SWANTON, Ohio
Man stabs wife, kills self, 2 kids in standoff
A man stabbed his wife, then fatally shot their two children and himself during a standoff with police Saturday.
Clarence Saunders, 58, Lauren Saunders, 10, and Jacob Saunders, 5, were found dead in the home near Swanton, Ohio, about 30 miles west of Toledo, according to the Fulton County Sheriff’s Office.
Earlier in the day, Clarence Saunders called 911 to report that his wife, Patricia, was bleeding from a cut to the abdomen. She told medical personnel her husband had stabbed her, and they summoned deputies.
A deputy who entered the home was shot twice in the shoulder. After calls by a negotiator were unanswered, officers entered to find the man and his children dead.
SOMERVILLE, Mass.
Cops call trashed cash “a very bad mistake”
The $31,535 in drug money came to police headquarters as evidence but left with the trash.
The money is now buried forever under tons of garbage in a New Hampshire landfill.
The money went missing after a technician who had been cleaning out evidence rooms put it in a broken desk, authorities said.
On Monday, while the technician was out of the office, two other officers doing spring cleaning threw out the desk.
Officers went to the landfill Wednesday to try to dig up the cash but found only hundreds of tons of super-dense, hydraulically compacted waste.
“A very bad mistake,” said acting Police Chief Robert Bradley.
SUNRISE, Fla.
Caught gator believed to be jogger’s killer
Wildlife officers captured an alligator Saturday that they believe was responsible for fatally attacking a woman while she was out jogging.
The 9-foot, 6-inch alligator was trapped just under the bridge where Yovy Suarez Jimenez, 28, was last seen, Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission spokeswoman Dani Moschella said.
Two human arms were found inside the alligator’s belly, Moschella said.
Witnesses had reported seeing a woman matching Suarez’s description dangling her feet over the water’s edge Tuesday, but no one saw an attack.
ROCKVILLE, Md.
Teens’ online brags of arson bring charges
Two teenagers were charged with setting fires in suburban Washington after they bragged about the blazes on MySpace.com, authorities said.
The 17-year-old schoolmates were involved in 17 fires in Montgomery County, fire officials said Friday. The teens face 22 charges, including two counts each of first-degree arson and four counts of second-degree arson.
Stores, vehicles, a bowling alley and two school buses were set on fire from Jan. 20 to April 16. Investigators got a tip to check out the online social networking site MySpace.com, where they found photos and descriptions.
BOISE, Idaho
Spud worker had soft spot for heart potato
The Idaho Potato Commission’s president says there’s no way a heart-shaped potato should have made it through the state’s inspection system.
Yet it did – during Potato Lover’s Month.
“I would guarantee someone saw it and thought, ‘This is cool, we’ll let this go through,”‘ commission president Frank Muir said.
Normally, odd-shaped spuds are turned into french fries.
In this case, the spud ended up in Linda Greene’s kitchen in Moon Township, Pa.
Greene is storing the potato in her basement. “I don’t have the heart to cut it,” she said.
VATICAN CITY
Pope names bishop for Vietnam diocese
Pope Benedict XVI on Saturday named a new bishop for Vietnam, a country that lacks ties with the Vatican but has the second-highest number of Catholics in Southeast Asia.
Relations between the Holy See and Vietnam’s communist government have sometimes been strained over Hanoi’s insistence on having the final say in most of the church’s appointments.
The Vatican said the Rev. Joseph Cau Ngoc Tri will serve as Da Nang’s bishop, replacing a bishop who retired. The 49- year-old bishop was born in a village in Da Nang diocese.
Late last year, thousands of faithful turned out for a ceremony in Vietnam to mark the creation of a new diocese, the first in more than 30 years, in a sign of thawing relations between the Vatican and Vietnam.
SEOUL, South Korea
Thousands protest move of U.S. bases
Thousands rallied on a downtown Seoul boulevard Saturday to protest a plan to relocate American military bases, the largest anti-U.S. demonstration in the South Korean capital this year.
According to police estimates, about 6,000 people came out to protest moving the Seoul-based American military headquarters and some other bases to Pyeongtaek, about 40 miles south of the capital.
The relocation has been a main target of anti-U.S. activists. They claim the project is part of a U.S. scheme to position its troops in a place where they can be quickly deployed to possible conflicts outside the Korean Peninsula.
HARARE, Zimbabwe
Country’s annual inflation tops 1,000%
Zimbabwe’s annual inflation rate topped 1,000 percent for the first time, underlining the economic collapse of a country crippled by shortages.
Moffat Nyoni, director of the Government’s Central Statistical Office, said that inflation for the 12 months to April 2006 was 1,042.9 percent, according to a state radio report Saturday.
A package of the cheapest candy costs 57,000 Zimbabwe dollars and a loaf of bread 100,000 Zimbabwe dollars. The maximum denomination note is 50,000 Zimbabwe dollars, forcing shoppers to carry bags full of money for basic daily purchases.
One U.S. dollar equals about 100,905 Zimbabwe dollars.
ILADO, Nigeria
Stepped-up security ordered at pipelines
President Olusegun Obasanjo ordered increased security around Nigeria’s pipelines after an explosion at one killed up to 200 people, state radio said Saturday.
Rescue workers gathering bodies and spraying disinfectant at the blast site Saturday hoped to finish burying the dead in mass graves by day’s end, Lagos State Health Commissioner Tola Kasali said.
About 100 were buried Friday.
Twenty-two charred bodies could be seen floating Saturday in mangrove swamps 5 miles from Ilado village in southwestern Nigeria, where gasoline gushing from the pipeline exploded Friday, killing villagers scavenging for the fuel.
Residents of the area said that impoverished villagers have been pilfering gas from the pipelines for years and that Friday’s blast would probably not end the practice.
KATMANDU, Nepal
Rebel chief offers plan for peace
Nepal’s communist rebel chief put forth a peace plan Saturday that seeks the release of political prisoners, the dissolution of parliament and the constitution, and the restructuring of the national army.
The new government, meanwhile, arrested several ministers from King Gyanendra’s ousted regime and suspended police and intelligence chiefs.
Rebel chief Prachanda said in a statement that he would participate in direct talks with the government once his team of three negotiators had carried out a preliminary dialogue with officials.
An associate of Prachanda had announced his participation Friday, hours after Deputy Prime Minister Khadga Prasad Oli told The Associated Press that negotiations would be ineffective without him.
SÃO PAULO, Brazil
Gang attacks on cops spur deadly gunfights
One of Brazil’s most notorious gangs staged dozens of attacks on police before dawn Saturday, setting off gunfights in three cities that killed at least 30 people, officials said. Twenty-four prison uprisings also were reported across São Paulo state.
It was the worst assault on authority since gangsters armed with machine guns, bombs and other weapons attacked police stations in São Paulo city over a 10-day stretch in November 2003.
