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The Spokesman-Review Newspaper
Spokane, Washington  Est. May 19, 1883

In brief: Escaped convict, fiancée captured in eastern Arizona

PHOENIX – An escaped convict and his female companion have been apprehended at an eastern Arizona campground on the Apache-Sitgreaves National Forest, authorities said late Thursday.

Sgt. Richard Guinn of the Apache County Sheriff’s Office said a team of officers arrested John McCluskey and his fiancee, Casslyn Welch, Thursday evening after Forest Service employees spotted the pair and reported them to authorities.

Guinn said McCluskey turned when confronted by officers but was immediately put on the ground. He and Welch, who is also McCluskey’s cousin, are now held at the county jail in St. Johns.

Arizona Corrections Department officials said Welch helped McCluskey and inmates Tracy Province and Daniel Renwick escape July 30 from a private prison facility near Kingman by cutting through a security fence, setting off a massive multistate search.

Renwick was recaptured in Rifle, Colo., on Aug. 1, and Province was found in Meeteetse, Wyo., on Aug. 9. The last confirmed sighting of McCluskey and Welch – two of the most wanted fugitives in America – was on Aug. 6 in Billings.

Renwick and Province were serving time for murder. McCluskey was serving a 15-year prison term for attempted second-degree murder, aggravated assault and discharge of a firearm.

WASHINGTON – The moon may be shrinking.

New research indicates cracks in the moon’s crust that have formed as the interior has cooled and shrunk over the last billion years or so. That means the surface has shrunk, too, though not so you’d notice just from gazing at it.

Scientists have identified 14 landforms called lobate scarps scattered over the surface of the moon, explained Thomas R. Watters of the Center for Earth and Planetary Studies at the Smithsonian’s National Air and Space Museum.

Watters and colleagues describe their find in today’s edition of the journal Science.

The scarps had previously been noted at the moon’s equator, but this is the first evidence in other areas, indicating they result from a global process.

“One of the really cool parts of this … the faults are so young-looking that you can’t escape the possibility that this contraction occurred recently, and could indicate that the moon is still active,” Watters said.

The size of the scarps indicates a shrinkage in the size of the moon of about 328 feet, which wouldn’t be enough to be noticed with the naked eye.