News briefs for July 14, 2003

Monday, July 14, 2003 | 9:56 a.m.

Motorcycle rider dies after crash

One man died and another was left in critical condition after the Suzuki motorcycle they were riding collided with a car in North Las Vegas Saturday morning.

The passenger, Martell Dion Cook, 20 of North Las Vegas died after the crash, while the driver of the Suzuki, whose name and age were not released, was in critical condition, North Las Vegas Police spokesman Justin .

The two men, both in their early 20s, were riding southbound on Martin Luther King Boulevard about 10:15 a.m. when they hit a Toyota northbound making a left turn onto Alexander Road as the traffic light changed, Roberts said, the traffic light changed, officers said.

The woman driving the Toyota, whose name was not released, was not injured.

Heat believed cause of woman's death

Metro Police are investigating the death of a woman discovered at Interstate 15 and Lake Mead Boulevard late Sunday night.

The Clark County coroner's office had not released a cause of death pending an autopsy today, but heat exposure was the suspected cause of the woman's death, police said.

The woman had not been positively identified as of this morning and the family members had not been notified, the coroner's office said.

The woman appeared to be a transient, officers said.

Nuke shipments are criticized

Although the Energy Department has stopped nuclear shipments between the Nevada Test Site and an underground site in New Mexico, a citizens advisory board for the Test Site urged the department to move the plutonium-laced wastes involved.

A plan to ship the nuclear waste from Nevada to New Mexico through Southern California was canceled Wednesday because of the opposition from California officials, the DOE said.

It marked the first time nuclear shipments have been halted because of a state's protest, DOE spokesman Joe Davis said last week.

There were no immediate plans to reschedule the truck shipments of plutonium wastes along the 300-mile winding route through California, shipments that could have begun as early as Thursday.

The passenger of a Nissan

was killed early Saturday in a crash believed to be alcohol-related on the Las Vegas Beltway at Decatur Boulevard, the Nevada Highway Patrol said. Nelson Lopez of Henderson was heading east on the beltway about 12:30 a.m. when he swerved off the road and on again, over-corrected, spun clockwise and flipped, Trooper Angie Wolff said. The front seat passenger, identified by the Clark County coroner's office as 41-year-old Francisco Ramos, was thrown from the car and killed.