Nation in brief: Escaped killer caught in Canada

One of the nation’s most wanted fugitives was captured Thursday in Canada, more than a year after the convicted murderer slipped out of a federal prison with bags of mail in his third escape from confinement, the U.S. Marshals Service said.

Richard McNair was captured about 100 miles north of the Canadian border in Campbellton, New Brunswick, after authorities pulled him over in a stolen van, Ward County Sheriff Vern Erck said.

Deputy U.S. Marshal Glenn Belgard in Alexandria, La., who has been in charge of the investigation, confirmed the capture through photographs.

McNair was convicted of killing Jerome Theis, of Circle Pines, Minn., in November 1987, during a burglary at a Minot grain elevator. McNair, 48, escaped from a federal prison in Pollock, La., by smuggling himself out in a pile of mailbags on April 5, 2006, authorities said.

McNair also escaped twice in North Dakota.

WASHINGTON

Free repair kit for cribs offered

Simplicity Inc. is providing consumers a free repair kit to Simplicity and Graco-brand cribs that were recalled after three children became entrapped and suffocated, the government said Thursday.

The Consumer Product Safety Commission said the repair kit immobilizes the crib’s drop side, which can detach and create a gap in the crib that children can slide into and suffocate. The free repair kit will be sent to crib owners who have pre-registered or who register now on Simplicity’s Web site at www.simplicity forchildren.com or the company’s hotline at (888) 593-9274.

Simplicity recalled about 1 million cribs Sept. 21 after reports of the three deaths as well as reports that seven infants became entrapped in the cribs.

DALLAS

Lock of Che’s hair brings $100,000

A hair lock snipped from Ernesto “Che” Guevara before his burial in 1967 sold for $100,000 at auction Thursday to a Houston-area bookstore owner who called the Marxist “one of the greatest revolutionaries of the 20th century.”

Bill Butler, 61, won the 3-inch tress clipped from Guevara’s mane after placing the only bid, which matched the reserve price.

Butler, who bid over the phone, said he was a collector of 1960s items and that the hair lock would fit in well.

Before the auction, the company had been monitoring “leftist bloggers” upset that the company was profiting from Guevara’s death, Heritage spokeswoman Kelley Norwine said.