Obama reverses course: No civilian trial for 9/11 plotters

In an about face on the day President Barack Obama announced his re-election bid, Attorney General Eric Holder on Monday ordered military trials at Guantanamo for confessed 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheik Mohammed and other alleged co-plotters now held there for the mass murder of thousands on Sept. 11, 2001. | 04/04/11 12:37:13 By - Carol Rosenberg

Duke lacrosse accuser Crystal Mangum arrested in stabbing

Crystal Mangum, the woman who was at the center of the Duke University lacrosse scandal, was charged with stabbing a man early Sunday at a South Durham apartment. | 04/04/11 07:25:19 By - Thomasi McDonald

Execution of woman's killer still being challenged

The road to justice has been long and unpredictable for the loved ones of two murdered Fort Worth women. | 04/03/11 13:53:45 By - Melody McDonald

Man who raped 92-year-old woman argues sentence too long

Simon Angilda raped a 92-year-old woman but sending him to prison for more than 85 years would be cruel and unusual punishment, his attorney argued this morning. She | 04/01/11 12:28:16 By - Matt Campbell

Third abortion bill passes Kansas House

The House passed a third anti-abortion bill on Wednesday calling for strict regulations of clinics and doctors' offices where abortions are provided. | 03/31/11 14:39:06 By - Dion Lefler

To keep guns out of Mexico, Texas lawmakers propose checkpoint

Some Texas lawmakers, tired of cash and guns illegally making their way into Mexico and fueling violence in the northern part of the country, say they think they know how to help. They are proposing southbound checkpoints where Texas law enforcers can stop vehicles about to cross the border and look for guns, cash and drugs. | 03/31/11 07:30:29 By - Anna M. Tinsley

Ex-FBI agent says he 'kidnapped,' deported Bahamian fugitives

In secretly recorded conversations, a former FBI agent said he routinely arrested Bahamian criminal defendants in South Florida and unlawfully sent them back to their homeland on commercial airline flights without any formal review of their cases in U.S. courts. | 03/31/11 07:02:32 By - Jay Weaver

Medical marijuana industry rapidly grows mainstream

The medical marijuana industry is beginning to show its age. After humble California beginnings in 1996, 15 states and the District of Columbia now have legalized marijuana use for ill patients who have a doctor's recommendation. | 03/30/11 19:21:00 By - Tony Pugh

Independent probe of troubled military crime lab sought

A U.S. senator has called for an independent investigation of the military's premier crime lab to ensure that innocent people weren't wrongfully convicted based on work by a discredited analyst. | 03/30/11 18:43:00 By - Marisa Taylor and Michael Doyle

Kansas cracks down on metal dealers after thefts

To cut down on metal theft and the damage it does to utilities and other businesses, the state Senate on Tuesday approved a bill to require scrap dealers to register with their local government and keep detailed records on customers. | 03/30/11 13:13:50 By - Dion Lefler

Accused killer of 2-year-old son commits suicide in Florida jail

Lee Willie DeJesus, the Homestead father accused of fatally beating his toddler son, committed in suicide in a Miami-Dade jail over the weekend, jail officials said Tuesday. | 03/29/11 18:49:21 By - David Ovalle

In El Salvador, gang ties are more than skin deep

When Santos Guzman sought help from a state program for onetime gang members, there was no mistaking his gang affiliation. Guzman wants the 20 or so tattoos on his body to vanish. He gave up the life of a gangbanger long ago but only recently learned that the evidence of his past could be erased. | 03/29/11 16:08:00 By - Tim Johnson

Florida family presses for pawnshop legislation

In the days after he found his wife Kathleen bludgeoned to death in their Terra Ceia home, it was not foremost in Dr. James Briles’ mind to drive to local pawn shops to look for her jewelry and other items that were stolen. After visiting hundreds of pawn shops after the initial shock of the murder, the Briles family discovered an industry, they say, has an antiquated paper system for recording transactions. | 03/29/11 12:17:37 By - Richard Dymond

Washington's McNeil Island prison to close after budget cuts

In the federal prison system, Alcatraz was the bad cop; McNeil Island was the good cop. McNeil – which is closing Friday because of budget cuts – was 700 miles north in ethereally beautiful Puget Sound. With its views of Mount Rainier and eagles soaring overhead, it was the fed’s “prison without walls,” a place where, if a man obeyed the rules and worked hard, he could learn a trade, improve his mind and become a useful member of society. | 03/29/11 12:05:55 By - Rob Carson

Death penalty sought in Miami's Barahonas child abuse case

Jorge and Carmen Barahona pleaded not guilty Monday to charges they murdered and tortured their 10-year-old adopted daughter, as prosecutors announced they would seek the death penalty against the couple. | 03/28/11 14:00:42 By - David Ovalle

California man finds bomb in morning newspaper

A Vacaville, California, man was hospitalized this morning after he walked to his driveway and picked up a newspaper containing a hidden bomb, which exploded, a police spokesman said today. | 03/28/11 12:39:36 By - Loretta Kalb and Laurel Rosenhall

Notorious California landlady and murderer, Dorothea Puente, dies

Dorothea Puente, the notorious F Street landlady convicted of killing her tenants and burying them in her backyard, died Sunday. Puente, 82, died at 10:15 a.m. Sunday of natural causes at the Central California Women's Facility in Chowchilla, state corrections officials said. | 03/28/11 12:33:12 By - Sam Stanton

Mississippi Gov. Barbour had hand in early release of convicted killer

The Sun Herald has learned that Gov. Haley Barbour helped in the early release of convicted killer Joseph Goff, whose release today after serving eight years of a 20-year sentence has drawn outrage from law enforcement and the community. | 03/25/11 12:45:42 By - Geoff Pender and Margaret Baker

Kentucky elder abuse report finds issues in 18% of cases investigated

In fiscal year 2010, state adult protection workers determined that abuse and neglect probably occurred in about 18 percent of investigations involving residents of Kentucky's long-term care facilities, according to a report released Thursday. | 03/25/11 07:14:04 By -

Signs calling Obama a racial epithet found at University of Kentucky

University of Kentucky officials are investigating two incidents in which someone hung signs that called President Barack Obama a racial epithet. | 03/25/11 07:06:00 By - Linda B. Blackford

Federal appeals court orders new trial for ex-Alaska lawmaker Kott

A federal appeals court Thursday ordered a new trial for former Alaska state House Speaker Pete Kott, ruling that his 2007 conviction on corruption charges was tainted by the failure of federal prosecutors to turn over information he could have used to defend himself. | 03/25/11 06:35:04 By - Richard Mauer

Meeting in Washington on 'war on cops'

A group of concerned police chiefs, including Charlotte-Mecklenburg's Rodney Monroe, met Wednesday in Washington to discuss the rising number of injuries and deaths among law enforcement officers. | 03/24/11 12:20:27 By -

Stryker soldier Morlock gets 24-year sentence for Afghan killings

Spc. Jeremy Morlock said Wednesday he lost his “moral compass” when he joined schemes to murder three Afghan civilians last year during a deployment with a Joint Base Lewis-McChord Stryker brigade. | 03/24/11 07:04:47 By - Adam Ashton

FBI's anthrax suspect is likely killer, panel concludes

The late Army microbiologist Bruce Ivins engaged in a decades-long pattern of "concealment and deceit," pretending to be a comical juggler who played the organ in church on Sundays, while his dark side drove him to mail anthrax-laced letters that killed five people, according to an analysis of his psychiatric records. | 03/23/11 19:49:00 By - Greg Gordon

Justices weigh Miranda warnings for juvenile suspects

The U.S. Supreme Court heard arguments Wednesday on whether police officers ought to consider a young suspect's age before deciding to tell him or her about the right to remain silent and to have an attorney. | 03/23/11 15:26:00 By - Barbara Barrett

Panel supports FBI's findings in anthrax letters case

An expert panel’s posthumous review of Army microbiologist Bruce Ivins’ psychiatric records lent new support Wednesday to the FBI’s controversial finding that Ivins mailed the anthrax-laced letters in 2001 that killed five people, sickened 17 others and paralyzed Congress. | 03/23/11 15:01:43 By - Greg Gordon

Theft of copper, other recyclables rising

Stolen metals being sold at scrap yards - particularly copper - is a continuing problem not just in Horry County, but statewide in South Carolina. It has gotten so bad, law enforcement officers are asking legislators for help. | 03/23/11 13:43:32 By - Brad Dickenson

At Posada's trial, writer and defense lawyer spar

Sparring intensified Tuesday between Luis Posada Carriles’s lead defense attorney and former New York Times writer Ann Louise Bardach over whether she asked the Cuban exile militant for permission to tape him for an interview 13 years ago and whether she later erased a brief portion of one interview tape. | 03/23/11 13:06:26 By - Alfonso Chardy

Supreme Court to decide when a juvenile is in custody

On Wednesday, the Supreme Court will take up a case, J.D.B. vs. North Carolina, that could have sweeping implications for young suspects who are questioned by law enforcement. The question before the court is whether an interrogator should consider a suspect's age before deciding whether to read the Miranda warning. | 03/22/11 17:12:00 By - Barbara Barrett

FBI now helping problem in cross burning in San Luis Obispo

The mother of a black Arroyo Grande, Calif., teen said she’s heartened by the outpouring of support in the few days since a cross was shoved into the ground and set on fire outside her daughter’s bedroom window. But the cross-burning incident — which police are investigating as an arson and hate crime — will leave a scar. | 03/22/11 12:58:15 By - Cynthia Lambert

South Carolina man convicted of sex with horse released

A Longs man convicted of having sexual intercourse with a Conway woman’s horse has been released from prison after serving 16 months in a South Carolina state prison, according to records. | 03/21/11 16:44:16 By - Tonya Root

Army slow to act as crime-lab worker falsified, botched tests

A McClatchy investigation reveals that mistakes by an analyst at the U.S. Army Criminal Investigation Laboratory, near Atlanta, undermined hundreds of criminal cases brought against military personnel. Officials appeared intent on containing the scandal that threatened to discredit the military's most important forensics facility, which handles more than 3,000 criminal cases a year. | 03/20/11 00:01:00 By - Marisa Taylor and Michael Doyle

Discredited Army analyst built his career around crime lab

The career of military lab analyst Phillip Mills started unraveling the day a colleague made a discovery that would rattle military justice. | 03/20/11 00:01:00 By - Michael Doyle and Marisa Taylor

Crime-lab worker's errors cast doubt on military verdicts

Life-and-death questions shadow misconduct at the U.S. Army Criminal Investigation Laboratory, where investigators discovered that a lab analyst cut corners and falsified reports: Were the innocent convicted, and did the guilty go free? | 03/20/11 00:01:00 By - Michael Doyle and Marisa Taylor

Belleville heroin epidemic hits hard for one young man

Christopher Diep, 21, lost three friends to heroin use in the past couple of years. When those close friends died, and countless others lost touch when he pressured them to quit, Diep said the "heroin epidemic" hit home. | 03/18/11 11:57:49 By - Kevin Bersett and Jacquline Lee

