Infant safe after apparent abduction
An adopted 5-month-old girl allegedly taken at gunpoint by her biological mother in rural Mississippi was found safe Sunday at a military-base apartment in North Carolina.
Jamie Kiefer and her sister were in custody and others were sought in what authorities said appeared to be a kidnapping that sprang from a custody fight.
On Saturday, two women and an armed man wearing masks stormed into Jennifer and Matt Erickson’s home, tied up Jennifer Erickson with an electrical cord and fled with the baby, Madison Erickson.
Jennifer Erickson was able to free herself and called authorities, who tracked down and arrested Kiefer and her sister Rikki Swann. Authorities say that Kiefer took part in the kidnapping and that Swann helped her afterward. Madison was examined at Womack Army Medical Center at Fort Bragg, N.C., and turned over to child welfare workers while the Ericksons traveled from Mississippi to North Carolina to retrieve the girl.
WASHINGTON
Senator seeks censure of Bush
Liberal Democratic Sen. Russ Feingold said Sunday he wants Congress to censure President Bush for his management of the Iraq war and his “assault” against the Constitution.
Feingold, a prominent war critic, said he soon plans to offer two censure resolutions.
The first would seek to reprimand Bush for, as Feingold described it, getting the nation into war without adequate military preparation and for issuing misleading public statements.
The second would seek to censure Bush for what the Democrat called a continuous assault against the rule of law through such efforts as the warrantless surveillance program against suspected terrorists, Feingold said. It would also ask for a reprimand of Attorney General Alberto Gonzales and maybe others.
“This is an opportunity for people to say, let’s at least reflect on the record that something terrible has happened here,” said Feingold, D-Wis., on NBC’s “Meet the Press.”
At the White House, spokesman Trey Bohn said, “We realize that Senator Feingold does not care much for the president’s policies.”
CENTEREACH, N.Y.
Man killed as he tries to halt driver
A man trying to stop a friend from driving drunk after a block party was run over by the woman’s car and killed, police said.
Louis Wiederer was holding onto the driver’s side of Jesenia Vega’s car Saturday evening when she took off and dragged him, Suffolk County police said. Wiederer, 26, lost his grip and fell under the vehicle.
Wiederer had argued with Vega to prevent her from driving, and he had warned her, “You can’t drive like that,” witnesses said.
Vega, 27, was arrested at the scene and was charged with driving while intoxicated. She pleaded not guilty Sunday and was being held in jail.