5 arrested in UK cyber-attack probe

5 arrested in UK cyber-attack probe

LONDON

British police arrested five people Thursday on suspicion of involvement in recent cyber attacks conducted by an Internet hacking group that has backed WikiLeaks, and in a coordinated action, U.S. authorities issued 40 search warrants in America.

The five males in Britain, age 15 to 26, were arrested during an early-morning raid at their homes across the U.K. for their alleged involvement in the attacks.

Anonymous, a loose-knit collection of activists, has claimed responsibility for attacking the websites of companies such as Visa, Mastercard and Paypal, all of whom severed their links with WikiLeaks after it began publishing its massive trove of secret U.S. diplomatic memos.

Ex-cops get split verdict in cover-up

WILKES-BARRE, Pa.

A federal jury on Thursday rejected most of the government’s case against three former municipal police officers accused of hindering an FBI investigation into the beating death of an illegal Mexican immigrant but nevertheless convicted one of them of a charge that could send him to prison for decades.

Former Shenandoah police Chief Matthew Nestor and subordinates William Moyer and Jason Hayes were accused of helping a group of white high school football players conceal their roles in the July 2008 attack on 25-year-old Luis Ramirez in the small, ethnically charged town in northeastern Pennsylvania.

Court: Emanuel back in mayor’s race

CHICAGO

Illinois’ highest court put Rahm Emanuel back in the race for Chicago mayor Thursday, three days after a lower court threw the former White House chief of staff off the ballot because he had not lived in the city for a full year. The state Supreme Court ruled unanimously in Emanuel’s favor, saying an appeals-court decision that said the candidate needed to be physically present in Chicago was “without any foundation in Illinois law.”

Gay-rights activist slain in Uganda

KAMPALA, Uganda

A prominent Ugandan gay-rights activist whose picture was published by an anti-gay newspaper next to the words “Hang Them” was bludgeoned to death. Police said Thursday his sexual orientation had nothing to do with the killing and that one “robber” had been arrested.

Activists were outraged over the death of David Kato, an advocacy officer for the gay-rights group Sexual Minorities Uganda. His slaying comes after a year of stepped-up threats against gays in Uganda, where a controversial bill has proposed the death penalty for some homosexual acts.

Report: Man wanted ‘suicide by bear’

FLAGSTAFF, Ariz.

A convicted killer who escaped from an Arizona prison said after his capture that he had planned to overdose on heroin at Yellowstone National Park and let bears eat him to end the fear and panic he was experiencing while on the lam.

Tracy Province told Mohave County sheriff’s Detective Larry Matthews that he had wanted to go up on a mountain, shoot up a gram of heroin and “be bear food.” As he was preparing the drug, a voice told him not to go through with the plan, and he changed course in favor of trying to hitchhike to Indiana to see family.

Al Nash, a spokesman at Yellowstone National Park, said it’s certainly possible that Province’s plan would have worked, but it struck him as improbable.

Associated Press