New charges filed in alleged Alaska murder plot against federal judge

Fairbanks-area militia members face new charges they plotted to kill a federal judge, a member of the judge's family and an IRS employee, and, as part of a larger group, gathered illegal weapons to carry out the attacks, according to a U.S. attorney. | 03/18/11 11:35:56 By - Casey Grove

Nancy Garrido unlikely to get plea deal in Dugard kidnapping case

Nineteen months after kidnap victim Jaycee Lee Dugard was found alive, here is the bottom line on where the case stands: The matter could be resolved without a trial, possibly as soon as April 7. Phillip Garrido is never getting out of prison. And Nancy Garrido is likely never getting out of prison, either. | 03/18/11 06:59:09 By - Sam Stanton

New Orleans Police Department slammed by Justice Department

The New Orleans Police Department has engaged in a wide-ranging pattern of misconduct including the excessive use of force and unconstitutional arrests, the Department of Justice announced on Thursday. | 03/17/11 18:42:56 By - Michael Muskal

Minkow, of ZZZ Best fame, agrees to pleads guilty in insider trading of Lennar

Barry Minkow, the one-time Ponzi schemer who had claimed to be reformed and was helping the FBI nab white collar criminals, has agreed to plead guilty to insider trading of shares of the Miami-based homebuilder Lennar, according to Minkow’s lawyer. | 03/17/11 12:40:31 By - Toluse Olorunnipa

Woman accused of Bosnian war crimes appears in Kentucky court

A woman who was arrested in Kentucky this week and accused of war crimes during the Bosnian civil war made her first appearance in federal court in Lexington on Thursday. According to court documents, Azra Bašic is accused of torturing and murdering ethnic Serbs at prison camps from April to June 1992. | 03/17/11 12:40:12 By - Jennifer Hewlett

Kansas man convicted of molesting teen girls wrote how-to book

A Kansas City man judged guilty Wednesday of sex crimes against children kept meticulous records of his assaults and wrote handbooks on how to drug and molest girls. | 03/17/11 12:20:48 By - Mark Morris

Evidence thin in '87 torture case involving Texas man

In 1987, Martha Martinez Maxwell was bound with duct tape, sexually tortured, her throat cut from ear to ear and she was left to die near Ardmore, Okla., by her husband, Jeffrey Maxwell, who today is accused in the abduction and horrific torture of a Parker County woman, authorities say. | 03/17/11 12:08:17 By - Domingo Ramirez Jr

CalPERS to cut ties with Medco Health Solutions

CalPERS today moved to cut ties with Medco Health Solutions Inc., the pharmaceutical-benefits company that has been swept up in the pension fund's bribery scandal. | 03/16/11 16:12:36 By - Dale Kasler

Texas woman held captive two weeks

A Parker County woman who was reported missing after her home burned to the ground this month was found alive in Corsicana on Saturday after being bound and repeatedly assaulted for almost two weeks, a Parker County official said Sunday. | 03/14/11 14:01:49 By - Domingo Ramirez Jr

OxyContin abuse spreads from Appalachia across U.S.

Ten years ago, Kentucky learned it had a major drug problem. OxyContin, a powerful prescription painkiller, was being abused at alarming rates in the Appalachian areas of eastern and southern Kentucky. A decade later, the level of pain pill abuse throughout the state and across the country is at epic levels, officials say. | 03/13/11 00:01:00 By - Bill Estep, Dori Hjalmarson and Halimah Abdullah

Alaska man plotted to kill federal judge and family

A Fairbanks man faces federal charges that he conspired to murder a U.S. District Court judge and the judge's family, according to federal prosecutors. | 03/11/11 18:58:02 By -

Judge decries deception, fraud in North Carolina case

Durham, North Carolina prosecutors and the State Bureau of Investigation violated the U.S. and state constitutions and state law by withholding key evidence from Derrick Allen in the 1998 sexual assault and death of his girlfriend's 2-year-old daughter, a judge ruled Thursday | 03/11/11 13:13:02 By - J. Andrew Curliss and Joseph Neff

Posada linked to explosives during perjury trial

A Cuban American businessman testified Thursday in the Luis Posada Carriles perjury trial that in 1997 he overheard conversations in his Guatemala City office involving the Cuban exile militant and two other men about ways to smuggle explosive materials into Cuba. | 03/11/11 07:05:41 By - Alfonso Chardy

Holder denies political influence in dropping Alaska sex case

Political connections had nothing to do with the Justice Department's decision to drop a teen sexual-exploitation prosecution of former Veco Corp. Chairman Bill Allen, Attorney General Eric Holder told Congress on Thursday. | 03/10/11 17:29:00 By - Erika Bolstad

Copper stripped from long-closed business in Columbus, Ga.

The copper that thieves stripped from the old F and H Ice Cream building may have netted them about $300 but did enough damage to have destroyed the business if it was still in operation. | 03/09/11 15:18:43 By - Alan Riquelmy

Illinois governor abolishes death penalty

Illinois became the 16th state in the country to abolish the death penalty on Wednesday and Gov. Pat Quinn commuted the sentence of the 15 residents of the state's death row. | 03/09/11 14:44:00 By -

Autopsy of Zahra Baker's remains fails to reveal cause of death

An autopsy didn't show the N.C. medical examiner's office exactly how 10-year-old Zahra Baker died. But evidence from the whole investigation convinced doctors that the child was killed and her death should be called a homicide, said N.C. chief medical examiner Deborah Radisch. | 03/09/11 07:18:42 By - Lisa Hammersly

Alleged USS Cole bomber likely to be charged by tribunal

The first captive at the U.S. Naval Base on Guantanamo Bay to be charged in a military tribunal during the Obama presidency is expected to be one of the prison's most notorious inmates — Abd al-Rahim Al-Nashiri, the alleged mastermind of the 2000 USS Cole bombing that killed 17 sailors. | 03/08/11 20:49:34 By - Richard A. Serrano and David G. Savage

Iraq war veteran plays Russian roulette, dies of gunshot

The soldier killed early Sunday playing what Anchorage police say was a game of Russian roulette was a sergeant who served two tours of duty in Iraq, the Army said Tuesday. Sgt. Michael M. McCloskey, 26, shot himself in the abdomen early Sunday and was pronounced dead at the hospital. | 03/08/11 20:45:21 By - Lisa Demer

S.C. inmate rolled joint with Bible pages, police say

A man jailed on drug charges apparently used a page from a Bible inside his cell to make a marijuana cigarette, police say. | 03/08/11 12:19:22 By - Kimberly Dick

Posada loses evidence fight during trial

Luis Posada Carriles lost a key battle in court Monday when the federal judge presiding over the case admitted into evidence a Guatemalan passport bearing the Cuban exile militant’s photograph. | 03/08/11 06:58:26 By - Alfonso Chardy

Copper theft in Columbus, Georgia wreaks havoc

To curtail the copper capers and visits from the midnight plumbers, Jim Evans has taken his most vulnerable air conditioners into protective custody. Thieves have gutted compressors and stolen pipes so persistently from the homes Evans manages with Fountain City Realty in Columbus that he has changed the way he does business. | 03/07/11 13:45:24 By - Jim Mustian

Olathe, Kansas, police start sending message about crime

Olathe, Kansas, police are starting a web-based communication system that allows them to send messages to citizens. Many other police departments, governments and agencies nationwide have adopted the new Nixle system in the last two years, but few use it in the metropolitan area, Olathe police say. | 03/07/11 13:14:29 By - Joe Lambe

Two Sikh men in Sacramento gunned down, possible hate crime

Police said Saturday that they don't know why someone gunned down two men – frail from heart attacks and advancing years – as they slowly ambled through a quiet Elk Grove neighborhood during their daily afternoon walk. | 03/06/11 17:28:06 By - Robert Lewis

Many lost to drugs from pill mills in Florida

Three women, all healthcare professionals, each bringing her own tragic perspective to South Florida’s pill-mill crisis, banded together last year to form an advocacy group to force the closing of rogue pain clinics and ban the highly addictive painkiller oxycodone. Most of all, they want an end to the overdoses and funerals. | 03/06/11 16:50:05 By - Audra D.S. Burch

Clothing tycoon wired money to Cuban militant Posada at time of bombing

An accountant for a New Jersey businessman wired thousands of dollars to Ramon Medina, an alias used by Luis Posada Carriles, during the time bombs exploded at Cuban tourist sites in 1997, the bookkeeper told jurors in the Cuban exile militant’s perjury trial. | 03/04/11 10:40:38 By - Alfonso Chardy

Former Florida mayor sentenced for online drug sales

A well-known Miami-Dade lawyer who pleaded guilty to selling tens of millions in pharmaceutical drugs without prescriptions on an Internet site serving buyers across the country was sentenced to 40 months by a federal judge in California on Thursday. | 03/04/11 10:35:59 By - Michael Sallah and Rob Barry

Scott Peterson's ex-girlfriend sued over 'sex addict' book

A California author and artist alleges that Amber Frey, who gained notoriety as the former girlfriend of convicted murderer Scott Peterson, violated a contract between them to write and market a book and a screenplay. | 03/03/11 21:48:37 By - John Ellis

Deaths, disappearances drive war crimes probe of Gadhafi

The International Criminal Court in The Hague opened a war crimes investigation into Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi and his sons Thursday amid growing reports of widespread human rights violations in a conflict that now seems likely to last for weeks. | 03/03/11 19:26:00 By - Hannah Allam and Jonathan S. Landay

Fort Worth shooting raises tension between police, blacks

As emotions swelled in the aftermath of the fatal shooting of a handicapped black father by a white police officer, Police Chief Jeff Halstead met with church leaders Wednesday to talk about the treatment of blacks by Fort Worth police. | 03/03/11 17:30:05 By - Deanna Boyd and Mitch Mitchell

John Edwards' tipster, Pigeon O'Brien, comes out on Huffington post

As John Edwards' legal saga builds to an apparent climax at a Raleigh courthouse, the woman who tipped the National Enquirer to his affair has spilled the details in a story for the Huffington Post. | 03/03/11 11:44:17 By - Jim Morrill

Ethics hearing for ex-Kansas AG Kline to resume in July

After more than a week of grueling testimony, Phill Kline’s ethics hearing came to an end Wednesday afternoon. Kline is facing charges that he misled and defied judges and mishandled evidence during his investigation of Planned Parenthood and George Tiller’s abortion clinic in Wichita. | 03/03/11 07:07:01 By - Brad Cooper

Skinhead leader Lynch may have been killed at California home

A decade ago, the influence of white supremacist gangs in the Sacramento region was so prevalent that skinheads with swastika tattoos could walk into area restaurants without drawing a second glance. Now, the mysterious slaying inside a California home serves as a reminder that the groups are still present. The victim is believed to be 40-year-old David Lynch, one of the nation's best known hate-group leaders and a skilled organizer. | 03/03/11 06:42:20 By - Sam Stanton

