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<p>A state district judge Monday ordered officials in an East Texas county to preserve a 1-inch-long piece of hair that was key evidence almost two decades ago in a capital murder case.</p> <p>An anti-death penalty group wants to know whether Claude Jones was wrongly executed in December 2000. Jones was the last of a record 40 inmates executed in Texas that year and the last of 152 inmates put to death during George W. Bush's time as governor.</p>

Her latest mammogram was clean. But Deborah Lindner, 33, was tired of constantly looking for the lump. Ever since a DNA test had revealed her unusually high chance of developing breast cancer, Ms. Lindner had agonized over whether to have a mastectomy, a procedure that would reduce her risk by 90 percent. She had stared at herself in the mirror, imagining the loss of her familiar shape. She had wondered, unable to ask, how the man she had just started dating would feel about breasts that were surgically reconstructed, incapable of feeling his touch or nursing his children. But she...

At 12:35 a.m. on Tuesday, Sept. 11, a Villa Dunes resident spotted a fire across the sound on Roanoke Island and called 911. Part of The Lost Colony’s Waterside Theatre was in flames. All fire departments north of Oregon Inlet responded. Fire crews worked swiftly and efficiently to control the blaze and take necessary precautions to save the nearby men’s dressing room structure. Despite of the efforts, the maintenance shed, thought to be at or near the source of the fire, was completely destroyed. Charred pieces of framing in a flimsy skeleton, pointing irregularly toward the star-lighted sky, appear to...

One of the more embarrassing mysteries of human evolution is that people are host to no fewer than three kinds of louse while most species have just one. Even bleaker for the human reputation, the pubic louse, which gets its dates and residence-swapping opportunities when its hosts are locked in intimate embrace, does not seem to be a true native of the human body. Its closest relative is the gorilla louse. (Don’t even think about it.) Louse specialists now seem at last to have solved the question of how people came by their superabundance of fellow travelers. And in doing...

Mystery of Mozart Skull Deepens By VOA News 09 January 2006 Forensic scientists say they have failed to unravel the 200-year old mystery of the skull of legendary Austrian composer Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. Austrian television commissioned American and Austrian scientists to carry out DNA tests on a skull that some experts insist is Mozart's. The scientists hoped to match its DNA to genetic samples taken from what they believed are the skeletons of Mozart's grandmother and niece. The scientists said on Austrian television Sunday that the skeletons do not match the skull, and that the skeletons are also unrelated -...

An English Baronet, lacking an heir, is resorting to DNA testing of Americans of the same name to locate a suitable male relative to take up the burden of maintaining the estate. This interesting exercise in genealogy will by covered by the Discovery Channel in a program currently, misleadingly, titled I’m Really a Royal.

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Statement From Governor Bush Regarding Amos King [Jeb requires DNA tests prior to execution] For Immediate Release Monday, December 2, 2002 Contact: Elizabeth Hirst (850) 921-9552 TALLAHASSEE -- Governor Jeb Bush has temporarily stayed the execution of Amos King to allow for additional DNA testing of evidence in this case. King’s execution had been scheduled to take place at 6:00pm today. It is anticipated the additional DNA testing can be completed within the next thirty days. “Carrying out Florida’s death penalty law is one of the most serious responsibilities I have as Governor. Today a representative from the Innocence Project,...

In most states, children born during a marriage are the legal responsibility of the husband. And even for single men, once paternity is acknowledged or established through the courts, it is next to impossible to change. Prosecutors and many children's advocates contend that is the way it ought to be to keep from unduly traumatizing innocent children by snatching away their emotional and financial support. But now a push is underway to cancel mandated child support payments -- and arrearages -- for men who can prove through DNA testing that they are supporting children who are not their flesh and...

BOSTON (AP) - For years, inmate No. W40280 told reporters and supporters that time, not guilt, was his only obstacle to freedom. Years of lobbying earned Benjamin LaGuer an A-list of supporters, including former Boston University Chancellor John Silber, historian Elie Wiesel and MIT professor Noam Chomsky. But long-anticipated testing of the same DNA samples that LaGuer said would prove his innocence instead linked him more closely to the rape for which he is spending his life behind bars.The results shocked many supporters who'd been convinced of his innocence by his magnetic personality and unflagging persistence. One of the aspects...