Unabomber’s works ordered to be sold
San Francisco A federal appeals court Thursday ordered the government to sell Unabomber Theodore Kaczynski’s writings and other materials seized in 1996 from his Montana cabin and use the proceeds to compensate his victims.
Kaczynski, who pleaded guilty in 1998 to a nearly 20-year bombing spree that killed three people and wounded 23, wanted to donate his works to the University of Michigan. The U.S. government wanted to keep his autobiography and other writings.
A three-judge panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals unanimously said that the government’s plan was “untenable” and that the property should be sold for whatever it can fetch in the marketplace. The proceeds, the court said, must be used to help pay the $15 million in restitution Kaczynski’s victims were awarded.
The materials Kaczynski wants to donate include journals, letters and an autobiography. He is also seeking the return of books, clothes and other belongings.
Teen plotting massacre gets 4½ years in jail
Mount Clemens, Mich. A teenager accused of plotting a massacre at his suburban Detroit high school was sentenced to a minimum of 4½ years in prison Thursday for threatening terrorism and amassing an arsenal in his home.
“I look back and realize how lost I was,” Andrew Osantowski told the court. “I am truly sorry for the things I have done. My family never raised me like this.”
A jury found Osantowski guilty in June of threatening an act of terrorism and using a computer to threaten terrorism, after authorities found Internet chat room messages last year in which he said he may kill students at Chippewa Valley High School.
Police arrested Osantowski on Sept. 16 after discovering the Internet messages. He had been corresponding with a 16-year-old girl in Moscow, Idaho, who alerted her father, a Washington State University police officer, who contacted Michigan authorities.
Among evidence introduced at trial were 12 pages of correspondence between Osantowski and the girl, in which Osantowski said he was bullied at school and at home and wanted to take revenge.
Trump offers cheap fix for aging U.N. building
Washington Donald Trump is the only person standing between an honest deal to rebuild the aging U.N. headquarters and a massive waste of public money.
He told senators so Thursday.
“When can you start?” said one appreciative lawmaker, Sen. Mark Dayton, D-Minn.
The United Nations says it will cost $1.2 billion to overhaul the 39-story building along New York’s East River. No, says the city’s highest-profile developer. More like $3 billion, he told senators.
Trump’s estimate for the work: $600 million to $700 million. He appealed to members of a Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs subcommittee to let him do it. He would manage the project and waive his fee.
Besides, he knows what it takes to get things built in Manhattan and U.N. types don’t, he said.
“They don’t know what they want, they don’t know what they have, they don’t know what they’re doing,” Trump said.