Renowned climber killed at Yosemite

A renowned rock climber was killed when he fell 500 feet after taking a new route up a rock face, a park spokeswoman said Tuesday.

Todd Skinner, 47, was rappelling when he fell to his death Monday on Leaning Tower, Adrienne Freeman said. It was not immediately clear why he fell, but park officials planned to investigate.

Skinner, of Lander, Wyo., was celebrated for having climbed hundreds of rock faces from Yukon Territory to the Himalayas using a technique called free climbing, in which climbers use no artificial aids except for a rope to protect against falls.

He was the first to free climb a now-famous route on El Capitan, a granite monolith in Yosemite that rises 3,000 feet from the valley floor, according to his Web site.

Los Alamos, N.M.

Documents might be from Los Alamos

A drug bust at a trailer park in New Mexico turned up what appeared to be classified documents taken from the Los Alamos nuclear weapons laboratory, authorities said Tuesday.

Local police found the documents while arresting a man suspected of domestic violence and dealing methamphetamine from his mobile home, said Sgt. Chuck Ney of the Los Alamos, N.M., Municipal Police Department. The documents were discovered during a search of the man’s records for evidence of his drug business, Ney said.

Police alerted the FBI to the secret documents, which agents traced back to a woman linked to the drug dealer, officials said. The woman is a contract employee at Los Alamos National Laboratory, according to an FBI official.

The official would not describe the documents except to say that they appeared to contain classified material and were stored on a computer file.

FBI special agent Bill Elwell in Albuquerque, N.M., confirmed that a search warrant was executed on Friday night, but he refused to discuss details.

Tiptonville, Tenn.

Fire chief, others charged with arson

The city’s fire chief and three volunteer firefighters, including the chief’s grandson, were charged Tuesday with setting a string of fires in vacant buildings over the past two years.

The men, all members of the Tiptonville Volunteer Fire Department, were arrested Monday. No one was hurt in the blazes they were accused of starting.

All four men were in the Lake County jail Tuesday after a judge set bond at $100,000 for Fire Chief James Blackburn and $25,000 or more each for the others.

Neighbors were aware someone was setting fires, but they were shocked when the firefighters were charged.

“Everybody knew that we had a firebug for a couple of years,” said Johnny Whitson, who owns an auto body shop near where two buildings burned.

Norman Rhodes, police chief in this town of 2,400 people about 90 miles northeast of Memphis, did not give a motive.

“I don’t think anybody has an explanation,” Rhodes said.