In Tacoma's Craigslist trial, wife and son testify about killing

Jim Sanders seemed excited the evening of April 28, 2010. He and his wife, Charlene, were preparing to go on vacation in a few days, and someone was interested in buying a diamond ring the couple had been trying to sell. It soon turned into the worst night of their lives. | 03/02/11 12:40:48 By - Adam Lynn

Chilling tales coming out of Miami in Barahona child abuse case

Chilling flashbacks from the short, tormented life of Nubia Barahona were recounted Tuesday by a child-welfare lawyer who periodically broke into sobs. Christine Lopez-Acevedo, a former attorney for the Guardian ad-litem Program, recited mostly by memory from official child welfare records: Nubia telling a teacher she was going to be beaten with footwear; Nubia locking herself in a bathroom and crying hysterically at the thought of her mother being called to the school; Nubia promising to behave better if a principal promised never again to call her mother. | 03/02/11 12:11:10 By - Diana Moskovitz and Carol Marbin Miller

Posada trial is delayed again

Once again, the Luis Posada Carriles perjury trial was halted Tuesday after the judge learned that a juror had fallen ill. While the general expectation was that the trial would resume Wednesday morning, an aide to U.S. District Judge Kathleen Cardone said he wasn’t sure if that would be the case. | 03/02/11 06:54:27 By - Alfonso Chardy

Another top Pakistan politician slain over blasphemy law

only Christian in Pakistan's cabinet was assassinated Wednesday by militants linked to al Qaida after he called for the country's controversial laws on blasphemy to be amended. | 03/02/11 05:49:43 By - Saeed Shah

DEA imposes ban on 'spice', 'fake pot'

Five chemicals and the "fake pot" products they are used in are now illegal. The U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration used its emergency authority to make owning and selling the chemicals or any products that contain them illegal, effective March 1, according to a DEA news release. | 03/01/11 19:27:24 By - Chance Welch

Officer kills driver of SUV that was dragging him

A Fort Worth police officer, hanging onto a door of the SUV that was dragging him, shot and killed the driver of the vehicle Monday night in southeast Fort Worth. Three children, ages 7, 8 and 11, were in the back seat of the car when the shooting occurred, but they weren't injured. | 03/01/11 17:12:30 By - Marty Sabota

Midwifery a crime? In North Carolina, it is

Supporters of home births and midwives plan a rally in Raleigh Wednesday to protest the arrest of a longtime North Carolina midwife and to push for a law that would allow midwives like her to deliver babies at home. | 03/01/11 16:35:48 By - Karen Garloch

Man sentenced in Chandra Levy killing appeals his conviction

The man sentenced to 60 years in prison for killing one-time intern Chandra Levy is now appealing his conviction with the help of a Harvard Law School graduate. | 03/01/11 15:32:51 By - Michael Doyle

Tacoma middle school students expelled for 'fight club'

Nine sixth-grade boys were expelled from Stewart Middle School Monday after officials at the Tacoma School learned about their suspected participation in a so-called “fight club.” | 03/01/11 14:06:41 By - Debbie Cafazzo

Attorney: Garridos confess to kidnapping Jaycee Lee Dugard

Sometime in the last month, Jaycee Lee Dugard sat across a table from Nancy Garrido and listened as she tearfully confessed to kidnapping Dugard off the street 20 years ago when she was an 11-year-old girl on her way to school. | 03/01/11 06:57:45 By - Sam Stanton

Prisoners at Guantanamo's Camp 5 aren't like the others

These are the war criminals of Guantánamo Bay. They are four convicts — captured as a cook, a kid, a small-arms trainer and a videographer — kept out of sight of visitors in a segregated cellblock of a SuperMax-style 100-cell $17 million penitentiary. | 02/28/11 22:28:47 By - Carol Rosenberg

California judge won't release documents in Dugard kidnapping case

The judge in the Jaycee Lee Dugard kidnap case today rejected efforts by the media to have court documents unsealed, including a grand jury transcript, in which Dugard described her 18 years of captivity. | 02/28/11 13:56:31 By - Sam Stanton

Florida top in child neglect cases

Statistically, Nubia Barahona’s story is rather common: She is one of hundreds of Florida children who died of abuse or neglect during the last decade after child welfare authorities had performed at least one investigation into their welfare. Florida not only leads the United States in the number of such deaths, it dominates the nation. | 02/28/11 13:40:52 By - Carol Marbin Miller

Economic sign: Horse neglect reaches alarming level across Georgia

In her heyday of horse breeding, Linda D. Crowley counted among her equine companions a legendary stud named Pride’s Generator, the sorrel once considered the envy of the Tennessee Walking Horse industry. Today, Crowley owns about 100 horses and a farm just east of Waverly Hall that has quietly drawn a much different kind of attention. Neighbors and local animal rights advocates have increasingly voiced concern that some of the horses roaming the sprawling pastures aren’t getting enough to eat. | 02/28/11 13:31:55 By - Jim Mustian

Bible-preaching teen once again allowed in Columbus, Ga. libraries

Today marks the end of a six-month probation for a local teen banned last summer from all branches of the Chattahoochee Valley Libraries. Caleb Hanson, 16, had ignored repeated verbal warnings at the North Columbus Branch to stop asking patrons about their faith and offering religious advice. His parents, Elizabeth and Tim Hanson, were mailed a letter dated Aug. 28 that he’d been banned and that his library card was blocked for six months. | 02/28/11 13:28:30 By - Allison Kennedy

Missouri leads in meth lab seizures

The Missouri Highway Patrol reported that methamphetamine laboratory seizures jumped 10 percent last year. The highway patrol said there were 1,960 seizures in Missouri in 2010, up from 1,774 in 2009. | 02/28/11 13:06:28 By - Robert A. Cronkleton

Slocom, Texas, remembers the massacre of blacks in 1910

In terms of loss of life and property, Slocum rivals a 1921 atrocity in Tulsa and another two years later in Rosewood, Fla., among the worst racial pogroms in the nation's history. But in Slocum, now consisting of a school and smattering of houses 150 miles southeast of Fort Worth, no public monument commemorates what happened. It is not taught in history classes. The massacre survives instead in stories told quietly across generations, by whites and blacks alike. | 02/28/11 12:11:50 By - Tim Madigan

Pot-laced brownies make California school kids ill

School bake sales are taking on new meaning. In recent weeks, students in Sacramento, California, and across the country have become ill from eating marijuana-laced brownies they got at school. | 02/28/11 06:52:09 By - Diana Lambert

Activist pursuing Sarah Palin's official e-mails granted protective order

Anchorage citizen activist Andree McLeod has obtained a six-month protective order against a woman who threatened her life over her public records requests for former Gov. Sarah Palin's official e-mails. | 02/28/11 06:33:33 By - Richard Mauer

Obama defends Ashcroft in Supreme Court terror case

A Kansas native and former University of Idaho student faces a tough road Wednesday when he seeks Supreme Court approval to sue former Attorney General John Ashcroft over war-on-terror tactics. | 02/25/11 15:56:00 By - Michael Doyle

Twin teens found guilty in Florida movie theater brawl

Fifteen-year-old twin brothers Thursday were found guilty of assault charges related to a Christmas night melee at a Bradenton movie theater. | 02/25/11 12:24:03 By - Richard Dymond

Lubbock terror suspect's online postings paint complex portrait

On his blog, Khalid Ali-M Aldawsari chronicled his purchase of a car in the United States, his admiration for American volunteerism and his hope for death aglow in martyrdom, a federal complaint says. Aldawsari, 20, a native of Saudi Arabia, has been living in Lubbock as a college student. He learned English, passed a pre-calculus exam, studied for a chemistry placement test and, the government says, studied how to make explosives. | 02/25/11 07:34:06 By - Domingo Ramirez Jr.

North Carolina company connected to Texas terrorism case

An N.C. chemical supplier is at the center of what authorities are calling a thwarted terrorism attempt. FBI agents believe that the suspect, Khalid Aldawsari tried to buy the toxic chemical phenol from Carolina Biological Supply, in suburban Burlington. | 02/24/11 17:46:34 By - Cleve R. Wootson Jr.

New developments in 1976 California's Chowchilla school bus kidnapping

A news conference Wednesday in San Francisco touched nerves in the Valley still raw 35 years after the Chowchilla school bus kidnapping. Judges, prosecutors and investigators who sent three men to prison for the crime rallied Wednesday in support of their push for parole. | 02/24/11 13:14:31 By - Eddie Jimenez and Lewis Griswold

Stryker soldier discharged, sentenced for assault on comrade

A Stryker soldier from Montesano was discharged from the Army and sentenced to 60 days of hard labor Wednesday after he was convicted of assaulting a comrade who blew the whistle on drug use in their platoon during a deployment to Afghanistan last year. | 02/24/11 12:04:48 By - Adam Ashton

Saudi student arrested in Texas on terrorism charges against Bush, others

A Lubbock man who is a native of Saudi Arabia was arrested late Wednesday by FBI agents on a federal charge of attempted use of a weapon of mass destruction in connection with his alleged purchase of chemicals and equipment necessary to make an improvised explosive device and his research of potential U.S. targets. | 02/24/11 11:50:48 By - Domingo Ramirez, Jr

Texas budget solution? Steal from car theft prevention fund

A program credited with cutting car thefts in half across Texas may be on the chopping block. In a proposal under consideration by state legislators, Texans would still pay the $1 a year to fund the program, but it would be suspended and $18 million a year generated by the fee would go toward the state's budget crisis. | 02/23/11 22:17:17 By - Gordon Dickson

Supreme Court upholds California's loose rules for inmate appeals

The Supreme Court on Wednesday upheld California's relatively flexible approach to handling inmates' appeals. | 02/23/11 15:00:00 By - Michael Doyle

Mother of starved boy with Down syndrome to face trial

The little boy who was found in a De Soto attic last summer, starving and covered with filth, looks pudgy and happy now. But when he heard his great-grandmother call his name in an empty house and scratched the ceiling in reply on Aug. 17, his little body could stay alive for no more than a day. | 02/23/11 13:43:56 By - Joe Lambe

Texas man charged with federal hate crime for mosque fire

A Texas man accused of setting fire to playground equipment and painting graffiti at an Arlington mosque in July was charged Tuesday with a federal hate crime. Henry Glaspell of Arlington set fire to playground equipment at the Dar El-Eman Islamic Center because of the "race, color and ethnic characteristics of the individuals associated with the property," according to the charge. | 02/23/11 07:41:44 By - Mitch Mitchell

Zahra Baker case might be complicated by lack of specific cause of death

Catawba County prosecutors may face a daunting task in trying to prove that Elisa Baker killed her stepdaughter without clear evidence to show how the 10-year-old girl died. In an autopsy revealed Monday, the N.C. Medical Examiner's Office concluded that Zahra died as a result of "undetermined homicidal violence." | 02/23/11 07:27:21 By - Gary L. Wright and Franco Ordoñez

‘Everyone is an enemy' deceased Stryker soldier posts on Facebook

Spc. Dustin Knapp’s temper flared while he drank beer and argued with his uncle six weeks after coming home from a tour in Afghanistan with a Joint Base Lewis-McChord Stryker brigade. The 5-foot-2 soldier put his relative in a choke hold, refusing to let go until his older brother broke up the fight. Knapp stormed out of his uncle’s home and walked barefoot along a two-lane Wisconsin highway. He died moments later when a car plowed into him. | 02/22/11 14:14:02 By - Adam Ashton

California drivers get hit by higher traffic fines

Justin Jachens learned of California's soaring traffic penalties when he got slapped for a red-light violation. | 02/22/11 12:52:41 By - Jim Sanders

Supreme Court refuses Kentucky Ten Commandments case

The U.S. Supreme Court has refused to hear more arguments in a case in which courts struck down displays of the Ten Commandments in the Pulaski and McCreary County courthouses, the American Civil Liberties Union of Kentucky announced Tuesday. | 02/22/11 11:52:27 By - Bill Estep

Ex-Kansas AG Kline defends abortion investigations at ethics trial

Phill Kline on Monday defiantly insisted that his tactics were sound and his cause just during his efforts to bring charges against Planned Parenthood and Wichita abortion provider George Tiller. Kline is facing allegations that he misled and defied judges, mishandled evidence and said too much to Bill O’Reilly throughout his long investigation of Kansas abortion clinics. | 02/22/11 07:18:14 By - David Klepper

Acquitted Liberty City Seven defendant can't return to U.S.

