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NASHVILLE, Tenn. - A convicted murderer who escaped from a Michigan psychiatric facility in 1976 was back behind bars Thursday after living most of his 30 years on the run as an otherwise law-abiding family man in Tennessee, authorities said. Thomas Ball, 76, was arrested at his Nashville home Wednesday morning, Deputy U.S. Marshal Danny Shelton said. Ball had been using the name Thomas Fry and had run a storage business near Nashville for years with a woman he called his wife, Shelton said. After she died last year, he turned to the government for financial help, and that led...

A failure by the U.S. and the European Union to reach a new agreement next month on the provision of passenger data for transatlantic flights could ground up to 105,000 people each week, the International Air Transport Association's director general said Thursday. The two sides need to reach a new accord by the end of September, after the European Court of Justice ruled in May that the current agreement is unacceptable. That agreement calls for airlines to provide U.S. authorities with the names, addresses, ticket payment details, and telephone numbers of passengers on U.S.-bound flights. The EU's highest court ruled...

Ivy League Professor Caught with Videos That Show Him Having Sex with Children, Feds Say August 28, 2006 6:10 PMJack Date Reports: An Ivy League business school professor is in federal custody for allegedly having videos of himself engaging in sexual acts with children, ABC News has learned.Lawrence Scott Ward, 63, Professor Emeritus of Marketing at University of Pennsylvania's renowned Wharton School of Business, was caught with child pornography in his luggage and on his laptop computer after arriving at Dulles International Airport on a flight from Brazil, according to court documents.An affidavit in support of a criminal complaint...

BISBEE — A Phoenix woman caught in Douglas driving a stolen car with nine illegal immigrants inside was sentenced to 2 1/2 years in prison by a Cochise County Superior Court judge Friday. Liliana Lopez, 19, asked Judge Tom Collins for probation, which was one of several sentencing alternatives included in a plea agreement she signed in July. “Well, I’m not going to do that,” said Collins, who cited the value of the stolen property, the fact that Lopez was transporting illegal immigrants, and that she admitted to belonging to a gang as aggravating circumstances. According to court records, a...

Imagine going to get your car repaired, paying for it, and then finding out that the work was never done. With the help of insiders, NBC4 uncovered an apparent scheme at several Los Angeles area Jiffy Lube stores. The Los Angeles District Attorney's Office has asked customers who have had problems at Jiffy Lube stores to contact the DA's Consumer Protection Division, by e-mail, at jiffylube@lacountyda.org

JPFO began our campaign to "Boot the BATFE" (www.jpfo.org/bootbatfe.htm) in January of 2005. The instigating factor was a tape we received, a tape that indisputably showed BATFE agents attempting to frame an innocent gun owner, John Glover. That tape -- which we promptly copied and began distributing as _BATFE Fails the Test_ (www.jpfo.org/batfevideo.htm) -- was something the BATFE _never_ intended you to see. Thanks to it, the charges against Glover were dropped and all but one of his firearms returned. Eighteen months later, we offer you something else the BATFE was hoping wouldn't get out: John Glover's story, straight from...

Tucson Police say men on a surveillance tape are doing more than just washing a car. They say they're trying to erase evidence. Tucson Police say that surveillance tape may solve the mystery for a family who says someone broke into their home. It's a story you'll see only on News 4. A Tucson family says they've been living in fear since their home was burglarized a week ago. Police say whoever did it took off with electronics, personal identification information, jewelry and the family car. Monday, the family talked only to News 4's Lupita Murillo. ------ The men in...

Apple's Jobs caught up in US options scandal (Filed: 30/06/2006) Apple Computer has launched an internal investigation after admitting it may have manipulated stock-option grants to benefit executives, including chief executive Steve Jobs. The admission wraps Apple into the unfolding business scandal that is spreading to some of America's best-known companies. At least 60 have now disclosed possible stock option irregularities. Tainted: Steve Jobs may have been awarded a manipulated grant Investigators are trying to determine whether companies inflated the value of stock options awarded to senior executives by backdating or timing the grants to coincide with days when the...

KENNER, Louisiana — Three people convicted of hauling away liquor, wine and beer from a grocery store after Hurricane Katrina were sentenced to 15 years in prison. The judge said Wednesday he wanted to send a message that looting would not be tolerated when he gave the maximum sentence to Coralnelle Little, 36, Rhonda McGowen, 42, and Paul C. Pearson, 36. A jury convicted the trio May 2 on a portion of the state's looting law that took effect two weeks before the Aug. 29 storm. The amended law set a three-year minimum sentence, and a maximum of 15 years...

One in four shops is caught selling knives to children under 16 By David Derbyshire, Consumer Affairs Editor (Filed: 21/06/2006) More than a quarter of shops that stock knives are illegally selling them to children under 16, according to a survey by trading standards officials. Despite concerns about rising knife violence, a significant number of shopkeepers are failing to check the ages of teenage customers or are wilfully turning a blind eye. Richard Beckett, 14, shows knives bought by teenage volunteers However, there was some evidence that the recent spate of stabbings and the Home Office amnesty may finally be...

