PITTSBURG, Calif. — Police in the Northern California city of Pittsburg say they have found no evidence to connect kidnapping suspect Phillip Garrido or his wife to several unsolved murders.
Following Jaycee Lee Dugard’s reappearance last week after 18 years missing, Pittsburg police focused on Garrido in connection to the slayings of prostitutes in the 1990s.
A police spokesman said that after four days of searching Garrido’s house, back yard and a neighbor’s yard, they found no clear link.
He said authorities will have to conduct further examinations on a few items to completely rule them out as evidence. Authorities said Monday they found one small bone fragment in the neighbor’s yard but did not know whether it was human.
Idaho: Wolf hunt begins
Gray wolves were back in the cross hairs of hunters on Tuesday, just months after they were removed from the federal endangered species list. Shortly after dawn, an Kamiah real estate agent became the first to report a kill, an adult female. U.S. District Judge Donald Molloy in Montana was expected to rule soon on a request by environmental groups to stop the hunts in Idaho and Montana, whose season does not begin until Sept. 15.
Pennsylvania: Court upholds ban on Internet gambling
The 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Philadelphia upheld an Internet gambling ban Tuesday, rejecting a challenge from an association of off-shore bookies that the federal prohibition was too vague and violated privacy rights. The Interactive Media Entertainment &Gaming Association in New Jersey had filed the lawsuit hoping to legalize online betting in that state. Congress passed the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act in 2006 to ban online gambling that would be illegal in the state where the individual or gambling business conducts the transaction. The law criminalizes bank or credit card transactions linked to the bet.
D.C.: JFK had autoimmune disease, Navy doctor says
President John F. Kennedy’s Addison’s disease, which came to light only after his election as president in 1960, was most likely caused by a rare autoimmune disease, according to a Navy doctor who reviewed Kennedy’s medical records. The disorder, called autoimmune polyendocrine syndrome type 2, also caused Kennedy’s hypothyroidism, according to a report by Dr. Lee Mandel published Tuesday in the Annals of Internal Medicine. Addison’s disease is characterized by the withering away of the adrenal glands.
Doubts on prostate cancer test
Most men diagnosed with prostate cancer in the past two decades never needed to know they had the disease, leading many to treatment that can do more harm than good, according to a new study in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute. Research found that since a blood test became the standard way to screen for prostate cancer, an additional 1.3 million men have been diagnosed with the disease. But because many men are diagnosed with cancer that will not cause symptoms and will not kill them, the screening tests save few lives, the authors conclude.
Iran: Ready for nuke talks
Iran’s top nuclear negotiator, Saeed Jalili, said Tuesday that the country is ready to reopen talks with world powers “in order to ease common concerns in the international arena,” according to the state-run Islamic Republic News Agency. Iranian officials did not comment on whether the timing of the proposal is connected to the Sept. 15 deadline set by the White House for Iran to respond to an offer to reopen talks on the nuclear issue.
Chile: 129 ‘dirty war’ arrests
A Chilean judge on Tuesday ordered the arrests of 129 former security officers on charges tied to the disappearance of leftists and the slaying of the communist party leadership during the Pinochet dictatorship. It was the largest number of arrests ever ordered in an investigation of human rights abuses during the “dirty war” waged while Gen. Augusto Pinochet ruled in 1973-90.
Russia: Thousands of tropical fish die at airport
More than 4,000 tropical fish reportedly have died at a Black Sea airport after being held in customs for 15 hours in the summer heat. The fish had been shipped from China , andwere intended for Sochi Discovery World, Russia’s largest oceanarium, which is slated to open this month.
From Herald news services
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