Fake bomb brings arrest

Fake bomb brings arrest

BOSTON — An MIT student wearing what turned out to be a fake bomb was arrested at gunpoint Friday at Logan International Airport and later claimed it was artwork, officials said. Star Simpson, 19, had a computer circuit board and wiring in plain view over a black hooded sweatshirt she was wearing, said State Police Maj. Scott Pare, the commanding officer at the airport. Simpson was charged with disturbing the peace and possessing a hoax device. A plea of innocent was entered for her, and she was released on $750 bail. Simpson was “extremely lucky she followed the instructions or deadly force would have been used,” Pare said. Simpson is a Massachusetts Institute of Technology sophomore from Hawaii, officials said. The battery-powered rectangular device had nine flashing lights, and Simpson had Play-Doh in her hands, Pare said.

Serial killer dies of cancer

JACKSON, Mich. — A confessed serial killer who police said may have been responsible for dozens of deaths died Friday, a little more than a week after he received a second life sentence, authorities said. Coral Eugene Watts, who said he targeted women with evil eyes, died in a secure area of Foote Hospital, Michigan Department of Corrections spokesman Russ Marlan said. The 53-year-old Watts, who had been an inmate at the Ionia Maximum Correctional Facility, had been diagnosed with prostate cancer. Watts was a suspect in more than 25 slayings and may have killed more than 80 women. He had confessed 12 killings, 11 in Texas and one in Michigan.

AIDS vaccine fails

TRENTON, N.J. — In a disappointing setback, a promising experimental AIDS vaccine failed to work in a large international test, leading the developer to halt the study. Merck & Co. said Friday that it is ending enrollment and vaccination of volunteers in the study, which was partly funded by the National Institutes of Health.

Columbine memorial

LITTLETON, Colo. — Hundreds of people gathered under blue autumn skies Friday to dedicate an expansive hillside memorial to the Columbine High School massacre victims, after more than eight years of money struggles and occasional disputes. The placid, stone-walled oval nestled in Clement Park is next to the suburban Denver school where two student gunmen killed 12 classmates and a teacher before killing themselves April 20, 1999, plunging the community into mourning and disbelief. The final cost of the memorial was about $2 million, including $400,000 worth of donated materials and in-kind services. Former President Clinton came to Colorado twice to raise money and chipped in $50,000 himself.

Anti-war plan blocked

WASHINGTON — The Senate blocked legislation Friday that would have ordered most U.S. troops home from Iraq in nine months, culminating a losing week for Democrats who failed to push through any anti-war proposal. The vote, 47-47, fell 13 votes short of the 60 needed to cut off debate. Republicans blocked the measure, contending it would have dire consequences for the region and usurp control of the war from seasoned war generals on the ground there. Last week, Gen. David Petraeus, the top U.S. military commander in Iraq, recommended to Congress and President Bush that some 130,000 troops be kept there through next summer — a slight decrease from the more than 160,000 troops there now.

Storm damages homes

EUSTIS, Fla. — Severe weather, including a possible tornado, damaged about 50 homes in central Florida before the system became a subtropical depression Friday and had parts of the Gulf Coast under tropical storm warnings. One person suffered a minor cut in Eustis, and no other injuries were reported in the area about 30 miles northwest of Orlando, Lake County sheriff’s Sgt. John Herrell said. In Eustis, Herrell said 20 houses were uninhabitable and about 30 other homes damaged.

Child-sex case

GULF BREEZE, Fla. — John D.R. Atchison — federal prosecutor, married father of three — was a respected figure who coached girls softball and basketball in a park a few blocks from his home in this well-to-do beach community. He was arrested last weekend in Detroit in an Internet sex sting on charges he traveled to Michigan to molest a 5-year-old girl. Officials say he later tried to hang himself in jail. Atchison, 53, had been communicating with an undercover sheriff’s detective from Macomb County, Mich., who was posing online as the fictitious girl’s mother and arranged for him to have sex with the child, police said. Many people worry about what else Atchison may have done.

Associated Press