Mother of slain man files $10M claim

Mother of slain man files $10M claim

PHOENIX

The mother of an Oklahoma man believed to have been killed by an Arizona prison escapee has filed a $10 million claim against Arizona and a wrongful-death lawsuit against the company that operates the prison that housed the fugitive.

The Thursday claim, filed by Vivian Haas against the state, is the precursor to a lawsuit. The wrongful-death lawsuit was filed against Management & Training Corporation of Delaware on Wednesday. The company operates the private prison near Kingman where three fugitives escaped July 30.

Police believe one of those escaped inmates, John McCluskey, shot Gary Haas and his wife, Linda, near Santa Rosa, N.M., in the days after the escape.

Taliban say they killed 43 Shiites

QUETTA, Pakistan

A suicide bombing claimed by the Pakistani Taliban killed at least 43 Shiite Muslims at a procession in southwest Pakistan on Friday.

To the northwest in Pakistan’s restive tribal regions, two suspected U.S. missile strikes killed at least seven people in an area controlled by one of the main groups battling Americans in neighboring Afghanistan, Pakistani intelligence officials said.

Two other militant bombings left at least two people dead and several wounded.

DioGuardi to leave ‘American Idol’

LOS ANGELES

Kara DioGuardi is officially out at “American Idol.”

After months of speculation, Fox announced Friday that the songwriter who joined the Fox singing competition’s judging panel during its eighth season in 2009 was stepping down from her role as a judge.

The show returns to the air in January.

Prof in ’03 scare is cause of shutdown

MIAMI

The suspicions airport- security officials had when they saw the metal canister grew when they learned about the man who brought it in from the Middle East: a scientist who sparked a bioterrorism scare seven years ago.

Officials shut down most of Miami International Airport overnight, roused hotel guests from their beds and detained Dr. Thomas Butler until Friday morning, when he was released without charges, a senior law- enforcement official said.

Tests on the canister found nothing dangerous, according to a release from the FBI’s Miami field office.

Butler, 70, is a world-renowned plague researcher who became the focus of a federal investigation in 2003 when he reported that 30 vials of plague samples possibly had been stolen from his Texas Tech University lab.

Fire at Tennessee mosque ruled arson

MURFREESBORO, Tenn.

Federal investigators said Friday that a suspicious fire that damaged construction equipment at the site of a future mosque in Tennessee was arson and offered a $20,000 reward for information leading to an arrest.

The future mosque in Tennessee, like other houses of worship for Muslims across the country, has been drawn into a fierce debate surrounding a proposed Islamic community center two blocks from Manhattan’s ground zero.

NASA advises on Chilean miners

SAN JOSE MINE, Chile

A team of NASA doctors and engineers recommended Friday that Chilean authorities regulate the sleep patterns of 33 trapped miners, boost their vitamin D intake and phase in an exercise program as their nutrition improves.

The NASA team is in Chile to help rescuers develop plans for maintaining the health of the miners, who have been buried nearly a half-mile underground since a mine collapse Aug. 5.

Associated Press