Lyglenson Lemorin, acquitted in a major terrorism trial of conspiring with other Miami men to support al Qaida, may never be able to return to the country where he grew up — the United States. Lemorin, 35, a lawful U.S. resident with no criminal record, has lost a crucial legal appeal to reverse his deportation to Haiti a month ago. | 02/22/11 07:00:16 By - Jay Weaver

Zahra Baker's stepmother charged with second-degree murder

Elisa Baker, the prime suspect in the death of her stepdaughter Zahra Baker, was charged Monday with murder as an autopsy concluded that the 10-year-old Hickory girl died from "undetermined homicidal violence."

The autopsy, released Monday afternoon by the N.C. Medical Examiner, rules out the possibility that Zahra died a natural death, as Elisa Baker has claimed. It notes that many of the girl's bones were not present for the examination. | 02/21/11 13:29:11 By - Gary L. Wright And Cleve R. Wootson Jr.

Zahra Baker's father denies wrongdoing in her death

Zahra Baker's father denied in a televised interview Sunday night that he was involved with his daughter's death. Adam Baker disputed his wife Elisa Baker's claim that he dismembered his daughter's body, saying "That's the biggest lie she's ever told," according to the Sydney Morning Herald. | 02/21/11 07:27:55 By - Cleve R. Wootson Jr.

Ex-Kansas AG Kline faces ethics hearing over anti-abortion efforts

Phill Kline, a Republican and former attorney general, returns to Kansas today to answer allegations that he misled judges and mishandled evidence in his dogged pursuit of abortion clinics. | 02/21/11 07:20:33 By - David Klepper

Pot bust in Rainier, Washington

Thurston County narcotics detectives arrested six people at a Rainier residence Wednesday afternoon after they found about 380 growing marijuana plants worth an estimated $760,000 in four rooms there, court papers state. | 02/18/11 13:19:53 By - Jeremy Pawloski

White House drug czar pushes Ga. prescription database

A bill that would create a state electronic database to track prescriptions is drawing kudos from the White House drug czar. | 02/18/11 12:18:22 By - Maggie Lee

Auburn Univ. oaks poisoned, man arrested

In front of Samford Hall, just down the block from the dying Toomer’s Corner oaks, Auburn, Ala., police chief Tommy Dawson gave a candid opinion about Harvey Almorn Updyke Jr., the 62-year-old man accused of poisoning the university’s iconic trees. | 02/18/11 12:14:10 By - Andy Bitter

Million dollar pot bust in Charlotte neighborhood

Federal authorities say two houses in quiet Charlotte neighborhoods were the center for a multi-million-dollar drug ring with international connections. | 02/18/11 11:46:19 By - Steve Lyttle

Gulfport, Miss., celebrates rebuilding police, courthouse after Katrina

Public officials and hundreds of residents celebrated the city’s most notable Katrina-reconstruction project to date Thursday -- completion of the $22 million Robert J. Curry Public Safety Center in downtown Gulfport. | 02/18/11 11:37:42 By - Anita Lee

Hackers group Anonymous link California company to alleged Chamber plot

An obscure cybersecurity firm from Sacramento, Calif., has been swept up in a bizarre scandal involving an affiliated company and an alleged plot to discredit liberal critics of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. | 02/18/11 07:01:43 By - Dale Kasler

Federal agents arrest more than 30 Medicare-fraud suspects in Miami

Federal agents Thursday morning arrested more than 30 suspects charged with Medicare fraud as part of a nationwide take-down described by authorities as the largest in U.S. history. | 02/17/11 13:37:02 By - Jay Weaver

Rapper Waka Flocka Flame questioned in Charlotte drive-by shooting

Rapper Waka Flocka Flame and three other men were being questioned at police headquarters late Wednesday after a shoot-out at an east Charlotte car stereo store. | 02/17/11 12:32:42 By - Cleve R. Wootson Jr. & Meghan Cooke

Posada trial prosecutors reject mistrial grounds

Federal prosecutors have accused the lead attorney for Luis Posada Carriles of trying to mislead the court by claiming the U.S. government delayed delivery of documents that could exonerate the Cuban exile militant of responsibility in a string of Cuban tourist site bombings in 1997. | 02/17/11 06:59:23 By - Alfonso Chardy

Was U.S. agent's killing in Mexico random or targeted?

The roadside killing of a U.S. agent and the wounding of a second left investigators weighing Wednesday whether the shooting was random or a targeted hit by criminal gangs involved in the surge of drug-related violence in Mexico. | 02/16/11 17:43:00 By - Tim Johnson

10 year old girl found dead in truck bed in Palm Beach, Florida

Eight hours after 10-year-old Victor Doctor stumbled out of his adoptive father’s pickup truck overcome by toxic fumes, Florida child welfare investigators dispatched to the boy’s West Miami-Dade home on Monday were confronted with a startling question: Where was Victor’s twin sister? | 02/16/11 13:03:38 By - Carol Marbin Miller

Gunmen in Mexico kill U.S. immigration agent

Gunmen fired on a vehicle carrying two U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents Tuesday afternoon as they drove north of Mexico City, killing one and seriously wounding the other. A Mexican television network said the shooting occurred near San Luis Potosi, which has seen an uptick in drug-related violence in recent months. | 02/15/11 21:21:00 By - Tim Johnson

Rise in copper prices lead to more thefts in Washington state

Thieves looking to cash in on the rising value of cooper are targeting irrigation circles, metal scrap piles and farm implements in rural Grant County, Washington, sheriff’s officials said. | 02/15/11 16:23:53 By - Paula Horton

Third plea deal for Guantanamo prisoner

A Sudanese man accused of training a generation of terrorists ahead of the 9/11 attacks pleaded guilty Tuesday to supporting terror and conspiring with al Qaeda — handing the Obama administration its third plea in a row at the reformed war court. | 02/15/11 11:52:46 By - Carol Rosenberg

Fugitive Alaska businessman Weimar's Cancun trip cost his freedom

The U.S. Marshals who tracked fugitive Alaska businessman Bill Weimar to a luxury hotel in Havana last week were prepared to wait him out, since there's no extradition treaty between Cuba and the United States. | 02/15/11 06:45:22 By - Richard Mauer

Mexican Navy captures Alaska sex crime suspect in Cancun

Former Alaska halfway house magnate Bill Weimar had been tracked to Havana, where it would have been difficult to extradite him on charges that he sexually assaulted a 6-year-old girl in Florida. But then his 60-foot luxury cabin cruiser set out for Mexico and was intercepted by the Mexican Navy. Weimar was arrested in Cancun and sent to Texas. | 02/13/11 16:27:32 By - Richard Mauer

Widow charged with killing wealthy husband may be charged in mother-in-law's death, too

Narcy Novack already is charged in the grisly dumbbell beating death of her millionaire husband, whose body was found in 2009 in a Rye Brook, N.Y., hotel room. Now she's likely to face charges in the death of her mother-in-law, who was found sprawled in a pool of blood in her Fort Lauderdale three months earlier. Narcy Novack's husband, Ben, was the scion of the family that built Miami Beach's famed Fontainebleu Hotel. | 02/12/11 17:25:43 By - Julie K. Brown

Body pulled from canal likely kidnapper of 4-year-old boy

The sheriff's department said an employee with the San Luis & Delta-Mendota Water Authority notified Stanislaus County Sheriff's detectives about 8:30 a.m. today that a body was found floating in the canal south of Patterson, Calif. Sheriff's detectives said the body's physical and clothing description matched that of suspected kidnapper Jose Rodriguez. | 02/12/11 17:09:38 By -

Finally, Susan Levy confronts her daughter's killer

Susan Levy stood next to her daughter's killer. She was close enough to spit on him. Instead, for the first and presumably last time, Susan used her gestures, her voice and her eyes to directly confront convicted murderer Ingmar Guandique. During 16 painfully gripping minutes, she told him how he had sundered a family when he killed Chandra Levy. | 02/11/11 15:44:00 By - Michael Doyle

Chandra Levy's killer sentenced to 60 years in prison

The man convicted of killing Chandra Levy was sentenced Friday to 60 years in prison. Punctuating a law-and-order saga that's lasted nearly a decade, D.C. Superior Court Judge Gerald I. Fisher rejected a defense bid for a new trial and imposed the stiff sentence on Salvadoran immigrant Ingmar Guandique. | 02/11/11 12:49:00 By - Michael Doyle

New delay in Posada's trial

The Luis Posada Carriles trial ground to an abrupt halt Thursday when the attorney for the Cuban exile militant made a motion for mistrial accusing a Cuban government witness now on the stand of lying about his background, and the prosecution of delaying delivery of relevant documents to thwart the defense. | 02/11/11 07:00:11 By - Alfonso Chardy

Keeping customer's ZIP code breaks law, California Supreme Court rules

Consumer advocates were celebrating, and retailers were shocked Thursday, when the California Supreme Court declared that state law bars a merchant from asking for a customer's ZIP code and recording it as part of a credit card purchase. | 02/11/11 06:43:18 By - Denny Walsh and Rick Daysog

Calif. man sentenced to 400 years for kidnappings, rapes

Shane Wilson of Pollock Pines has received the maximum sentence of 400 years to life in prison after being convicted of two counts of kidnapping, six counts of rape and 10 other sexual assault-related charges | 02/10/11 18:58:30 By - Cathy Locke

Boise farmer turns out to be fleeing Boston mafia man

The Jay Shaw who moved to Marsing more than a decade ago was a city boy with street smarts, but he lacked the sense common to most people in this outer edge of the American West: how to raise cows, work a pasture and run a farm. | 02/10/11 13:11:03 By - Kathleen Kreller and Patrick Orr

Former Illinois church youth leader sentenced for child porn

A former church children's group volunteer who owned the equivalent of a truckload of child pornography and who secretly filmed boys in his group showering and going to the bathroom was sentenced Tuesday to 32 years in federal prison. | 02/10/11 12:32:10 By - Kevin Bersett

With power of attorney, Anchorage man allegedly stole inheritance

An Anchorage man's out-of-state family is outraged that a man he trusted is charged with stealing huge chunks of his fortune. | 02/10/11 12:20:22 By - Casey Grove

N.C. man pleads guilty to terror plot

As Daniel Patrick Boyd pleaded guilty to terrorism-related charges on Wednesday, uncertainty swept over family and friends of seven other men who are accused of being his co-conspirators. Boyd was accused of being the ringleader of a group of young men seeking to wage war against non-Muslims abroad. Six others, including Boyd's two oldest sons, were arrested in late July 2009. | 02/10/11 06:45:15 By - Anne Blythe and Yonat Shimron

Massive marijuana farm found near Modesto, Calif.

