Miley Cyrus (Twitter)Over the weekend, Miley Cyrus dealt yet again with one of the less-desirable aspects of fame … an unwanted (and potentially dangerous) person at her Los Angeles-area home. According to reports, early Saturday morning a man jumped the fence onto her property and knocked on her door, claiming he knew Cyrus, before repeatedly throwing himself against the exterior wall of the house. Someone at the home called 911 (Cyrus was out of town at the time) and the man was later caught hiding in the bushes at the pop star's property holding a pair of scissors. In footage obtained by TMZ, the suspect, who identified himself as Jason Luis Rivera, claimed he knew the 19-year-old. "I am a friend of Miley Cyrus. I am. She's my wife. Me and Miley have been friends for five years," he said during his arrest.
According to the Los Angeles Times, Rivera is being held on suspicion of burglary. "He thinks they were married," Lt. Brian Wendling of the Los Angeles Police Department told E! News. "And I would say delusional is a good characterization of him."
A bicyclist competing in a race from Logan, Utah, to Jackson Hole, Wyo., crashed on a bridge in Wyoming and fell about 35 feet to his death into the Snake River.
Robert Verhaaren, 42, of Mesa, Ariz., was participating in the annual LoToJa race when he swerved to avoid a pothole and crashed on Highway 89 about eight miles from the finish line Saturday afternoon, Teton County sheriff's deputies said.
The 206-mile race also was marred by serious accidents in Idaho and Wyoming that sent two bicyclists to the hospital and by flat tires experienced by roughly 200 cyclists early on, said race spokesman David Bern.
He said it's the first fatality in the 30-year history of the race, which is billed as the longest one-day bicycle race in the country sanctioned by USA Cycling. This year's event drew 1,500 competitors from across the nation.
Sheriff's deputies said when Verhaaren swerved to miss the pothole, he crashed into a guardrail and was catapulted over it into the river.
The victim was a highly experienced cyclist who had competed in the event at least twice before, organizers said.
LOUISVILLE, Ky. (AP) — A Louisville man accused of opening fire at a homeowners association meeting, killing one and critically wounding another, was ordered held on a $1 million bond Saturday at an initial court hearing where a prosecutor called him "the epitome of danger to the community."
A not guilty plea was entered on behalf of 55-year-old Mahmoud Yousef Hindi to charges of murder, assault and wanton endangerment in the Thursday evening shooting at a church.
Dressed in a blue jail outfit, Hindi showed no emotion and did not speak as he stood before a judge.
Afterward, defense attorney Todd Lewis called the case a "horrendous tragedy" and said the Hindi family's thoughts were with the victims' families. Lewis asked for patience in unraveling the case.
"We look forward to our day in court," he told reporters. "There's always another side to things."
What specifically sparked the attack wasn't clear.
Police say Hindi, a doctor educated in Jordan, had a history of disputes with the homeowners group revolving around a fence that the association said didn't meet its height or design requirements in the upscale neighborhood of Spring Creek.
The association's attorney says the organization brought the zoning violation charges to the city. Hindi wrote several letters to the attorney, expressing anger and contempt for the attorney.
In one letter that ranted about several neighbors, Hindi cited the Quran, the theory of creationism, the idea that America has gone to Communism, threatens to form his own homeowners association and accused neighbors of stealing his "no trespassing signs" in the dispute over the fence.
PENSACOLA, Fla. - A former medical examiner has been arrested on charges of keeping human remains in a rented storage unit in the Florida Panhandle.
Dr. Michael Berkland, 57, was arrested Friday on charges of improper storage of hazardous waste, keeping a public nuisance and driving with a suspended license. He was released from jail on $10,000 bail.
Berkland's attorney, Eric Stevenson, told the Pensacola News Journal (http://on.pnj.com/U1JQAg) that he and Berkland will start preparing their defence next week.
State Attorney Bill Eddins said more charges may be filed.
Crudely preserved brains, hearts, lungs and other organs and specimens were discovered in more than 100 containers last month in a Pensacola storage unit Berkland had rented for about three years. The unit was auctioned off after Berkland defaulted on his payments, according to an arrest affidavit.
Berkland had declared the contents to be household goods, furniture, boxes, sporting goods and landscaping equipment. A man who bought the unit's contents discovered the human organs after becoming overpowered by a strange smell while sifting through the items, authorities said.
Ten cardboard boxes stacked in a corner of the unit contained "numerous individual containers with ... human remains stored in a liquid substance," according to the affidavit.
Most of the containers were labeled. About half the containers were medical grade and the other half included soda cups and plastic food containers, according to the affidavit.
The organs were stored in a liquid solution containing formaldehyde and methyl alcohol, authorities said.
"The remains included tissue samples and dissected organs. (Investigators) also advised that there were numerous whole organs, including hearts, brains, a liver and a lung," according to the affidavit.
Berkland worked at the District 1 Medical Examiner's Office in Pensacola from 1997 to 2003, when he was fired for not completing autopsy reports. Berkland's license to serve as a medical examiner in Florida has been withdrawn.
