Suspect in shooting at Holocaust museum dies

Suspect in shooting at Holocaust museum dies

WASHINGTON — The 89-year-old white supremacist charged in a deadly shooting at Washington’s Holocaust museum died Wednesday in North Carolina, where he’d been held while awaiting trial, authorities said.

James von Brunn died shortly before 1 p.m. at a local hospital in Butner, N.C., said Denise Simmons, the spokeswoman for the federal prison where von Brunn had been held. He had been suffering from chronic congestive heart failure, sepsis and other health problems, she said.

Von Brunn, who faced charges that carried the death penalty, had been receiving medical care for months at the prison complex in Butner, which is known for its medical facilities for aging and sick federal inmates.

Authorities say von Brunn carried a rifle as he walked up to the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum on June 10 and then fatally shot security guard Stephen T. Johns, who was black, as he opened the door for von Brunn. He was wounded by gunfire from two other guards.

Drive-by shooting kills 7 leaving Mass in Egypt

CAIRO — Three men in a car sprayed automatic gunfire into a crowd of churchgoers in southern Egypt as they left a midnight Mass for Coptic Christmas, killing at least seven people in a drive-by shooting, the church bishop and security officials said. Egypt’s Interior Ministry said the attack Wednesday just before midnight was suspected as retaliation for the November rape of a Muslim girl by a Christian man in the same town. The statement said witnesses have identified the lead attacker.

Suspected drone missiles kill 13 people in Pakistan

ISLAMABAD — Suspected U.S. drone-missile strikes killed 13 people in Pakistan’s volatile northwest Wednesday, the latest of five such attacks in the past week targeting an area believed to be a hideout for militants involved in a suicide attack on a CIA base in Afghanistan.

The strikes highlight Washington’s growing reliance on unmanned aircraft to control militants staging cross-border attacks on U.S. troops in Afghanistan.

Family sues funeral home over mother’s brain in bag

ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. — A New Mexico family is suing after making a gruesome discovery — a bag of personal effects given to them after their mother’s death contained her brain. Funeral homes in New Mexico and Utah, where the woman died, are blaming each other for the mistake.

The Albuquerque Journal first reported about the lawsuit, filed Monday in state District Court in Albuquerque. According to the complaint, the woman’s relatives “smelled a foul odor coming from the bag” they received from DeVargas Funeral Home and Crematory of the Espanola Valley.

The woman, identified by her initials M.F.R., died in a car accident in Utah on Sept. 28.

Funeral home owner Johnny DeVargas didn’t immediately return telephone messages seeking comment but denied any fault and told the newspaper a Utah funeral home was responsible.

Polanski asks judge for sentencing in absentia

LOS ANGELES — Roman Polanski sent a letter from house arrest in Switzerland asking a Los Angeles judge to sentence him in a sex case without making him return to the U.S., but a ruling was postponed Wednesday. The notarized letter signed by Polanski on Dec. 26 in Gstaad was filed by his lawyer. It said Polanski understood he had the right to be present at all legal proceedings, but “I request that judgment be pronounced against me in my absence.”

The “Chinatown” director fled the U.S. in 1978 on the eve of sentencing after pleading guilty to one count of having sex with a 13-year-old girl.

$250M initiative to train science and math teachers

WASHINGTON — Backed by Santa Clara, Calif.-based Intel and the Intel Foundation, President Barack Obama on Wednesday announced a $250 million public- private initiative to train thousands of math and science teachers and raise student performance in technical fields seen as key to the country’s global competitiveness.

The plan aims to train 10,000 new math and science teachers and 100,000 existing teachers in science, technology, engineering and math by 2015. A similar $260 million public-private partnership was announced in November.

Combined dispatches