The largest indoor marijuana operation ever discovered in Stanislaus County, Calif., was busted by local, state and federal officers Monday. | 02/09/11 13:14:21 By - Marijke Rowland

Cold-case probe links mob to murder of KC civil rights leader

The police investigation of the killing of Leon Jordan 40 years ago found evidence that now-deceased Kansas City mob boss Nick Civella gave his blessing to the hit, which allegedly was carried out by black assailants connected with Joe Centimano, a low-profile mob associate. Still unclear is why Civella, at the time one of the nation's most prominent organized crime bosses, targeted Jordan. | 02/09/11 06:42:34 By - Mike McGraw and Glenn E. Rice

Florida governor's plan to ax pill database alarms police

Just two years ago, Florida state legislators approved the creation of a prescription drug monitoring program that would allow doctors to review the drug purchases of their patients, to prevent patients from seeking narcotics from multiple doctors -- a practice known as “doctor shopping.” Now the governor wants to erase the database before it even gets off the ground. A proposed bill included in the budget package the governor unveiled on Monday would eliminate the database -- even though it won’t be financed with state money. | 02/09/11 06:12:15 By - Scott Hiaasen

State ignored complaints about Philadelphia abortion clinic

Philadelphia District Attorney Seth Williams charged that key Pennsylvania state agencies ignored years of complaints and allowed the abortion clinic run by a doctor now charged with murder to operate unchecked for almost two decades. He said had the clinic been in a wealthy suburban neighborhood rather than a poor urban one it probably would not have been ignored. | 02/09/11 06:04:27 By - Amy Worden

Court rules cell phone a computer to uphold underage sex sentence

In a first for a federal appeals court, a panel of the 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled Tuesday that if you use the cell phone to help transport a minor across state lines for illegal sex, a judge can sentence you to more prison time. | 02/09/11 05:54:48 By - Mark Morris

WikiLeaks: ACLU challenges subpoena for Twitter records

The unfolding battle between the United States government and WikiLeaks over the publication of hundreds of thousands of once-secret U.S. documents moved into a new phase Tuesday with the unsealing of court motions asking a federal magistrate in Virginia to quash a subpoena ordering the micro-blogging website Twitter to turn over records of three Twitter users with ties to WikiLeaks. | 02/08/11 21:27:36 By - Mark Seibel

Prosecutors seek life without parole for Chandra Levy's killer

Prosecutors are seeking a life sentence without possibility of parole for the man convicted of killing Chandra Levy. In an 18-page sentencing memo, prosecutors this week call convicted killer Ingmar Guandique a "grave danger to the community" who committed myriad other crimes beyond murdering Levy in 2001. | 02/08/11 17:55:00 By - Michael Doyle

WikiLeaks: Assange extradition hearing will last until Friday

Julian Assange's defense team continued to argue Tuesday that Assange was the subject of a witch hunt by overzealous Swedish prosecutors captive to their own agendas or external pressure, especially from the U.S. out of anger over WikiLeaks' revelation of documents from the Pentagon and the U.S. State Department. | 02/08/11 17:28:11 By - Henry Chu and Janet Stobart

Pharmacies targeted by thieves looking for prescription meds

When a gunman robbed a Winn-Dixie store pharmacy at 7400 Cortez Road of oxycodone pills Monday morning, the crime was one more addition to a disturbing national statistic and trend | 02/08/11 13:26:59 By - Richard Dymond

California man dies in cockfight, and a bird is the killer

According to the Kern County Coroner's Office, Jose Luis Ochoa, 35, died Jan. 30 from injuries he received from a fighting rooster. A spokesman for the coroner said an artery in Ochoa's leg was severed by a blade attached to the rooster's leg. | 02/07/11 21:02:52 By - Jim Guy

Agent: No physical evidence in Cuban militant Posada case

A federal agent acknowledged Monday in the Luis Posada Carriles trial that investigators never obtained physical evidence linking the Cuban exile militant to the converted shrimper Santrina, and never obtained a court order to search the vessel for fingerprints or other evidence that Posada traveled on it from Mexico to Miami. | 02/07/11 18:56:07 By - Alfonso Chardy

WikiLeaks: Assange lawyer argues Swedish charges aren't serious

On the opening day of a two-day hearing in London on Sweden's extradition request, WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange's legal team sought to downplay the severity of the molestation and rape accusations against him and to cast doubt on the credibility and authority of the Swedish prosecutor seeking his extradition, calling a witness who referred to her as an "ultra-radical feminist." | 02/07/11 18:24:53 By - Henry Chu and Janet Stobart

Wichita abuse victims, twin sisters, to talk on Oprah Winfrey show

Kellie and Kathie Henderson, sexual abuse victims and twins from Wichita, will talk with Oprah Winfrey about what happened to them. | 02/07/11 13:47:40 By - Roy Wenzl

Kansas drugmakers, police face off over restricting meth ingredients

Whether you will still be able get a popular decongestant in Missouri without a prescription could boil down to whom lawmakers believe: The manufacturers who make pseudoephedrine — or the cops who want to make it harder to get. | 02/07/11 13:06:31 By - Mark Morris

Danish cartoonist's attacker sentenced to 9 years in prison

A court in Denmark on Friday handed down a nine-year prison term for a Somali-born man who a year ago attacked a Danish cartoonist whose depiction of the prophet Mohammed sparked outrage in the Muslim world. | 02/04/11 18:47:24 By - Lennart Simonsson

Key evidence excluded as Luis Posada Carriles trial resumes

The Luis Posada Carriles perjury trial resumed Friday, after two days of bad weather that closed the courthouse, and the Cuban exile militant quickly scored a victory when the federal judge in the case excluded a key piece of evidence. | 02/04/11 15:44:47 By - Alfonso Chardy

Phillip Garrido is competent to stand trial in Dugard kidnapping

Jaycee Lee Dugard's alleged kidnapper on Thursday was ruled mentally competent to face trial in the 1991 abduction, a move that the prosecutor said could resolve the case by the end of this summer. | 02/04/11 06:44:59 By - Sam Stanton

Senate probe rips FBI, Pentagon on Fort Hood shootings

In the first detailed report on the events leading up to the Nov. 5, 2009, shootings at Fort Hood, Texas, the Senate Homeland Security Committee on Thursday blamed both the Pentagon and the FBI for failing to recognize that Army Maj. Nidal Hasan had links to a key al Qaida operative and had become an Islamic extremist before he allegedly opened fire on fellow soldiers, killing 13 and wounding dozens of others. | 02/03/11 19:08:00 By - Nancy A. Youssef

Rep. Rogers urges Kentucky Senate to pass anti-meth bill

In a rare Frankfort appearance, long-time U.S. Rep. Hal Rogers urged a state Senate committee Thursday to pass a bill that would require a prescription to buy cold medicines that contain ingredients used in the manufacturing of meth. | 02/03/11 15:53:37 By -

Man convicted of mudering his godfather in Macon, Georgia

When Justin Wingate left his godfather’s house a year ago, he had thousands of dollars in cash and told his friends, “I did what I had to do.” | 02/03/11 14:31:12 By - Macon Telegraph

Guantanamo detainee who died was to be held indefinitely

A 48-year-old ex-Taliban commander who dropped dead of an apparent heart attack after exercising on an elliptical machine inside Guantánamo's most populous prison camp was one of 48 detainees that the Obama administration had designated for indefinite detention without criminal charges, his lawyer said Thursday. Awal Gul had been in U.S. custody since Christmas 2001 when he collapsed in a shower on Tuesday. | 02/03/11 13:14:58 By - Carol Rosenberg

Here's a spooky thought: a phone call from Charles Manson

For the second time in less than two years, California prison officials caught Charles Manson, mastermind of one of the most notorious killing sprees in U.S. history, with a cell phone behind bars. | 02/02/11 18:14:49 By - Jack Dolan

Lawyers seek new trial for convicted killer of Chandra Levy

Attorneys for the man convicted of killing Chandra Levy are seeking a new trial. In a 17-page legal filing, attorneys for convicted killer Ingmar Guandique claim that jurors acted improperly and that prosecutors went too far in the closing argument. In particular, Guandique's attorneys claim prosecutors sought to inflame juror passions. | 02/02/11 15:59:00 By - Michael Doyle

In Columbus, Georgia, the story of a manhunt

On Monday, William Bullard and Richard Dodelin were alive. But on Tuesday, the day that roads were blocked and schools were locked down and a helicopter buzzed the treetops, William was dead before the sun came up and Richard was gone before it went down. | 02/02/11 13:30:46 By - DIMON KENDRICK-HOLMES

Guantanamo's most photographed prison camp is now empty

Guantánamo's Camp 4 — the iconic eight-year-old, open-air prison facility where captives bunked in barracks, posed for pictures and, for a day in 2006, rioted — has been emptied for repairs. | 02/01/11 20:41:00 By - Carol Rosenberg

Biggest border threat to U.S.? Canada, not Mexico, report says

Americans face a high risk of terrorist activity along the U.S.-Canadian border, where less than 1 percent of the 4,000-mile stretch is adequately protected, according to a government report released Tuesday. | 02/01/11 17:45:00 By - Rob Hotakainen

Body pulled from California canal likely kidnapped boy

A child's body was found in the Delta-Mendota Canal near Santa Nella today, the Stanislaus County Sheriff's Department reported. The child's identity and sex were not immediately determined, but the Merced County Sheriff's office said the child's clothing matched those of a four-year-old boy kidnapped in Patterson, Calif., two weeks ago. | 02/01/11 13:46:57 By -

North Carolina law widens use of DNA sampling

A controversial new law that allows police to collect DNA from people arrested for violent felonies and some misdemeanors goes into effect today. | 02/01/11 12:54:02 By - Cleve R. Wootson Jr.

