Free Republic

Montana wildlife officials shot and killed a grizzly bear early Friday morning that was believed to have dragged a woman from her tent in Montana earlier this week and killed her. The bear was killed less than two miles from Ovando, a Montana town of fewer than 100 people and the place the woman was killed Tuesday morning. “Last night, the Powell County Sheriff’s Office took a report from a resident who came home and found her door ripped off and large claw marks were present,” the sheriff’s office said on Facebook Friday. “A short time later a male grizzly...

Leah Davis Lokan, 65, of Chico, California, was on a long-distance bicycling trip and had stopped in the western Montana town of Ovando when she was killed early Tuesday, said Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks officials as they provided more details about the attack. Lokan was killed on the bear’s second visit to the site where she and two fellow bicyclists were camping near the post office, officials said. The approximately 400-pound (181 kilogram) grizzly first awakened the campers about 3 a.m., officials said. They took food out of their tents, secured it and went back to sleep, they said.

SNIPPET: "WASHINGTON – Four members of a violent guerilla organization were indicted on Friday on conspiracy and hostage-taking charges stemming from the kidnapping of more than 60 people in Colombia in 2000, including three United States nationals."

A South Florida mom who brought her five young children along for the ride when she staged car crashes to make cash will spend even longer in prison because she put her kids in harm's way, a judge ruled Friday. Ana Ovando, was already looking at a four-year prison term. Instead, she'll spend 6 1/2 years in federal lockup, U.S. District Judge Donald Middlebrooks decided.