Bone fragment found in kidnapping investigation

Bone fragment found in kidnapping investigation

ANTIOCH, Calif. — Police said Monday they found one small bone fragment on the property next door to the home of a Northern California man charged with kidnapping a little girl and hiding her in his backyard for 18 years.

The FBI and local law-enforcement agencies in the San Francisco Bay area have been combing Phillip Garrido’s property in Antioch and the one next door for several days looking for any possible links to unsolved crimes in the area.

Garrido and his wife, Nancy, were arrested last week and charged with 29 counts connected to the kidnapping, rape and imprisonment of Jaycee Lee Dugard, who was snatched outside her home in South Lake Tahoe in 1991. They have pleaded innocent.

The bone fragment was found Sunday in the next-door neighbor’s backyard, said Contra Costa County Sheriff’s Department spokesman Jimmy Lee. He said it is not known if it is from an animal or human, and testing will take several weeks.

Garrido once lived on that property in a shed.

Ex-beauty queen sues

LOS ANGELES — Former Miss California USA Carrie Prejean sued pageant officials Monday for libel, slander and religious discrimination, accusing them of telling her to stop mentioning God even before her controversial remarks against gay marriage.

Prejean sued California pageant executive director Keith Lewis and actress and former Miss USA Shanna Moakler, who served as a co-director before resigning in protest of Prejean.

Prejean was fired in June by pageant officials who said she missed several scheduled appearances.

Mexico resort area braces for Hurricane Jimena

LOS CABOS, Mexico — Extremely dangerous Hurricane Jimena roared toward Mexico’s resort-studded Baja California Peninsula on Monday, prompting emergency workers to set up makeshift shelters and chasing away an international finance conference.

Jimena is just short of Category 5 status — the top danger rating for a hurricane — and could rake the harsh desert region fringed with picturesque beaches and fishing villages as a major storm by this evening, forecasters said. Heavy bands of intermittent rain moved across the resort town of Los Cabos on Monday evening.

Hamas leader: Teaching of Holocaust is ‘war crime’

GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip — A Hamas spiritual leader on Monday called teaching Palestinian children about the Nazi murder of 6 million Jews a “war crime,” rejecting a suggestion that the U.N. might include the Holocaust in Gaza’s school curriculum.

A senior Israeli official said such statements should make the West think twice about ending its boycott of Hamas, in place since the group seized Gaza by force in 2007.

Hamas spiritual leader Younis al-Astal lashed out after hearing that the U.N. Relief and Works Agency, the main U.N. body aiding Palestinian refugees, planned to introduce lessons about the Holocaust to Gaza students.

To fight obesity, think location, location, location

WASHINGTON — Where you live matters when it comes to children’s waistlines, says a report that finds lots of options localities could and should use to fight child obesity — from easy bike paths, to luring more-healthful stores, to taxes on junk food.

Yes, whether you snack on a carrot or a doughnut is a personal choice, ultimately. But the report by the Institute of Medicine says local environments hugely influence those choices — and it calls on city and county governments to make it easier for families to make healthier decisions.

Two-thirds of Americans are either overweight or obese, and childhood obesity has tripled in the past three decades.

Tobacco companies sue over new restrictions

RICHMOND, Va. — Two of the three largest U.S. tobacco companies filed suit Monday to block marketing restrictions in a law that gives the U.S. Food and Drug Administration authority over tobacco, claiming the provisions violate their right to free speech.

R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Co., maker of Camel cigarettes, and Lorillard Inc., which sells the Newport menthol brand, filed the federal lawsuit with several other tobacco companies.

It is the first major challenge of the legislation passed and enacted in June, and a lawyer for tobacco consumers doubted the lawsuit will be successful.

Associated Press