Fifth Stryker soldier in Afghan killing case faces trial

The Army will prosecute the fifth and final member of a group of Stryker soldiers who allegedly murdered Afghan civilians during patrols last year, despite an investigation that cited weaknesses in the case against the soldier. | 02/01/11 07:36:36 By - Adam Ashton

Lack of charges in Zahra Baker's death raises questions about case

More than three months have passed since Zahra Baker was reported missing. Although police found her body in pieces, no one has been charged in the 10-year-old's death. The delay worries those who want someone held accountable. | 01/31/11 07:22:51 By - Gary L. Wright and Franco Ordoñez

Drug cartels using catapults to hurl pot across U.S.-Mexico border

Mexican drug gangs are using makeshift catapults to fling bundles of marijuana across the border into Arizona. At least three have been discovered. The Mexican army says it came across another one last week in Agua Prieta in Sonora state. It provided photos. | 01/30/11 12:57:41 By - Tim Johnson

Year-plus after body found, clues elusive in woman's death

Despite the investigative efforts of the Whatcom County Sheriff's Office, questions of how Sharon Miller got to the ravine where her remains were found, why she left home, how she died - and if there is another person responsible - remain unanswered. | 01/30/11 12:07:09 By - Peter Jensen

Fake cocaine, 'bath salts' temporarily banned in Florida

The white powder marketed as bath salts under names like Ivory Wave, Vanilla Sky and Purple Rain mimics cocaine and LSD when snorted. And as of Wednesday, it's illegal in Florida. | 01/28/11 15:12:17 By - Janet Zink

Car used in child kidnapping found in central California canal

In central California's Delta-Mendota canal this morning, divers found the Toyota Corolla that a man used to carry away a 4-year-old boy he kidnapped from Patterson last week. It was not known if any bodies were in the vehicle. | 01/28/11 15:00:25 By - Erin Tracy

Florida contractor sentenced for years for Katrina fraud

A contractor who bilked Coast residents of more than $1.3 million via home-repair fraud after Hurricane Katrina will serve six years and 10 months in a federal prison. | 01/28/11 13:35:33 By - Robin Fitzgerald

Alaska mom's 'Dr. Phil' appearance nets child abuse charges

Child abuse charges filed against the wife of an Anchorage police officer arose from the woman's appearance on the "Dr. Phil" show, during which the audience saw a video of her disciplining her child with hot sauce and a cold shower, according to court documents filed this month. | 01/28/11 06:42:08 By - Casey Grove

Henderson twins will share their sex abuse story on 'Oprah'

Kellie and Kathie Henderson revealed themselves publicly as sexual abuse victims last month with the hope that they'd inspire other people to report abuse to the authorities. It happened. Now, the Henderson sisters will fly to Chicago to tell their story again, this time in a taping with Oprah Winfrey and the 7 million viewers who regularly watch her daytime television show. | 01/28/11 07:10:00 By - Roy Wenzl

FBI serves 40 warrants in search of WikiLeaks 'hacktivists'

The FBI statement announcing the search warrants was the first indication that the U.S. intends to prosecute the so-called "hacktivists" for a series of computer attacks on websites of businesses that stopped providing services to WikiLeaks last month. Such distributed denial of service attacks are punishable by 10 years in prison. | 01/27/11 19:03:24 By - Mark Seibel

Florida says grand piano is litter, must be removed from sandbar

By order of authorities, Biscayne Bay's "piano bar" will soon be closing after a short and spectacular run from teenage stunt to worldwide sensation. Dumping something so big in the bay is technically a felony, a Fish and Wildlife Conservation commission officer said, but the agency won't press charges if it's removed. | 01/27/11 18:00:41 By - Curtis Morgan and Laura Edwins

Suzanne Somers lawsuit dismissed in Kentucky

Actress Suzanne Somers walked away from Fayette Circuit Court a happy woman Wednesday after a judge decided there was a lack of evidence in a civil case against her over a failed do-it-yourself meal-preparation business that bore her name. | 01/27/11 13:32:37 By - Jennifer Hewlett

Text message to Serbia tips Florida police to domestic abuse

A text message to Serbia and a phone call from a Serbian consul general has led to a Long Beach man’s arrest on domestic assault charges involving his wife and his ex-girlfriend, Assistant Police Chief Don Bass said. | 01/27/11 12:32:21 By - Robin Fitzgerald

2 men arrested in gold mine scam in Alaska

Two Lower 48 businessmen who committed to raise millions of dollars to develop an Alaska gold mine on an island just south of Kodiak were arrested Wednesday on counts of securities and wire fraud. | 01/27/11 12:26:10 By - Elizabeth Bluemink

Study: Missouri's black homicide rate is nation's highest

The rate of black homicides in Missouri is once again the highest in the country, according to a national report released Wednesday. It’s the second time in four years that Missouri has topped the annual study of victims compiled by the Violence Policy Center in Washington, D.C., using FBI statistics. | 01/27/11 07:18:53 By - Tony Rizzo

Posada trial prosecutors attack credibility of key witness

The mental ailments and tax dodges of a Hialeah handyman dominated the trial of accused Cuban bomber Luis Posada Carriles Wednesday as the defense hammered away at the credibility of the key prosecution witness. | 01/27/11 07:05:48 By - Juan O. Tamayo

Actress Suzanne Somers takes stand in food preparation case

Actress Suzanne Somers took the stand Wednesday to defend herself in a trial involving a failed do-it-yourself meal-preparation business that bore her name. | 01/26/11 14:05:07 By - Jennifer Hewlett

Crash leads to human trafficking ring in Bradenton, Flor.

Moments before a light blue van crashed into his Toyota Tundra pickup, Joe Barbato was waiting for an opening to make a left hand turn. Eight men jumped from the van and scattered into nearby woods, according to Steve McDonald, a agent with the U.S. Border Patrol. | 01/26/11 13:20:10 By - Paradise Afshar

Financial crisis panel urges prosecutions of industry figures

The congressional panel examining the root causes of the nation's financial crisis voted to refer to state and federal prosecutors a wide range of potential criminal wrongdoing by financial industry figures and corporations, people involved in the deliberations said Tuesday. | 01/25/11 19:23:00 By - Greg Gordon

S.C. man man accused of killing girlfriend, 4-year-old boy, faces death penalty

Prosecutors will seek the death penalty for Ernest Stewart Daise, charged with killing his girlfriend and her 4-year-old son and wounding the couple's 2-year-old son during a shooting in Dale in 2009. | 01/25/11 12:02:21 By - Juliann Vachon

Posada trial witness: Yacht brought Posada into U.S.

A Miami FBI informant and alleged Cuban intelligence collaborator testified Monday at the trial of Luis Posada Carriles that he helped smuggle the anti-Castro militant by sea from Mexico to Miami. | 01/25/11 07:09:36 By - Juan O. Tamayo

Illinois county's drug unit may disband after sheriff's deputies let go

St. Clair County Sheriff's Department Capt. Steve Johnson, head of investigations for the department, has seen a lot of crack houses. But there's one he'll never forget. | 01/24/11 13:39:25 By - Laura Girresch

N.C. woman charged in decades-old child abduction case

A Raleigh woman suspected of abducting an infant from a New York hospital more than two decades ago is scheduled to appear in court today on federal kidnapping charges. Ann Pettway, 49, on Sunday surrendered at an FBI office in Bridgeport, Conn. Federal investigators want to talk with her about the abduction of Carlina Renae White, who was 19 days old when she disappeared from Harlem Hospital in 1987. | 01/24/11 07:26:05 By - Joseph Neff

Posada trial prosecutor adds twist to proceedings

A prosecutor in the Luis Posada Carriles trial made a stunning admission Friday: The defense has been effective in alleging U.S. officials tricked the militant Cuban exile into lying under oath. All 11 charges of perjury, obstruction and immigration fraud against Posada, 82, a former CIA asset with a decades-old record of anti-Castro plots, stem from his sworn testimony at the two interviews. | 01/24/11 07:07:23 By - Juan O. Tamayo

Human trafficking may be widespread in South Florida

For up to 16 hours daily, they worked at posh country clubs across South Florida, then returned to deceptively quiet houses in Boca Raton where they were captives. The 39 servers, lured to the United States by the cliché of a decent dollar and a promising next chapter, instead became imported modern-day slaves two continents away from their homeland. | 01/24/11 07:00:14 By - Audra D.S. Burch

Mexico's marijuana growers put California hunters at risk, law enforcers say

Hunters beware: California's public lands are threatened by more and more illegal marijuana growing operations, with armed crews toting powerful weaponry. The Mexican drug networks have turned largely to California and its Mediterranean climate for their operations that now supply much of the country with the weed and those operations are an increasing threat to outdoor enthusiasts. | 01/24/11 06:41:23 By - Loretta Kalb

N. Carolina GOP looks to repeal Racial Justice Act

Near the top of the to-do list for many GOP members of North Carolina's newly Republican-controlled legislature will be repeal of the state's Racial Justice Act, approved during the 2009 session in a series of party-line votes. The law allows judges to consider whether race played a role in the decision to seek or impose the death penalty, and it provides the authority to commute a death sentence to life in prison if evidence of racial bias is found. | 01/23/11 22:51:54 By - Michael Biesecker

Police suspend canal search for kidnapped 4-year-old

Authorities said they might resume searching the canal in 48 hours if Juliani Cardenas and his suspected abductor, Jose Esteban Rodriguez, still haven't been located. A California-wide Amber Alert remained in effect as of Saturday night. | 01/23/11 09:09:30 By - Rosalio Ahumada

Drama in California: Police search canal for kidnap victim

Hanging on to the only credible tip they have, Stanislaus County authorities Saturday returned to the rural canal west of Patterson, Calif., to comb the waters for a missing 4-year-old kidnap victim and his abductor. Two cars were pulled from the cold, rushing water on Friday, without results. | 01/22/11 15:44:50 By - Rosalio Ahumada and Erin Tracy

Dramatic high-seas rescue as S. Korean troops storm ship

Eight Somali pirates were killed and five captured Friday when South Korean toops stormed the Samho Jewelry chemical carrier in the Arabian Sea. The ship had been sailing between the United Arab Emirates and Sri Lanka when it was seized last week. | 01/21/11 17:07:54 By - John M. Glionna

In dramatic sign of recovery, Giffords transferred to Houston

Two weeks after she was shot and severely wounded, Rep. Gabrielle Giffords left Tucson aboard an air ambulance Friday in a carefully planned transfer to a rehabilitation hospital in Houston. Throngs of well-wishers cheered, waved flags, held up hand-scrawled signs of support, and offered prayers for Giffords' continued recovery as an ambulance passed carrying her to Davis-Monthan Air Force Base for the flight. | 01/21/11 16:55:29 By - Bob Drogin and Nicholas Riccardi

Police pursuing 'terrorist threat' against California's governor

Police in the Orange County city of Santa Ana and California Gov. Jerry Brown's security detail were trying find out Friday who wrote graffiti on two walls threatening to kill the new governor on Valentine's Day. | 01/21/11 16:54:12 By - Robert Lopez

