Military can’t find hydrogen weapon
Savannah, Ga. The first government search in decades for a hydrogen bomb lost off the Georgia coast in 1958 found no trace of the sunken weapon, the Air Force said Friday.
The report, issued nine months after scientists tested radiation levels off Tybee Island, concluded there is no danger of a nuclear blast from the 7,600-pound bomb and that the weapon should be left where it is, buried somewhere in the muck.
A damaged B-47 bomber jettisoned the Mark-15 bomb into Wassaw Sound about 15 miles from Savannah after colliding with a fighter jet during a training flight.
The military soon gave up the search for the bomb, but decided to look again last year, after a retired Air Force pilot claimed his private search team had detected unusually high radiation levels in the sound.
DNA test clears father on charges of murder
Joliet, Ill. Confronted with a DNA test that didn’t match, authorities dropped murder charges Friday against a man accused of sexually assaulting and drowning his 3-year-old daughter.
Kevin Fox, 28, had claimed he was bullied by police into falsely implicating himself in the girl’s death.
He was released from jail after spending eight months in custody, and said he was looking forward to spending an evening with his wife and their young son.
Fox reported his daughter, Riley, missing last June. Police said he told them he had awoken to find the girl gone and the front door to their home open. Hikers found the girl’s body a short time later in a creek four miles away.
Cool-Cap may prevent infant brain damage
Washington A device that chills newborns’ brains moved a step closer to the market Friday: Government advisers ruled the Cool-Cap may help stave off brain damage in certain infants deprived of oxygen at birth.
But Food and Drug Administration advisers said Seattle-based Olympic Medical Corp.’s Cool-Cap will have to be sold under careful conditions to be sure the emerging technology really helps.
Research shows that mild hypothermia – cooling the body just a few degrees – can significantly improve the odds of an adult’s full recovery after cardiac arrest. It reduces the brain’s need for oxygen, and slows a vicious chain reaction that continues to kill brain cells once blood flow resumes.
Former Taliban envoy admits to tax fraud
New York A former envoy for Afghanistan’s Taliban leadership pleaded guilty Friday to cheating on his taxes and lying on a bank loan application.
Noorullah Zadran, 53, once a top spokesman for the Taliban in the United States, entered the plea to federal charges in U.S. District Court in Manhattan. He faces between two and eight months in prison at his sentencing in September.
Zadran admitted he failed to report $1,541 in income on his 2000 federal tax return. He said he wrote on a loan application that his wife was working when she was wasn’t to get a lower interest rate.
Prosecutors had accused Zadran of not reporting income on tax returns filed from 1998 through 2001 from his job as first secretary for the U.S. office of the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan.
Algerian man pretended he had al Qaeda data
Indianapolis An Algerian man who pretended he had data on a supposed al Qaeda plot to bomb five U.S. cities was sentenced Friday to a year in prison.
Ahmed Allali, 37, was convicted on three counts of making false statements. He had pleaded guilty earlier this year. Allali was convicted for telling federal investigators he knew members of the al Qaeda terrorist network and had lived overseas with them in the late 1990s. He also told them an al Qaeda cell was planning to detonate bombs in five major U.S. cities in early 2005.
Last year, Allali acknowledged he knew no members of al Qaeda and had fabricated the story in an attempt to avoid deportation, authorities said. He had been ordered deported after he entered the United States via Los Angeles in 1998 using a fraudulent French passport.
Authorities said investigation of Allali’s claims tied up hundreds of agents nationwide, diverting resources from other terrorist leads.
Woman granted custody of lesbian partner’s kid
Charleston, W.Va. The state’s highest court on Friday gave custody of a 5-year-old boy to his dead mother’s lesbian partner, despite the protests of the woman’s blood relatives.
Tina Burch had appealed to the West Virginia Supreme Court for custody of the son of her partner, Christina Smarr, who died in a 2002 car accident. Within hours of her death, Smarr’s relatives had given the child to his grandparents.
A family court gave custody to Burch, but a circuit court ruled that she didn’t have the legal rights to her former partner’s child.
Jim Douglas, Burch’s attorney, argued that the boy’s biological father, who was not involved in the child’s life, supported Burch having custody.
The opinion said a “psychological parent” could be a biological, adoptive, foster or stepparent, as long as the parental relationship began with the consent of the legal parent or guardian.
The American Civil Liberties Union praised the ruling, saying it is the first time the court has recognized a gay person’s right to be declared a “psychological parent.”
An attorney for the grandparents did not immediately return a phone message Friday.