Free Republic

Two people are dead and another is critically wounded, after a kidnapping in Jefferson City, MO and pursuit that ran through St. Louis, MO and ended in Bond County, IL, police said.

UW-River Falls official declined Thursday afternoon to discuss the personnel records of a 42-year-old professor charged in St. Croix County Court with sexual assault of a 13-year-old girl, but attorneys soon will know the contents of those documents. University officials Thursday released the records of Thomas W. Barnett of Baldwin, who has pleaded not guilty to felony charges of second-degree sexual assault of a child and false imprisonment. Barnett, a professor of music, is on administrative leave with pay and has been directed by the university not to have contact with any UW System students. A status conference is set...

EL PASO, Texas -- A man accused of leading a powerful and brutal Mexican kidnapping ring was handed to Mexican authorities Friday, two years after U.S. officials deported him without realizing he was wanted. Abel Diaz Lucas, also known as Jorge Guevara-Perez and one of Mexico's most-wanted men, was arrested in El Paso on Thursday after officers received a tip, said Patrick Berry, a Border Patrol spokesman. Diaz, 49, has numerous nicknames, including "The Pig," and Mexican authorities said his gang was notorious for cutting off the fingers and ears of kidnapping victims and sending them to their families with...

DES MOINES (AP) --- Police said Friday that state crime experts were examining photographs to determine if they are of a newspaper delivery boy who disappeared 24 years ago. The photos were left Sunday at the front door of Noreen Gosch, the mother of Johnny Gosch, who disappeared on Sept. 5, 1982, while delivering newspapers in West Des Moines. Lt. Jeff Miller, a spokesman for the West Des Moines Police Department, said the photos were given to the Iowa Division of Criminal Investigation's computer crime task force. Miller said police have not positively identified the boy in the photographs as...

London 27.02.05 | Remember a couple of days ago I reported about another FARC leader having been arrested in Venezuela? Well in spite of some rather odd changing or articles in Venezuela's official media and backpedalling from ministers, presumably due to this piece of news, colonel Óscar Naranjo director of Colombia's investigative police, confirmed the identity of the detainee as that of FARC leader Gentil Alvis Patiño.

MEXICO CITY - A U.S. warning about violence along the border in Mexico created unexpected friction with a crucial neighbor Thursday, just as new Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice (news - web sites) and other new members of President Bush (news - web sites)'s team are starting to take office. The blunt warning was issued because of an upswing of killings and kidnappings linked to battles between drug gangs in towns along the Mexican side of the border, but Mexico's top Cabinet officer, Interior Secretary Santiago Creel, insisted that the warning "went too far." -- snip -- U.S. State Department...

Albanian terrorists take Greek bus hostages My Sat news is reporting 2 Albanians took an unknown number of hostages on the bus. Bus driver escaped. A wave of such terror attacks hit Greece in the 90s. http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&ned=us&ie=ISO-8859-1&q=Bus+hostages+Greece&lr=&sa=N&tab=nw