Texas chaplain charged again as a video Peeping Tom

Matthew Porter was arrested Jan. 7 by police in Grandbury, Texas, and accused of secretly photographing people in a bathroom of a nursing home where Porter served as chaplain. Now it's come to light he faced a similar charge in Florida where he was a youth minister. There, he allegedly videotaped teenagers as they changed clothes at his home. | 01/21/11 16:17:58 By - Domingo Ramirez

Arizona shooting suspect might escape death if convicted

Reacting to the Arizona shooting with anger, sadness and shock, a majority of Americans think that suspect Jared Loughner should be sent to death row if he's convicted, according to one poll. But if statistics are any indication, he has a good chance of escaping execution. | 01/21/11 18:38:00 By - Marisa Taylor

Texas gun rights activists want teachers to carry concealed weapons

Two Texas gun rights activists are proposing that Arlington teachers and administrators be allowed to carry concealed weapons on campus. | 01/21/11 16:04:06 By - Robert Cadwallader

Sole U.S. maker of death penalty drug to halt production

The complex procedures for states to execute condemned inmates became much more complicated today, as the only U.S. maker of a key drug used in the process announced it would no longer produce it. | 01/21/11 13:28:09 By - Sam Stanton

Kansas City sex crimes cold case squad lacking funding

Since its inception, the Kansas City police department’s cold case sex crimes squad has cleared 141 cases, identified 25 possible serial rapists and arrested at least seven of them — including the man suspected of being the Waldo rapist. | 01/21/11 13:04:05 By - Christine Vendel

Wrestler in 'butt-drag' case, alleged victim try to resolve sex-assault case

A day after being expelled, a Buchanan High student apparently has decided to resolve his criminal case by taking part in a mediation session with the teammate he is accused of sexually assaulting during wrestling practice. | 01/21/11 11:27:01 By - Pablo Lopez

Acquitted Liberty City Seven terror defendant deported to Haiti

Lyglenson Lemorin, acquitted of all charges in the Liberty City Seven terrorism trial three years ago, was deported to Haiti early Thursday along with 26 Haitian nationals with criminal records in the United States. Haitian-born Lemorin, 35, who grew up in Miami, is a legal U.S. resident with no criminal history. | 01/21/11 06:58:43 By - Jay Weaver and Trenton Daniel

Schwarzenegger faces lawsuit over Nunez's sentence reduction

Kicking off a potentially sweeping legal battle, a lawsuit filed Thursday says former Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger had the right to commute the prison sentence of a political friend's son but violated victim rights guaranteed under a voter-approved measure. | 01/21/11 06:46:14 By - Susan Ferriss

More good news on Giffords: She's scrolling through her iPad

Rep. Gabrielle Giffords has been able to take a couple of steps with assistance from medical personnel, and stand and look out the window of her hospital room, her husband, astronaut Mark Kelly, said in a news conference Thursday in Tucson.She is also scrolling through an iPad, said Dr. Michael Lemole, a neurosurgeon at Tucson's University Medical Center, where Giffords has been receiving care since she was shot in the head nearly two weeks ago. | 01/20/11 20:21:04 By - Thomas H. Maugh II and Nicole Santa Cruz

Common Cause asks for probe of Scalia, Thomas ties to Kochs

Justices Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas are the subject of an unusual letter delivered Wednesday by Common Cause asking the U.S. Justice Department to look into whether the jurists should have disqualified themselves from hearing the campaign finance case if they had attended a private meeting sponsored by Charles and David Koch, billionaire philanthropists who fund conservative causes. A Supreme Court spokesperson said late Thursday that the two justices did not participate in the Koch brothers' private meetings, though Thomas did "drop by." | 01/20/11 20:12:14 By - Tom Hamburger

Two Miami police officers killed serving warrant

Two Miami-Dade police officers were shot and killed in a gunfight with suspects as they tried to serve a warrant for a violent fugitive in a Miami home Thursday morning. It was the first time in decades two law enforcement officers were killed in the line of duty. | 01/20/11 15:12:35 By - Adam Beasley, David Ovalle and James H. Burnett III

California wrestler in 'butt-drag' case is expelled from school

The Clovis Unified school board in California voted unanimously Wednesday night to expel a Buchanan High student, concluding that a wrestling move he used on a teammate during practice constituted sexual battery and bullying. | 01/20/11 06:55:19 By - Pablo Lopez

Philadelphia abortion doctor charged with murder in 8 deaths

The dead included a patient and seven live infants whose spines were severed with scissors at the doctor's Philadelphia clinic. The doctor, Kermit P. Gosnell, 69, lost his medical license last year after health officials determined his clinic posed "a clear danger to the public." | 01/19/11 17:20:10 By -

Airman who didn't disclose HIV to sex partners found guilty

A military judge has found Tech. Sgt. David Gutierrez guilty on seven counts that stem from having unprotected sex with several partners without divulging his HIV-positive status. Sentencing is expected to begin shortly. | 01/19/11 16:15:17 By - Deb Gruver

Defense in Luis Posada Carriles case allege entrapment

U.S. government lawyers trapped Luis Posada Carriles into lying under oath so they could bring criminal charges against the anti-Castro militant, his defense alleged Tuesday. | 01/19/11 15:27:42 By - Juan Tamayo

Attorney: Released video of tow truck killing prevents fair trial

Solicitor Duffie Stone said copies of a video released Monday to media outlets that show a tow truck driver firing shots at the man he killed on Christmas Eve might prevent the case from being fairly tried in Beaufort County. | 01/19/11 12:13:30 By - Cassie Foss

Lee Harvey Oswald's brother sues funeral home over casket

Lee Harvey Oswald's brother says he didn't know for three decades that a Fort Worth funeral operator kept the original coffin that held Oswald's body and is asking a state judge to recover the proceeds from an auction of the coffin and other items last month. | 01/19/11 07:24:08 By - Diane Smith

Journalist must bring painting to Posada trial

A journalist who received a painting from anti-Castro militant Luis Posada Carriles as a gift must produce it at his trial and cannot bring in just photographs of the painting, the U.S judge in the case ruled Tuesday. | 01/19/11 06:56:38 By - Juan O. Tamayo

Odd turn in Zahra Baker case: step-mom indicted for bigamy

Elisa Baker, whose stepdaughter’s death and dismemberment have captivated an audience worldwide, was indicted Tuesday on a bigamy charge, accused of marrying Adam Baker in Australia before divorcing her previous husband. | 01/18/11 14:05:47 By - Gary L. Wright, Fred Clasen-Kelly and Cleve R. Wootson Jr.

Texas' Perry pushing lawmakers to take on sanctuary movement

In a legislative session expected to be dominated by the budget and redistricting, Republican Gov. Rick Perry has pushed the issue of sanctuary cities -- where law enforcement officials don't ask about immigration status during routine calls -- to the front of the line. Democrats say the issue is a fabricated one — and a slap at every Latino in the state. | 01/18/11 07:32:45 By - Anna M. Tinsley

Man blames N. Carolina deputy's Taser use paralyzed him

A Kannapolis, N.C., man who says he has to use a wheelchair after a confrontation with authorities last April has sued the Cabarrus County Sheriff's Office, saying the use of a Taser caused his injuries. | 01/18/11 07:16:16 By - Steve Lytle

Brazen bank heist still talk of Kentucky town, 56 years later

Older residents of Nicholasville, Ky., still talk about the day a bank blew up as burglars tried to get into the vault. While the heist was unsuccessful, its sheer boldness seems like something spun by Hollywood screenwriters, not an actual event that happened in a small Central Kentucky town (estimated population 3,800 in 1955) in the days of Dwight Eisenhower and Edward R. Murrow. | 01/17/11 18:23:05 By - Greg Kocher

Cold case -- Searching for Rose's killer

Rose Marie Levandoski met her abductor Feb. 1, 1973, some time after she got permission to go to the restroom at St. Martin Junior High School in Jackson County. Her body was found three weeks later. | 01/16/11 13:59:54 By - Margaret Baker

Newly elected GOP congressman already under investigation

After dropping out of a state Senate race last year to run for Congress, David Rivera set aside tens of thousands of dollars from his dormant Senate campaign account to say "thank you'' to supporters. The money went to a company founded by the daughter of a longtime aide, including a $50,000 check that went to ACH one day before the firm was incorporated as a business. | 01/16/11 11:50:10 By - Scott Hiaasen and Patricia Mazzei

S.C. city's curfew for teens snagged on thorny legal question

A broadly supported curfew for teenagers in Columbia, S.C., isn't being enforced because the city attorney is worried that police don't know what to do in the event parents of a violator refuse to come pock the curfew-breaking child up. Is the city be liable for that child’s safety? | 01/16/11 11:40:43 By - Adam Beam

Key evidence in Stryker war crimes case remains secret

A few key documents and images remain under wraps as legal proceedings unfold for the soldiers in the 5th Brigade, 2nd Infantry Division accused of murdering three civilians last year for fun. Defense attorneys say the hidden files would help clear their clients. | 01/16/11 11:21:58 By - Adam Ashton

Paralyzed by boyfriend's beating, woman warns others

Over the years, her boyfriend had beaten her during fits of rage. But on that fall afternoon in 2009 he was seething. He forced her to their living room floor on her hands and knees, then bent her legs back toward her head. She felt something snap, and a burning sensation. Then she felt nothing at all. | 01/16/11 11:10:00 By - Cynthia Hubert

Decorated U.S. vet bitter over feds' Laotian coup charges

The U.S. government, whose uniform Lt. Col. Harrison Jack wore proudly for 30 years, branded him a terrorist, charging him and 11 other defendants with plotting the violent overthrow of communist Laos. If convicted, the West Point graduate would have spent the rest of his life in prison. Dismissal of the charges doesn't make him feel any better. | 01/16/11 11:03:40 By - Steve Maganini

Tucson shootings reminder of military's role in trauma care

Dr. Peter Rhee, a Navy veteran, spent his life searching for battlefields in a race for the latest developments in trauma care. How Rhee handled the Tucson shooting victims in the first minutes after their arrival at the hospital is the latest installment in the story of the interdependence between the battlefield and the emergency rooms of civilian hospitals throughout America. | 01/15/11 17:32:14 By - Nancy A. Youssef

Report shows shifting nature of Mexico drug violence

For example, consider the five states in Mexico that suffered the most violence in the year 2006, in descending order: Michoacan, Guerrero, Baja California, Sonora and Nuevo Leon. Now look at the list of the most violent states in 2010: Chihuahua, Sinaloa, Tamaulipas, Guerrero and Durango. Only Guerrero is on both lists. | 01/15/11 11:16:27 By - Tim Johnson

Coming attraction — the Chandra Levy movie

Hollywood will provide another take on the Chandra Levy story, just in time for the sentencing of the man convicted of killing the ill-fated intern. The new show temporarily dubbed "The Chandra Levy Project" will take three or four weeks to film and is to be aired on TLC, the cable network once known as The Learning Channel. | 01/14/11 15:36:00 By - Michael Doyle

