the Korean War in 1953 and Vietnam in 1968.

During his career, Petersen flew more than 350 combat missions and more than 4,000 hours.

Petersen was promoted to brigadier general in 1979. He retired in 1988.

As tough as he had to be as a Marine, his son said, “He was as peaceful and gentle as you could ask a dad to be.”

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