Police: Father kills 3 kids at hotel, tells front desk

Police: Father kills 3 kids at hotel, tells front desk

BALTIMORE — A man killed his three young children at a downtown hotel Sunday, then called the front desk to report the killings, police said.

Mark Castillo, 41, of Silver Spring, called the desk at the Baltimore Marriott Inner Harbor at Camden Yards about 1:15 p.m. Sunday and said he had just killed his two sons and daughter, said police spokesman Sterling Clifford. Police identified the children as Anthony, 6, Austin, 4, and Athena, 2.

After hotel security called police, Clifford said officers went to a 10th-floor room and found three children dead and Castillo with minor cuts that appeared to have been self-inflicted, Clifford said. Castillo was taken to a hospital for treatment of the cuts and is in police custody.

CIA director: Region is ‘clear and present danger’

WASHINGTON — The situation in the border region between Afghanistan and Pakistan where al-Qaida has established a safe haven presents a “clear and present danger” to the West, the CIA director said Sunday.

Michael Hayden cited the belief by intelligence agencies that Osama bin Laden is hiding there in arguing that the U.S. has an interest in targeting the border region. If there were another terrorist attack against Americans, Hayden said, it would most certainly originate from that region.

Washington has sought reassurance that Pakistan’s new coalition government will keep the pressure on extremist groups using the country’s lawless northwest frontier as a springboard for attacks in Afghanistan and beyond.

Protests in Chile leave 1 dead, 200-plus arrested

SANTIAGO, Chile — Violent clashes between police and protesters commemorating the killing of two leftists during Chile’s 1973-90 dictatorship left one person dead, nine officers injured and more than 200 demonstrators arrested, authorities said Sunday.

The fatality was a 23-year-old man shot by masked demonstrators who claimed he was an infiltrator, Santiago Gov. Alvaro Erazo said.

The protests broke out Saturday night and lasted into Sunday morning in several working-class neighborhoods in Chile’s capital. Police used tear gas and water cannons against hundreds of protesters commemorating the “Day of the Young Combatant,” a day that marks the killing by police 23 years ago of two young brothers during Gen. Augusto Pinochet’s dictatorship.

Police said one officer was shot in a leg and hospitalized. Eight other policemen were injured.

2 tons of cocaine seized

LIMA, Peru — Police seized more than 2 tons of cocaine and arrested four alleged members of an international drug-trafficking gang in two coordinated raids, Peruvian officials said Sunday.

Authorities confiscated 1.7 tons of cocaine from a house in a Lima suburb and another half-ton from a building in the neighboring port of Callao late Saturday, said Col. Demetrio Perez Vargas, chief of information for Peru’s national police.

The cocaine, found hidden in king-size mattresses, was apparently destined for Europe, police said in a statement. A Venezuelan and three Peruvians were arrested.

Peruvian authorities have confiscated nearly 11 tons of drugs in the first three months of 2008, according to the national police.

Suspect breaks out of jail

MEXICO CITY — One of two suspects in the killing of a University of Colorado student who was vacationing in a Mexican resort town has escaped from jail, police said Sunday.

The guard on duty accidentally released 30-year-old Alfonso Ramirez Sastre on Friday morning after he apparently swapped clothing with a cellmate, a Puerto Vallarta municipal police spokeswoman said on condition of anonymity. Ramirez and Daniel Vargas, also 30, had been arrested in the Wednesday shooting death of 21-year-old David Parrish of Boulder, Colo., she said. Police believe Ramirez fired the gun.

Gene hunting paying off

NEW YORK — Scientists are scanning human DNA with a precision and scope once unthinkable and rapidly finding genes linked to cancer, arthritis, diabetes and other diseases.

It’s a payoff from a landmark achievement completed five years ago — the identification of all the building blocks in the human DNA. Follow-up research and leaps in DNA-scanning technology have opened up a flood of new reports about genetic links to disease.

Three research groups reported finding several genetic variants tied to the risk of getting prostate cancer.

And over the past year or so, scientists have reported similar results for conditions ranging from heart attack to multiple sclerosis to gallstones.

Associated Press