Jared Lee Loughner's lawyer has handled notorious cases

The attorney defending the man accused in last week’s Tucson shooting rampage cut her teeth in capital murder cases in South Carolina, where she was on the defense team that persuaded a jury to spare the life of Susan Smith, who has become the face of mothers who kill their children. After leaving S.C., Clarke won life sentences for Unibomber Ted Kaczynski and Atlanta Olympics serial bomber Eric Rudolph. She also worked on the life-saving defense of 9/11 conspirator Zacarias Moussaoui. | 01/14/11 07:29:43 By - Clif LeBlanc

TSA: JetBlue agent in N.C. took bribe to ship package

A second security breach at Charlotte/Douglas International Airport - this one reportedly involving an undercover sting - has cost a JetBlue ticket agent his job. In a Nov. 19 test of aviation security, an undercover inspector for the Transportation Security Administration told the ticket agent that he needed to get a package to Boston that day - and handed the employee a $100 bill, according to a TSA report obtained by a Boston television station. | 01/14/11 07:22:02 By - Ames Alexander and Steve Harrison

Homeland Security lawyer testifies at Posada trial

A Department of Homeland Security lawyer Thursday testified at Luis Posada Carriles' trial to virtually each and every one of the alleged lies that are behind the 11 charges facing the anti-Castro militant. | 01/14/11 07:02:19 By - Juan O. Tamayo

Wrestler in 'butt-drag' case should be expelled, panel recommends

A California school panel at Clovis Unified on Thursday night recommended expulsion for a Buchanan High School wrestler accused of sexual battery against a teammate. | 01/14/11 06:50:11 By - Pablo Lopez

Arizona shootings: Security concerns trickle down to city hall

Members of Congress don't have taxpayer-paid security details, unless they're in leadership positions. But in light of the attempted assassination of Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, the Kansas City police department, at least, plans to be present at all events held by federal, state and local officials — whether they like it or not. | 01/13/11 17:05:08 By - Christine Vendel and Lynn Horsley

Opening arguments offered in trial of ex CIA operative Posada

Luis Posada Carriles faces 11 counts in federal court in El Paso, Texas, all related to lying under oath: when he claimed to have entered the United States through the border with Mexico in 2005; when he denied any role in a string of Havana bombings that killed one Italian tourist; and when he denied having a fake Guatemalan passport. He faces five to eight years in prison if convicted. | 01/13/11 16:24:01 By - Juan O. Tamayo

Wasserman Schultz talks about her friend Giffords' 'miracle'

Debbie Wasserman Schultz and Gabrielle Giffords became fast friends when they first met. Both Jewish, both rising Democratic stars under 40 at the time, they gravitated to each other. So it wasn't a surprise that Wasserman Schultz joined President Barack Obama on his visit Wednesday to the Tucson, Ariz., hospital where Giffords is recovering. | 01/13/11 15:01:59 By - Lesley Clark

15 years later, killer still free in Amber Hagerman case

Fifteen years after Amber Hagerman's slaying, her memory lives on in her grandmother's east Arlington home. Tonight, on the anniversary of her abduction, the family will gather in that parking lot, light candles, sing some of Amber's favorite songs and have a moment of silence as a reminder that justice has not been served. | 01/13/11 13:21:11 By - Deanna Boyd

Kindergartner killed by pit bulls in Charlotte area

A kindergartner at home on a day off from school was mauled to death Wednesday by two pit bulls that had prompted calls to police before, authorities said. | 01/13/11 13:10:15 By - Cleve R. Wootson Jr. & Meghan Cooke

Brett Favre's sister Brandi busted in Mississippi meth arrest

The sister of legendary quarterback Brett Favre was one of three people arrested Wednesday after an active meth lab was discovered in a bathtub of a condominium in Diamondhead, Miss. Brandi Favre, 34, of Pass Christian, Miss., was charged with manufacturing of methamphetamine and generation of hazardous waste, both felonies. | 01/13/11 12:25:58 By - Donna Harris

Giffords hospital visit: 'Like we were watching a miracle'

U.S. Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz, D-Fla., used those words to describe the moment Wednesday at University Medical Center in Tucson when U.S. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords opened her eyes for the first time since being shot on Saturday. The White House released a transcript of the briefing Wasserman Schultz and Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, D-N.Y., gave reporters aboard Air Force One. | 01/13/11 12:07:13 By -

After Arizona shootings, gun sale background checks rise

Background checks for handgun sales spiked in Texas and other states just two days after a mass shooting in Arizona left six people dead and U.S. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords fighting for her life. | 01/13/11 07:34:36 By - Anna M. Tinsley

Schwarzenegger's apology letter upsets family of Núñez's victim

The father of a young man who was killed in a fight involving the son of former Assembly Speaker Fabian Núñez said Wednesday he is upset about a letter former Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger sent him after reducing the younger Núñez's prison sentence. The letter, dated Jan. 5, acknowledged that commuting the sentence caused Santos and his wife "more pain." | 01/13/11 06:51:16 By - Susan Ferriss

What do Giffords' shooter, police have in common? Glock

Police say that accused Arizona gunman Jared Lee Loughner used a Glock 19 to kill six and wound numerous others in the Tucson shooting spree that left Rep. Gabrielle Giffords critically wounded. In that way, he's like criminals and police throughout the United States whose weapons of choice are Glock semiautomatic pistols. | 01/12/11 17:54:00 By - Tony Pugh

Evidence of Cuba 'lying' excluded at trial of former CIA operative

The judge in Luis Posada Carriles' trial dealt his defense an early blow on Tuesday, the first day of court arguments, saying he will not be allowed to argue that the Cuban government often falsifies evidence. | 01/12/11 18:11:41 By - Juan O. Tamayo

Florida lawmakers seek to join states that ban fake pot

Florida lawmakers have opened a new battle in the drug war, and they're saying no more Mr. Nice Guy. And no more K2 or Spice, for that matter. Those are all brand names of so-called "fake pot'' or synthetic marijuana, which a Senate committee unanimously voted Tuesday to make as illegal as the real thing. | 01/12/11 18:01:36 By - Marc Caputo

Protests slam 'pot' arrests in California coastal county

The protesters were calling for the dismissal of charges against a dozen people arrested in late December after an investigation by the county’s Narcotic Task Force into alleged mobile marijuana dispensaries. | 01/12/11 17:31:20 By - Nick Wilson

Mystery surrounds skull found in box at Florida police station

The skull was discovered carefully wrapped in old newspaper in a box with the word “Skull” in caps underlined twice along with an FBI lab invoice. Bradenton, Fla., police investigators evidently had evidently sent the skull off for forensic testing, and it was mailed back, Oct. 21, 1974. Now police say they'll try to figure out whose it was. | 01/12/11 17:14:09 By - Richard Dymond

3 charged in beating death of man trying to collect $45 debt

Authorities said the men tied Aaron Mayberry, 26, with extension cords, then beat him. Police found him unconcious, his face covered with blood. He died of asphyxiation, the medical examiner ruled. | 01/12/11 17:05:43 By - Glenn E. Rice

Vet in Vick case slammed as sex-with-dog charge dropped

Prosecutors on Wednesday dropped the animal cruelty case against a Florida man accused of having sex with his Great Dane. Pacher's defense attorney had blasted the case, saying it was built on the false conclusions of Dr. Melinda Merck, a well-known forensic veterinarian who helped build the dog-fighting case against Philadelphia Eagle's quarterback Michael Vick. | 01/12/11 16:46:36 By - David Ovalle

Illinois woman gets 16 years in beating death of son

A Clinton County judge handed a 16-year prison sentence Tuesday to a Carlyle woman for trying to cover up the fatal beating her boyfriend inflicted on her son. | 01/12/11 12:09:30 By - Brian Brueggemann

Surgeon: Giffords has '101 percent' chance of survival

As doctors Tuesday gave their most optimistic assessment yet for critically wounded Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, the parents of the accused gunman in Saturday's mass shooting broke their silence, expressing deep sorrow for the lives lost when their 22-year-old son allegedly opened fire. President Barack Obama will join other officials in Arizona Wednesday for a memorial service called, "Together We Thrive: Tucson and America." | 01/11/11 18:29:00 By - Sam Stanton

Justice Dept. drops Laos coup plot case against 11 Hmong

At the request of federal prosecutors, a Sacramento, Calif., judge on Monday dismissed the entire case against 11 Hmong Americans and a retired U.S. Army officer charged with plotting to overthrow the communist regime in Laos. The decision came just four days after the death of Vang Pao, the iconic Hmong American leader who was initially charged as the mastermind behind the conspiracy. | 01/11/11 06:50:44 By - Denny Walsh

Wi-Fi at airports can pose security risk, FBI warns

Not all potential security breaches at an airport can be captured on a cell phone and posted as a YouTube video. One such danger lurks in the form of free wireless Internet access offered by many airports throughout the nation and in other public places. | 01/11/11 06:46:52 By - Chelsea Phua

Arizona shooting suspect likely faces death penalty

Jared Lee Loughner could face the death penalty in the Tucson, Ariz., shooting rampage that has shaken the country and is causing members of Congress to openly worry about their safety. The 22-year-old college castoff and Army reject faces one count of attempting to assassinate a member of Congress, two counts of murdering a federal employee and two charges of attempted murder of a federal employee. | 01/10/11 19:59:00 By - Tony Pugh and David Lightman

Colleges limited in what they can do about troubled students

Described variously as a social outcast, a loner and paranoid, Jared Lee Loughner, the 22-year-old who's accused of critically wounding a U.S. congresswoman and killing six others, meets the profile of a mentally unstable youth who slipped through the cracks and may have emerged with weapon in hand. | 01/10/11 18:58:00 By - Les Blumenthal and David Goldstein

Arizona shootings unlikely to change federal gun laws

Federal gun control proposals may accelerate following the Tucson massacre in which an Arizona congresswoman was seriously injured, but they'll still face high legal and legislative hurdles. | 01/10/11 18:46:00 By - Michael Doyle

Sheriff: Loughner targeted Giffords, but not over politics

Pima County Sheriff Clarence Dupnik said in an interview Monday that Jared Lee Loughner "targeted the congresswoman specifically; there's considerable evidence to substantiate that." But there's no evidence that the shootings were part of a political agenda, he said, noting that "When you try to rationalize irrational acts, you wind up with zero." | 01/10/11 18:15:00 By - Sam Stanton

Wife of White House staffer found dead in burning car

A Washington lobbyist for Progress Energy, who was the wife of a White House adviser, has been found dead inside a burning car in southeast Washington. | 01/10/11 17:47:46 By -

Kentucky study confirms high rate of rural drug abuse

The first drugs abused by teens often come from the family medicine cabinet, and a new Operation UNITE program is using statistics from a University of Kentucky research study to try to change that. | 01/10/11 15:10:37 By - Mary Meehan