3 Dead, 6 Missing After Army Truck Swept Away in Texas Flood

Houston — Three soldiers were killed and six were missing after a military truck was swept away in a rain-swollen creek on Thursday at Fort Hood, the Army said.

Fort Hood spokesman John Miller said the truck, called a Light Medium Tactical Vehicle, was using the Owl Creek Tactical Crossing, a low-water creek crossing, when swift flood waters from two days of intermittent heavy rains swept it the road. The vehicle, which resembles a flatbed truck with a walled bed and is used to carry troops, was carrying 12 soldiers when it overturned in the current, according to a statement from Fort Hood.

Parts of Texas have been inundated with rain in the last week, and more than half of the state is under flood watches or warnings, including the counties near Fort Hood. At least six people died in floods last week in Central and Southeast Texas.

The soldiers were performing routine training activities when they were swept from the road. Army aircraft, canine search teams, swift-water rescue watercraft and heavy trucks were being used in the search for the six missing soldiers.

Snapchat More Popular Than Twitter

Snapchat has 150 million people using the service each day, people familiar with the matter said. That makes the four-year-old messaging app more popular than Twitter by daily active users.

Snapchat has been growing quickly, boosted by its popularity among young people. The app had 110 million daily users in December, said the people, who asked not to be named because they weren’t authorized to speak about the numbers.

Twitter, which was founded in 2006, has less than 140 million users interacting with the service daily, according to an average of analysts’ estimates surveyed by Bloomberg. The short-messaging service was once the largest social network after Facebook but has since been surpassed by Facebook’s other apps, including Instagram, Messenger and WhatsApp.

Twitter has 310 million monthly active users, according to its most recent earnings report. The company doesn’t disclose how many of those people check in daily, but in the third quarter, it said about 44 percent of monthly users are active each day in the service’s top 20 markets.

Under Armour Taps Fashion Designer To Push Brand Beyond Sports

During its two decades in existence, Under Armour Inc. has cemented its reputation as a brand all about sports and sweat. Now it wants to add fashion.

The company on Thursday named designer Tim Coppens as executive creative director for a collection dubbed UAS — for Under Armour Sportswear — that will make its debut this fall, according to Ben Pruess, the company’s senior vice president of sportswear. The line will have a preppy look and include men’s and women’s apparel, footwear and accessories. Coppens has his own sporty-chic brand sold in high-end retailers. Items include $395 plaid jogging pants.

Kevin Plank, Under Armour’s founder and chief executive officer, has maintained the company’s rapid annual growth rates of about 25 percent by expanding distribution and entering new categories such as basketball and running shoes. A fashion line may help on both fronts because it could get the brand into non-sports retailers while also giving it a share of the robust sportswear market.

— Wire reports