SanLuisObispo.com: Nation

More Americans expected to travel for Thanksgiving

Sat, 21 Nov 2009 10:36 PST

By By NAFEESA SYEED -- The number of Americans traveling away from home for Thanksgiving will be up only slightly this year from 2008, according to a report from the AAA auto club.

The group, which surveyed 1,350 households, said there will be about 33.2 million people traveling by car this year - a 2.1 percent increase from last year.

But there will be a 6.7 percent decrease in the number of air travelers, totaling 2.3 million this year, continuing a decade-long decline of Thanksgiving air travel.

EPA: Uranium from polluted mine in Nev. wells

Sat, 21 Nov 2009 10:06 PST

By By SCOTT SONNER -- Peggy Pauly lives in a robin-egg blue, two-story house not far from acres of onion fields that make the northern Nevada air smell sweet at harvest time.

But she can look through the window from her kitchen table, just past her backyard with its swingset and pet llama, and see an ominous sign on a neighboring fence: "Danger: Uranium Mine."

For almost a decade, people who make their homes in this rural community in the Mason Valley 65 miles southeast of Reno have blamed that enormous abandoned mine for the high levels of uranium in their water wells.

NC man gets life in prison for woman's fatal scare

Sat, 21 Nov 2009 09:46 PST

A man will spend the rest of his life in prison after he was found guilty in what prosecutors said was a case of scaring a 79-year-old North Carolina grandmother to death.

Multiple media outlets reported a federal jury found 21-year-old Larry Whitfield not guilty of murder Friday in the death of Mary Parnell last year. But they did find him guilty of causing her death by kidnapping her, and that carries an automatic life sentence.

Prosecutors say Whitfield was looking for somewhere to hide after a failed bank robbery attempt in Gastonia in September 2008 when he broke into Parnell's home.

Mental health cases tax police, emergency workers

Sat, 21 Nov 2009 10:36 PST

By By LISA RATHKE -- Police found him sitting on the floor of his old apartment near a bucket of urine, still dressed in his hospital gown.

The apartment had been condemned for the squalor - food on the floor, flies - and his smoking in bed. But the mentally ill man, just released from the hospital, had managed to get back in. For the second time in four days, he was taken by ambulance to the hospital.

Three firefighters, a battalion chief, the police chief, two police officers, a code enforcement person and a housing official responded, and finally, an ambulance crew - at a cost of thousands of dollars, Police Chief Michael Schirling said.

Report finds wide disparities in gifted education

Sat, 21 Nov 2009 09:11 PST

By By DORIE TURNER -- When Liz Fitzgerald realized her son and daughter were forced to read books in math class while the other children caught up, she had them moved into gifted classes at their suburban Atlanta elementary school.

Just 100 miles down the road in Taliaferro County, that wouldn't have been an option. All the gifted classes were canceled because of budget cuts.

"If they didn't have it, they would get bored and distracted easily," said Fitzgerald, whose children are 14 and 12. "It just wouldn't be challenging."

AP reporter caught up in Stalin family's agony

Sat, 21 Nov 2009 07:51 PST

By By LARRY HEINZERLING -- Newly arrived in Moscow on his first foreign assignment, Associated Press correspondent George Krimsky sensed he had a sensational Cold War scoop on his hands and he pounced.

The story was the possible defection to the United States of the grandson of Josef Stalin, the notorious Communist dictator and World War II hero of the Soviet Union.

The story's potential was all the more dramatic because the grandson's mother, Stalin's only daughter, had herself defected in 1967 and settled in the U.S., dealing the Kremlin a very public and bitter humiliation.

Resort island reels after deadly attack by gunman

Sat, 21 Nov 2009 05:11 PST

By By GEMMA CASAS -- The gunman who carried out Saipan's most violent attack in recent memory ended his life on the same rocky cliffs where numerous Japanese leapt to their deaths to avoid capture by U.S. troops during World War II.

Police and witness say that after the attacker went on a shooting rampage Friday that left four dead, he parked his van and walked to edge of Banzai Cliff. But instead of jumping, the gunman shot himself.

Six people were also wounded in the violence that left this usually tranquil tourist island reeling and shaken.

Postal Service to resume North Pole Santa letters

Sat, 21 Nov 2009 06:36 PST

By By RACHEL D'ORO -- Wide-eyed children around the world will be hearing from Santa's "elves" at the North Pole after all.

During Christmas seasons for decades, these dedicated elves responded to thousands of letters addressed to "Santa Claus, North Pole."

All that was ending with a U.S. Postal Service decision to discontinue the program based in the small Alaskan town amid privacy concerns.

