SAN DIEGO – An unemployed software consultant who stockpiled explosive materials in his suburban San Diego-area home has been sentenced to 30 years in federal prison.

George Jakubec looked frail and said nothing during Monday’s hearing.

Authorities found quantities of highly unstable chemicals along with grenade parts in his Escondido home after a gardener was injured in a blast last November. However, prosecutors say they found no evidence that the 55-year-old Jakubec was a terrorist.

Jakubec pleaded guilty to brandishing a firearm under a plea deal. Explosives and bank robbery charges were dropped.

Coasters lead singer Gardner, 83, dies

PORT ST. LUCIE, Fla. – Carl Gardner, original lead singer of the R&B group the Coasters, has died in Florida. He was 83.

Gardner’s wife, Veta, said her husband died Sunday at a Port St. Lucie hospice following a long bout with congestive heart failure and vascular dementia.

Inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1987, the Coasters had a string of hits in the late 1950s. Their single “Yakety Yak” reached No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 following its 1958 release. It also spent seven weeks as the number one rhythm and blues song.

Veta Gardner said of her husband, “He loved his singing. That was his whole life.”

Woman with five dead husbands dies

CHARLOTTE, N.C. – An elderly grandmother who left a trail of five dead husbands in five states over decades has died, leaving a longer trail of questions for survivors of her spouses that might never be answered.

Betty Neumar, 79, died late Sunday or early Monday in a hospital in Louisiana after an illness, her son-in-law Terry Sanders said.

Authorities in North Carolina said they planned to look into her death. She was free on $300,000 bond on three counts of solicitation to commit first-degree murder in the 1986 death of her fourth husband, Harold Gentry. Her trial was postponed numerous times since her arrest in 2008.

“We’re going to make sure we examine the death certificate,” said Sheriff Rick Burris of Stanly County, N.C.

While investigating Gentry’s death, authorities discovered Neumar had been married five times since the 1950s and each union ended in her husband’s death. Investigators reopened several of the cases, but have since closed them.