Spare-tire cables at root of Toyota recall

Spare-tire cables at root of Toyota recall

WASHINGTON

Toyota Motor Corp. said Friday it was recalling 600,000 Sienna minivans sold in the United States to address potentially rusting spare-tire cables that could break and create a road hazard in the latest safety problem to strike the beleaguered automaker.

The recall came as House investigators said they planned to have another congressional hearing in May to review potential electronic problems in runaway Toyotas.

Man pleads guilty to murder of 2 girls

SAN DIEGO

Sex offender John Albert Gardner pleaded guilty Friday to murdering two teenage girls in San Diego County after prosecutors agreed not to seek the death penalty.

Gardner, 31, faces life in prison without parole for killing 14-year-old Amber Dubois and 17-year-old Chelsea King.

He also pleaded guilty to attempting to rape another woman last year.

Dubois vanished in February 2009, and the investigation produced few solid leads until King disappeared Feb. 25 during an afternoon run in about 10 miles south of the site where Dubois vanished.

Judge rejects killer’s allergy argument

COLUMBUS

An inmate scheduled to die next week for raping and strangling a 16-year-old girl has failed to present enough evidence of an allergy to anesthesia that could affect the execution, a federal judge ruled Friday.

Condemned killer Darryl Durr waited too long to raise the issue of an allergy and then relied mainly on speculation to ask for time to investigate, said U.S. District Judge Gregory Frost.

Ex-LA police chief Daryl Gates dies

LOS ANGELES

Daryl F. Gates, the blunt former Los Angeles police chief who waged war on violent gangs and skirmished with city leaders until his handling of the Rodney King police beating and ensuing riots forced him to retire, died Friday of cancer. He was 83.

One of the most polarizing figures in modern law enforcement, Gates served as chief of the Los Angeles Police Department for 14 years beginning in 1978, an era of tumultuous change as the nation’s second-largest city faced a surge in well-armed gangs, a burgeoning illegal drug trade and growing racial conflict.

Leader’s kin want funeral to go on

WARSAW, Poland

The family of late President Lech Kaczynski has urged that his state funeral take place Sunday in Krakow as planned, despite fears that a volcanic-ash cloud emanating from Iceland may keep some world leaders from attending.

It was the family’s first statement since the president and his wife, Maria Kaczynska, died in a plane crash last Saturday in western Russia along with 94 others among Poland’s political and military elite.

Former Blackwater president charged

RALEIGH, N.C.

The former president of Blackwater Worldwide was charged Friday with using straw purchases to stockpile automatic weapons at the security firm and filing false documents to cover up gifts given to the king of Jordan.

Gary Jackson, 52, who left the company last year in a management shake-up, was charged along with four of his former colleagues, according to the federal indictment.

Blackwater has been trying to rehabilitate its image since a 2007 shooting in Baghdad that left 17 people dead. Blackwater has changed its name to Xe Services.

Associated Press