American Scene

ALASKA

Damaged oil tanker back at sea

ANCHORAGE | An Exxon tanker that lost power Sunday while leaving Alaska’s Prince William Sound is under way again.

Coast Guard Lt. Herbert Law says the tanker Kodiak departed at 4:50 a.m. Monday from a safe harbor at Knowles Head, where tugboats had towed the 831-foot vessel.

Lt. Law says the Kodiak will head to San Francisco to off-load its oil, then go to Seattle for permanent repairs. The tanker is carrying about 613,000 barrels, or more than 25 million gallons, of crude oil.

The tanker departed from Port Valdez early Sunday morning but lost power when a rear steam generator overheated.

Power was transferred to a forward steam generator with an auxiliary generator as a backup, an arrangement that the Coast Guard approved for the ship to sail.

CALIFORNIA

Taco Bell founder dies at 86

RANCHO SANTA FE | Glen W. Bell Jr., an entrepreneur best known as the founder of the Taco Bell chain, has died. He was 86.

Mr. Bell died Sunday at his home in Rancho Santa Fe, according to a statement posted Monday on the Taco Bell Web site. The Irvine-based company did not release a cause of death.

“Glen Bell was a visionary and innovator in the restaurant industry, as well as a dedicated family man,” Greg Creed, president of Taco Bell, said in the statement.

Mr. Bell launched Taco Bell in 1962 in Downey after cutting ties with his business partners in other restaurant ventures and quickly expanding around Los Angeles. He sold the first Taco Bell franchise in 1964.

In 1978, Mr. Bell sold his 868 Taco Bell restaurants to PepsiCo for $125 million in stock. Taco Bell is now owned by Yum! Brands and is the largest Mexican fast-food chain in the nation, serving more than 36.8 million consumers each week in more than 5,600 U.S. locations.

Mr. Bell is survived by his wife, Martha, three sisters, two sons and four grandchildren. A private funeral is planned.

Story Continues →