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Boston Herald
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Aug 11, 08 6:33 PM CDT
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Accused kidnapper Clark Rockefeller is a German national wanted for questioning in a Los Angeles double-murder case, California authorities said today. The statement marked the first by officials that German Christian Gerhartsreiter used the Rockefeller name in Boston and Christopher Chichester when living with a couple that later disappeared in San Marino, Calif., the Boston Herald reports.
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New York Daily News
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Aug 11, 08 4:40 PM CDT
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“Preppy killer” Robert Chambers pleaded guilty today to dealing cocaine from his Manhattan apartment, the New York Daily News reports. He also confessed to assaulting a police officer during his October arrest and faces nearly 20 years in state prison. Chambers gained national infamy in the 1980s after his “rough sex murder” of former girlfriend Jennifer Levin.
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Hartford Courant (Conn.)
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Aug 11, 08 4:13 PM CDT
(Newser) -
The mayor of Hartford, Conn. has declared a 30-day curfew to help police get a handle on spiraling violence, the Courant reports. Starting Thursday, anyone under 18 can't be on the streets after 9pm. The city also is creating a prosecution task force and developing a "most watched list" of 25 top suspects. Three attacks this weekend left one person dead and 10 injured, the latest in a crime wave police attribute largely to gang violence.
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Minneapolis Star Tribune
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Aug 11, 08 2:31 PM CDT
(Newser) -
Though his heart is broken, Hugh McCutcheon won’t indulge in anger as he grieves for his father-in-law, Todd Bachman, brutally stabbed to death in Beijing on Saturday. "It hurts. I think it's something no one should have to go through,'' the US Olympic men’s volleyball coach told the Minneapolis Star Tribune . His focus is on helping his wife’s mother, Barbara, through the shock of losing her husband.
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Boston Herald
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Aug 11, 08 11:24 AM CDT
(Newser) -
Alleged kidnapper and con artist Clark Rockefeller tricked a Wisconsin woman into marrying him in 1981 and then bolted with his new green card, the bride's sister told the Boston Herald . “He tells stories and takes advantage of people,” she said. “He screws with people’s heads.”
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Newsweek
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Aug 10, 08 5:54 PM CDT
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The FBI's case against alleged anthrax killer Bruce Ivins is full of gaps and contradictions, Newsweek reports. Ivins is said to have sent anthrax to NBC's Tom Brokaw—but was retaliating against a reporter at ABC. He also passed a polygraph in the probe and had no anthrax in his cars, clothing, or home. "I'd say the vast majority" of his ex-colleagues "think he had nothing to do with it," a former supervisor said.
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Associated Press
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Aug 10, 08 4:50 PM CDT
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Washington state is cracking down on drug dealers' latest innovation: Using vineyards to secretly grow marijuana crops, the AP reports. Police have made 22 arrests this year and confiscated 110,000 pot plants from the Yakima Valley alone, worth more than $100 million. But tracking dealers isn't easy: Some are in Mexico and others buy farms with fake names in quick cash deals.
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Los Angeles Times
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Aug 10, 08 12:17 PM CDT
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Psychologists and psychiatrists are cashing in on a California law requiring mental health screening for sex offenders, the LA Times reports. Last year, private contractors billed the state for millions of dollars in prisoner evaluations, with one psychologist bringing home $1.5 million. State officials defend the expense as necessary to defend public safety in the face of inadequate staffing.
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Los Angeles Times
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Aug 10, 08 7:00 AM CDT
(Newser) -
Thousands of powerful automatic weapons used by drug cartels in Mexico have been traced back to US shops, and little is being done to curb the guns’ flow southward, the Los Angeles Times reports. More than 90% of guns taken at the border and picked up after clashes come from the US; last year, 2,455 traced weapons originated here.
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CNN
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Aug 9, 08 7:14 AM CDT
(Newser) -
Mexican drug cartels are growing hundreds of millions of dollars' worth of marijuana in the thick of California’s Sequoia National Forest, CNN reports. Hours on foot from the nearest road, pot gardens flourish with as many as 10,000 plants, irrigation systems created by daming mountain creeks, and their own armed guards. Pot production has intensified in the area as border control has made it harder to smuggle marijuana into the country from Mexico, says a drug enforcement agent.
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Associated Press
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Aug 9, 08 6:08 AM CDT
(AP) -
A knife-wielding Chinese man attacked two relatives of a coach for the US Olympic men's volleyball team at a tourist site in Beijing, killing one and injuring the other on the first day of the Olympics today, team officials and state media said. The man then committed suicide by throwing himself from the second story of the site, the 13th century Drum Tower 5 miles from the main site of the Games.
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New York Post
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Aug 8, 08 2:35 PM CDT
(Newser) -
A Brooklyn man was sentenced to life in prison yesterday—and celebrated the occasion by chowing down on a buffet including fried chicken, pizza, and lasagna, the New York Post reports. One of the stranger plea deals on record saw Tremayne Durham plead guilty in Oregon to aggravated murder in exchange for two fast-food orgies—costing taxpayers thousands less than going to trial.
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Boston Globe
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Aug 8, 08 12:20 PM CDT
(Newser) -
A German man has identified mysterious con artist Clark Rockefeller as his long-lost brother, the Boston Globe reports. Shown photos of the accused kidnapper, Alexander Gerhartsreiter identified him as Christian Karl Gerhartsreiter, who left Germany in a student exchange program in 1978 and hasn’t been heard from since 1985. “It’s quite shocking,” he said. “I don’t know what to say.”
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St. Petersburg Times
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Aug 8, 08 10:12 AM CDT
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Police have seized a record 1.5 tons of marijuana in Florida's Hillsborough County, the St. Petersburg Times reports. The drugs carry an estimated street value of $13 million, making the bust the county's largest to date. Raids on area homes resulted in 62 arr