Girl Found After All Hope Is Lost

Good thing 7-year-old Latricia Reese didn’t know just how grim rescue crews rated her chances of survival after she was swept by ferocious Houston floodwaters into a storm sewer. While Latricia was gamely clinging to a crack in the sewer lining, being battered by debris but bothered most by the ubiquitous ants and mosquitoes, divers refused to risk the dangerous descent into the unfamiliar system and even her mother, Karen Reese, had run out of hope. “I gave up most hope and everybody kept telling me not to give it up, but I did,” Karen Reese said. Finally, while her mother searched a nearby bayou into which the system emptied, others enlisted the help of two workers checking sewer lines, who found Latricia when they lifted a manhole cover near where she had disappeared more than 12 hours before on Monday night. Latricia was reported in good condition, suffering from mild shock and covered with scrapes and bruises. “It’s an experience I guess you can’t explain,” said rescuer Timothy Gabrysch. “I have no idea how she stayed there. It’s pretty nasty down there.”

--Maybe Donald Trump should start looking at aircraft carriers. The New York mega-developer has confirmed rumors that his tiny (at 292 feet) yacht Princess is cramping his style and he’s looking to trade up into the 500 feet range. Trump reportedly is leaning toward a lavish 420-foot design being offered by the Dutch boat maker Amels, though that still would make his boat second-largest behind a 500-foot Saudi Arabian vessel. An Amsterdam newspaper reporter, Peter Degraaf, says his sources estimate the Dutch yacht wouldn’t hit the high seas for less than $140 million. No problem for Trump, who reportedly has been offered $100 million by a Japanese buyer for the Princess, which he bought for a third that price from arms dealer Adnan Khashoggi.

--It was murder they wrote, protested Prince Charles, who cited the poor grammar of his staff’s letter-writing efforts in accusing British schools of “doing in” the Queen’s English. “All the letters sent from my office, I have to correct myself,” declared the heir to the throne in a meeting with business officials. “And that is because English is taught so bloody badly.” But Nigel de Gruchy, the general secretary of the National Assn. of Schoolmasters and the Union of Women Teachers, said it was a “case of the pot calling the kettle black.” De Gruchy graded the prince’s utterances poor for grammar and redundancy and added: “If he has to swear, he is proving that the (private) schools are as bad as the state ones.”