Police identify 3 bodies found on lake shore

PLEASANT PRAIRIE, Wis. – A father and two sons missing from Chicago for more than a month were identified Sunday as the bodies that washed ashore on Lake Michigan bound together by nylon rope and tied to bags filled with sand.

Police say they are treating the case as a homicide.

The victims were identified as Kevin L. Amde, 45; Davinci Amde, 6; and Tesla E. Amde, 3. The bodies were found Saturday by a resident on a beach in Pleasant Prairie, just north of the Illinois state line.

The victims were last seen May 6, when the father picked up the oldest boy from school in Chicago, police said. The children’s mother, Veronica Amde, reported them missing May 11.

D.C.: Judge has no state law license

Thomas Griffith, President Bush’s nominee for the federal appeals court in Washington, has been practicing law in Utah without a state law license for the past four years, according to Utah state officials. Griffith, the general counsel for Brigham Young University since August 2000, had also failed to renew his law license for three years while he was a lawyer in the District of Columbia.

Blacks suffer in elder care, study says

Black Americans are four times as likely as white Americans to reside in understaffed and poorly funded nursing homes that offer substandard care, according to a study being published today in the Milbank Quarterly, a health policy journal. The study also describes a two-tier nursing home system with widespread racial and socio-economic disparities. Nationwide, 40 percent of black nursing home residents live in lower-tier nursing homes, compared with 9 percent of all white nursing home residents.

Minnesota: Landing at wrong airport

A Northwest Airlines flight that was headed to Rapid City, S.D., landed a few miles off course at Ellsworth Air Force Base on Saturday, and passengers had to wait in the plane for more than three hours while their crew was questioned. Passengers on Northwest Flight 1152 from St. Paul were told to close their window shades and not look out, said passenger Robert Morrell. Eventually, the captain and first officer were replaced by a different Northwest crew for the short hop to the correct airport.

California: Inmate in jail lobby 3 days

A diabetic amputee who was released April 2 from the county jail in Los Angeles languished for three days on a bench in the busy jailhouse lobby before he was noticed by deputies and rushed to a hospital, where he later died. Gustavo Ortega, 50, died of coronary artery disease, with diabetes, chronic renal failure and hypertension as contributing factors, the Los Angeles Times reported Sunday. The sheriff’s department said Ortega may have been overlooked because people often linger for hours in the lobby, which is open 24 hours a day.

N.J.: Nurse wanted to be caught

A former nurse who confessed to murdering 16 patients in New Jersey said he wanted to be caught, according to a published report. Charles Cullen told authorities that he once threw away medication worth thousands of dollars in hopes of getting caught and disciplined, The Star-Ledger of Newark reported Sunday. Cullen pleaded guilty to killing 16 patients and claims to have murdered more than twice that number at health facilities in New Jersey and Pennsylvania.

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