Before coming to Florida, Berkland had been fired as a contract medical examiner in 1996 in Jackson County, Mo., in a dispute over his caseload and autopsy reports. His doctor's license was ultimately revoked there.
The medical examiner's office in Pensacola said the organs found in the storage unit appear to have come from private autopsies Berkland performed between 1997 and 2007 at funeral homes in the Florida Panhandle and in Tallahassee.
Jeff Martin, director of the medical examiner's office, said about 10 families have been notified that their relatives' remains were in the unit.
Improper storage of hazardous waste carries a maximum prison sentence of five years, and keeping a public nuisance, a misdemeanour charge, could mean a 60-day jail term, according to the state attorney's office.
Saturday, September 8, 2012 | Borderland Beat ReporterBuggs
By Michael Weissenstein Associated Press
Mexican federal police announced Friday that they have arrested a suspect in the killing of U.S. Border Patrol agent Brian Terry, the slaying at the center of the scandal over the botched U.S. gun-smuggling probe known as Operation Fast and Furious.
Jesus Leonel Sanchez Meza is one of the five men charged with killing Terry in December 2010 during a shootout in Arizona near the Mexico border. One is on trial in Arizona and the other three remain fugitives. Sanchez was arrested Thursday in Sonora state.
Two guns found at the scene were bought by a member of a gun-smuggling ring that was being monitored in the Fast and Furious investigation. Critics have knocked U.S. federal authorities for allowing informants to walk away from Phoenix-area gun shops with weapons, rather than immediately arresting suspects.
In Operation Fast and Furious and at least three earlier probes during the administration of President George W. Bush, agents in Arizona employed a risky tactic called gun-walking—allowing low-level "straw" buyers in gun-trafficking networks to leave with loads of weapons purchased at gun shops.
The goal was to track the guns to major weapons traffickers and drug cartels in order to bring cases against kingpins who had long eluded prosecution under the prevailing strategy of arresting low-level purchasers of guns who were suspected of buying them for others. During Operation Fast and Furious, many of the weapons weren't tracked and wound up at crime scenes in Mexico and the U.S., including the Terry shooting.
In July, U.S. authorities made a rare disclosure linked to the botched gun-smuggling probe, revealing identities and requesting the public's help in capturing the four fugitives accused in the shooting death of Terry. The release of the suspects' identities in an unsealed indictment came with the offer of a $1 million reward for information leading to their capture.
The FBI said it was seeking information related to Jesus Rosario Favela-Astorga, 31, Ivan Soto-Barraza, 34, Heraclio Osorio-Arellanes, 34, and a man identified as Lionel Portillo-Meza, which Mexican police said was an alias of the man arrested Thursday in Puerto Penasco, Sonora. Portillo-Meza's age and birthplace were unavailable.
The other three fugitives were born in Mexico, but their hometowns were not available. Authorities had previously released the identity of the fifth suspect, Manuel Osorio-Arellanes of El Fuerte in the Mexican state of Sinaloa. He was shot during the gunfight and has been in custody since the night of the shooting. He has pleaded not guilty in the case, telling investigators that he raised his weapon toward the agents during the shootout but didn't fire, the FBI said in records. His age was not immediately available.
All five men have been charged with murder. They also face charges of assaulting four federal agents. FBI agents declined to discuss which fugitive is suspected of firing the shot that killed Terry. They also would not comment on whether the weapon was linked to an Operation Fast and Furious purchase.
The five men, plus another who faces lesser charges in the case, went to the U.S. from Mexico in order to rob marijuana smugglers, the indictment said
RAWALPINDI, Pakistan (AP) — A young Christian girl accused of burning pages of Islam's holy book was freed Saturday from a jail near the capital where she had been held for three weeks, a Pakistani jail official said.
Jail where they held the Christian Girl
The release a day after a judge granted her bail is another step closer to ending an episode that has focused an uncomfortable spotlight on Pakistan's harsh blasphemy laws, which can result in life in prison or even death for defendants. Many critics say the laws are misused to wage vendettas or target Pakistan's vulnerable minorities like the Christians.
The jail official, Mushtaq Awan, said the girl left the prison in Rawalpindi, a garrison city near Islamabad amid tight security.
An Associated Press reporter on the scene said she was taken from the prison in an armored vehicle and whisked to a waiting helicopter while covered with a sheet to protect her identity.
Miley Cyrus (Twitter)Over the weekend, Miley Cyrus dealt yet again with one of the less-desirable aspects of fame … an unwanted (and potentially dangerous) person at her Los Angeles-area home. According to reports, early Saturday morning a man jumped the fence onto her property and knocked on her door, claiming he knew Cyrus, before repeatedly throwing himself against the exterior wall of the house. Someone at the home called 911 (Cyrus was out of town at the time) and the man was later caught hiding in the bushes at the pop star's property holding a pair of scissors. In footage obtained by TMZ, the suspect, who identified himself as Jason Luis Rivera, claimed he knew the 19-year-old. "I am a friend of Miley Cyrus. I am. She's my wife. Me and Miley have been friends for five years," he said during his arrest.
Saturday, September 8, 2012 | 
