Arrests made in illegal organ ring
The owner of a biomedical supply house and three other men were charged Thursday with secretly carving up corpses and selling the parts for use in transplants across the country.
The case was “like something out of a cheap horror movie,” Brooklyn District Attorney Charles Hynes said.
Prosecutors said the defendants obtained the bodies from funeral parlors in three states and forged death certificates and organ donor consent forms to make it look as if the bones, skin, tendons, heart valves and other tissue were legally removed. Michael Mastromarino, owner of Biomedical Tissue Services of Fort Lee, N.J., was charged along with Brooklyn funeral home owner Joseph Nicelli.
Washington
FBI concerned by interrogations
FBI officials who were interrogating terrorism suspects at the U.S. detention facility at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, in 2002 and 2003 strenuously objected to aggressive techniques the military was using and believed they could be illegal, according to FBI memos released Thursday.
The agents wrote in memos and e-mails that they were at odds with interrogators working for a Defense Intelligence Agency human intelligence group and with guidance from senior Pentagon officials. The agents also repeatedly expressed their concerns to the senior military officer at the base – Maj. Gen. Geoffrey Miller – and argued that the less aggressive FBI-approved methods were more effective.
The American Civil Liberties Union, which obtained the memos in a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit, first released versions of them in December 2004. But the memos released Thursday included previously blacked-out statements and detailed discussions of FBI’s concerns.
Phoenix
Gunman persuaded to release hostages
A hostage situation in a central Phoenix high-rise ended peacefully Thursday night when the gunman surrendered and his captives were released, a police spokesman said.
Sgt. Andy Hill said negotiations between police and the gunman resolved the situation. “We were able to figure out a way to show him his wife and sister in a very safe manner,” Hill said. “It was a very tenuous situation.”
Police said George L. Curran, 42, of Chandler, Ariz., pulled a gun during a legal proceeding and took as many as nine people hostage. One captive escaped and another was allowed to leave.
Commander Kim Humphrey said police do not know a motive yet: “Maybe he was at the wrong place at the wrong time. Maybe he didn’t like somebody.”
Washington
Jurassic mammal surprisingly large
The discovery of a furry, beaverlike animal that lived at the time of dinosaurs has overturned more than a century of scientific thinking about Jurassic mammals.
For over a century, the stereotype of mammals living in that era has been of tiny, shrew-like creatures scurrying about in the underbrush trying to avoid the giant creatures that dominated the planet.
Now, a research team has found that 164 million years ago, the newly discovered mammal with a flat, scaly tail like a beaver, vertebra like an otter and teeth like a seal was swimming in lakes and eating fish.
The team, led by Qiang Ji of the Chinese Academy of Geological Sciences in Beijing, discovered the remains in the Inner Mongolia region of China. Their findings are reported in today’s issue of the journal Science.