Levin: could be more e-mails from Ft. Hood suspect

Sat, 21 Nov 2009 05:01 PST

By By PAMELA HESS and ANNE GEARAN -- WASHINGTON - The government intercepted at least 18 e-mails between the alleged Fort Hood gunman and a radical Muslim cleric, and a key senator says there could be more communications that might have tipped off law enforcement or military officials.

Federal investigators say they intercepted the messages between the suspect, Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan, and Anwar al-Awlaki, a radical American-born cleric. They were passed along to two Joint Terrorism Task Force cells led by the FBI, but a senior defense official said no one at the Defense Department knew about the messages until after the shootings. The official spoke on condition of anonymity in order to discuss intelligence procedures.

Sen. Carl Levin, D-Mich., said Friday after a briefing from Pentagon and Army officials that his committee will investigate how those and other e-mails involving Hasan were handled and why the U.S. military was not made aware of them before the Nov. 5 shooting.

Car strikes crowd outside Ala. school, 1 killed

Fri, 20 Nov 2009 21:01 PST

Police say a woman has died after being struck along with nine children by a car outside an Alabama middle school.

The nine children were injured in the accident Friday afternoon in Fairfield, about eight miles southwest of Birmingham. Three of the injured were listed in fair to serious condition at Children's Hospital in Birmingham.

Fairfield Police Sgt. Matthew Romei says 46-year-old Debrah Johnson died after undergoing surgery Friday night.

No appeal of dismissed conviction in MySpace case

Fri, 20 Nov 2009 20:41 PST

Prosecutors say they will not appeal the dismissal of a woman's convictions in a MySpace hoax directed at a 13-year-old girl who committed suicide.

Friday's announcement effectively ends the case against Lori Drew.

Federal Judge George Wu threw out Drew's conviction on three misdemeanor counts of accessing computers without authorization in July, citing the vagueness of the law.

Prosecutor: Alleged Maui spy is difficult but sane

Fri, 20 Nov 2009 19:51 PST

By By HERBERT A. SAMPLE -- A Maui man accused of spying for China is difficult to work with and makes wild exaggerations but is legally able to stand trial, a federal prosecutor asserted Friday.

But at the close of a competency hearing, the lawyer for Noshir Gowadia contended the defendant suffers from narcissistic personality disorder, which causes him to make grandiose statements and to consider himself better than others.

"These delusions are affecting his ability to assist us in his own defense," Birney Bervar, Gowadia's lawyer, told U.S. Magistrate Kevin S.C. Chang during closing arguments.

UC students occupy buildings to protest fee hike

Fri, 20 Nov 2009 21:36 PST

Dozens of demonstrators who barricaded themselves inside a campus building at the University of California, Berkeley in a protest over fee hikes and budget cuts were removed late Friday, bringing the daylong occupation to an end, university officials said.

The occupation of a campus building at the University of California, Santa Cruz meanwhile continued.

Forty-one people inside UC Berkeley's Wheeler Hall were arrested on suspicion of trespassing around 5 p.m. Friday, said Claire Holmes, a spokeswoman for the university. The group, which included university students, was cited and released around 7:30 p.m to cheers from supporters outside.

Porn mogul's son to be tried in girlfriend's death

Fri, 20 Nov 2009 23:41 PST

The son of a late San Francisco pornography mogul will stand trial on accusations that he crushed his ex-girlfriend's skull with a baseball bat.

Marin County Judge Kelly Simmons ruled Thursday the evidence was sufficient to put 27-year-old James Raphael Mitchell on trial for first-degree murder in the July 12 bludgeoning death of Danielle Keller. Mitchell is the son of the late "Behind the Green Door" director Jim Mitchell.

Simmons' decision followed a preliminary hearing that included testimony from James Mitchell's mother, Mary Jane Grimm.

Arizona police arrest parents of rape victim

Fri, 20 Nov 2009 19:01 PST

The parents of an 8-year-old Liberian girl who was allegedly raped by four boys have been arrested on felony child abuse charges.

The girl's 59-year-old father and 47-year-old mother each face eight counts for a series of abuse and neglect incidents dating back to 2005. The Associated Press is not naming the parents to avoid identifying their daughter, who police say is a rape victim.

A Phoenix police spokesman says the parents were arrested Friday without incident.

Car strikes crowd outside Ala. school, 1 killed

Fri, 20 Nov 2009 21:21 PST

A woman lost control of her car and struck nine children and an adult who were standing outside a middle school Friday afternoon, police said.

Debrah Johnson, 46, died after undergoing surgery at UAB Hospital in Birmingham, Fairfield Police Sgt. Matthew Romei said. At least three of the children were in a hospital Friday night, ranging from fair to serious condition.

Police said the driver was a 67-year-old woman who was picking up a student at Forest Hills Middle School. Her identity has not been released by police, who questioned her and planned a routine drug and alcohol test.