Collar-bomb suspect to return to Australia

Collar-bomb suspect to return to Australia

louisville, ky.

An Australian investment banker who is wanted on charges of placing a fake bomb around a student’s neck in an attempt to extort money from her millionaire father waived extradition Wednesday and will soon be headed to his home country to face charges.

Paul Douglas Peters, dressed in a black-and-white striped prison uniform, appeared in U.S. District Court in Louisville and told judge he would no longer contest being taken back.

Australian police said in court documents that Peters is accused of breaking into 18-year-old Madeleine Pulver’s home in the wealthy Sydney suburb of Mosman on Aug. 3 and tethering the fake bomb to her neck as part of an elaborate extortion plot.

Ginsburg slides to safety off airplane

chantilly, va.

U.S. Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, who is 78 and has battled cancer, was forced to slide down an emergency chute to evacuate a flight at Dulles International Airport on Wednesday that was grounded because of engine problems, a court spokeswoman said.

Justice Ginsburg was on her way from Washington to San Francisco and was not injured, said Supreme Court spokeswoman Patricia McCabe Estrada.

Former senator dies

cheyenne, wyo.

Malcolm Wallop, a leading conservative voice during the Reagan era in fighting for space defense and a tough anti-communist policy in Central America, died Wednesday at age 78 at his ranch in Wyoming.

His passing prompted an outpouring of remembrances from his former colleagues who recalled his devotion to conservative causes, foreign policy and Wyoming.

Wallop served in the U.S. Senate from 1977-95.

Warnings ignored on bankruptcy risks

washington

Even as leading Democrats offered assurances to the contrary, government experts repeatedly warned that a new long-term care insurance plan could go belly up, saddling taxpayers with another underfunded benefit program, according to emails disclosed by congressional investigators.

Part of President Barack Obama’s health-care law, the program is in limbo as a congressional debt panel searches for budget savings and behind the scenes, administration officials scramble to find a viable financing formula.

A longstanding priority of the late Sen. Edward M. Kennedy, D-Mass., the Community Living Assistance Services and Supports program, or CLASS, was spliced into the health-care law despite nagging budget worries.

Administration emails and documents reveal that alarms were sounded earlier and more widely than previously thought.

Gov. Perry avoids certain social issues

lynchburg, va.

Texas Gov. Rick Perry avoided contentious social issues in a speech Wednesday at the nation’s largest evangelical university, offering the youth a testimonial about his own path to Christian faith and praising the men and women of the military.

The Republican presidential contender urged students at Liberty University to remember the legacies of service members killed in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Without explicitly invoking his own presidential bid, he cast life’s choices as tributes to the military’s sacrifice in the years since the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.

Associated Press