It may not be on a scale of Franklin D. Roosevelt's attempt to pack the Supreme Court, but Assembly Speaker Fabian Núñez's bid to pack the Coastal Commission with his cronies is very troubling all the same. As speaker, Núñez, D-Los Angeles, gets to make four appointments to the 12-member panel. Under state law, if an appointee is unable to attend a Coastal Commission meeting, he may send a designated alternate in his place. Núñez, however, is attempting to dictate who the four alternates will be – a clear usurpation of each commissioner's legal authority. What's more, the timing of...

A black bear chased, caught and mauled a bicycle rider on a mountain trail in Canada's oldest and most popular national park, and was shot and killed when it refused to leave the area, a warden said. The biker, Greg Flaaten, 41, a Web administrator for the town of Banff, was being treated for severe arm injuries at Foothills Hospital in Calgary following the attack, and reconstructive surgery in the biceps and triceps area was scheduled Monday. Authorities initially feared Flaaten might lose his arm, but that concern was eased when a key artery was found to be intact, maintaining...

Taylor 'looked like whipped dog' as justice caught up By Hans Nichols in Freetown, Sierra Leone (Filed: 02/04/2006) Slumped and sombre, Charles Taylor uttered not a single word as he sat in the United Nations helicopter that spirited him from Liberia, where he once ruled, to neighbouring Sierra Leone, where he is accused of committing war crimes. "He looked like a whipped dog. A look of total defeat," said a UN official, one of 16 passengers on the flight that brought Taylor to the tribunal he has eluded for three years. Charles Taylor in Freetown "You look at someone that...

Former Tucson sector Border Patrol agent Scott James says he caught his fair share of illegal immigrants from countries other than Mexico during his years of service with the agency. Not that it really mattered, he added. James, who resigned from the Border Patrol two months ago, said his job, like those of his colleagues, was little more than a sham. Enforcing the law was the last thing the Department of Homeland Security wanted, he said. Some illegal immigrants apprehended on the border are from Pakistan, Iraq, China and other countries considered by the Department of Homeland Security to be...

ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. - Two brothers who had eluded a string of felony drug and weapons charges for 15 years have been captured and were found with stockpiles of drugs, weapons and gunpowder, a U.S. marshal said Saturday. A tip earlier in the week led authorities to a rented home in rural southwestern New Mexico, where the brothers were arrested Friday on weapons, explosives and other charges from a 1991 warrant in Merriam, Kan., officials said. Geoffrey Rose, 62, and Gregory Rose, 50, were taken into custody without incident, U.S. Marshal Gorden Eden said. The men were thought to be aligned...

Atmospheric 'sprites' captured in explosive detail 18:28 16 February 2006 NewScientist.com news service Kimm Groshong Sprites are rare and fleeting events, lasting between just 10 and 100 milliseconds (Image: Steven A Cummer, Duke University) Mysterious flashes of light called “sprites", that occur above thunderclouds during powerful storms, have been captured on film in unprecedented detail by researchers using an ultra-high-speed camera. The best images yet of the flashes – which resemble a giant undulating jellyfish with its tentacles falling from a halo of light – have allowed the team to pick apart their structure and mechanics. Sprites are fleeting events,...

Obesity 'can be caught like a cold' By Roger Highfield, Science Editor (Filed: 31/01/2006) Evidence that obesity could be contagious was published yesterday by American researchers - and washing your hands could be an elementary step to avoiding the virus and becoming overweight. A team led by Dr Leah Whigham, of the University of Wisconsin, Madison, found that the human adenovirus Ad-37 causes obesity in chickens, marking the third virus to be linked to being overweight: two related viruses, Ad-36 and Ad-5, also cause obesity in animals. Moreover, Ad-36 has been associated with human obesity, leading researchers to suspect that...

TIKRIT, Iraq (Army News Service, Dec. 28, 2005) – Three weapons caches were discovered and destroyed by Iraqi and U.S. Soldiers Dec. 27 in north central Iraq. Soldiers from the 101st Airborne Division’s 1st Brigade Combat Team discovered a large cache of mortar rounds and artillery fuses while patrolling near Hawijah. Nearly 400 mortar rounds of various types and sizes, along with 250 lbs. of explosive propellant, 878 artillery fuses, 1,900 rounds of small arms ammunition, a Russian-made anti-tank missile and an anti-personnel mine were blown up by an explosive ordnance disposal team at the site in a controlled detonation....

TIKRIT, Iraq (Army News Service, Dec. 8, 2005) – Just a week after a huge cache of mortars was uncovered near the northern Iraqi city of Kirkuk, another large terrorist cache was discovered Dec. 6 near the neighboring city of Tuz. Soldiers from the 2nd Battalion, 1st Brigade Combat Team, 101st Airborne Division, found two storage bunkers crammed with weapons near Forward Operating Base Bernstein, west of the city. More than 400 rockets of various types and 80 mortar rounds were discovered in the bunkers. Mortars and rockets, along with IEDs, are the preferred weapons of terrorists, officials said, because...

Man sacked after being caught smoking at home By Kate Connolly in Berlin (Filed: 03/12/2005) A German company has sacked one of its employees for smoking at home after hiring a detective to catch him in the act. Sandro Beier was dismissed from his £19,000-a-year job with a Berlin printing company after being photographed smoking in his back garden. The company, Laserline, which runs a rigorous health and fitness programme for its 100 staff, said Mr Beier, 42, had "defrauded" it by lying about his smoking habits. It claimed that Mr Beier had signed an agreement, renewable every month, in...