Social Security offers debit card

For millions of Americans, accessing their Social Security benefits is now just a card swipe away.

A new debit card being offered by the Treasury Department gives nearly 4 million recipients who have no bank accounts an alternative to paper checks that they must cash, usually at a price. The new debit card, issued by Comerica Bank, is available to any benefit recipient via www.usdirectexpress.com.

States already load child-support payments and unemployment benefits onto debit cards. The federal government has used prepaid debit cards, too, for disaster-relief aid. But the Social Security debit card is the largest push to date to switch from costly paper checks to electronic payments.

Columbia, S.C.

Child shoots herself with grandma's gun

A 4-year-old girl shot herself in the chest Monday after snatching her grandmother's handgun from the woman's purse while riding in a shopping cart at a Sam's Club store, authorities said.

A witness, Lueen Homewood, said store workers grabbed first-aid materials off store shelves to help the grandmother as she cradled the wounded child near the store's pharmacy.

The girl was rushed to a hospital in critical condition and was recovering after surgery, said police-department spokesman Brick Lewis.

Lewis said the grandmother, Donna Hutto Williamson, has a permit to carry a concealed weapon and the purse containing the small-caliber handgun was in the cart near the child.

McAllen, Texas

A U.S. Border Patrol agent was charged with conspiracy to distribute cocaine for allegedly helping two Mexican men smuggle 11 bricks of cocaine into the United States.

Reynaldo Zuniga, a 34-year-old Border Patrol agent from Harlingen, was paid to pick up one of the men along the Rio Grande and then drive him to a fast-food restaurant in Hidalgo, where the other man would pick him up, the U.S. Attorney's Office said Monday.

Zuniga, Luis Alfredo Cruz, 29, and Jose Luis Arteaga, 24, were arrested early Saturday morning, said Border Patrol spokesman Ricardo Rosas.

All three men remained in federal custody.

New Orleans

Larger "dead zone" forecast for summer

Researchers predict a "dead zone" of oxygen-depleted waters off the Louisiana and Texas coasts could grow this summer to 10,084 square miles, making it the largest such expanse in at least 23 years.

If the preliminary forecast holds, the researchers say, the size of the so-called "dead zone" would be 17-21 percent larger than at any time since the mapping began in 1985 — and about as large as the state of Massachusetts.

The report is based on May nitrate loads on the Mississippi River at Baton Rouge.

Excess nutrients can spur the growth of algae, and when the algae die, their decay consumes oxygen faster than it can be brought down from the surface. As a result, fish, shrimp and crabs can suffocate, threatening the region's commercial fishing industry.

Seattle Times news services