Arizona
Serial killer Hausner found dead in cell
PHOENIX - A serial killer convicted of murdering six people in a shooting spree that terrorized Phoenix in 2005 and 2006 was found dead Wednesday in his death row prison cell, officials said.
Dale Hausner, 40, was found unresponsive about noon Wednesday in his one-person cell at the Eyman state prison complex in Florence, the Department of Corrections said.
He was pronounced dead at a hospital about an hour later.
Hausner's death was under investigation.
Hausner, a former airport janitor, was given six death sentences and hundreds of years in prison for killing six people and attacking 19 others in a series of random shootings in the Phoenix area.
People are also reading…
He denied any involvement in the attacks and suggested his former roommate might have carried out some of the crimes.
District of Columbia
House votes to cut food-stamp budget
WASHINGTON - The House voted on Wednesday to cut food stamps by $2 billion a year as part of a wide-ranging farm bill.
The chamber rejected 234-188 a Democratic amendment to the five-year, $500 billion farm legislation that would have maintained current spending on food stamps, now called the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP.
The overall bill cuts the $80 billion-a-year program by about 3 percent and makes it harder for some people to qualify.
The food-stamp cuts have complicated passage of the bill and its farm-state supporters were working to secure votes Wednesday.
Other amendments chipped away at the program. The House adopted by voice vote an amendment to require drug tests for SNAP recipients.
Michigan
FBI stops digging for Hoffa's bones
OAKLAND TOWNSHIP - Beneath a swimming pool, under a horse farm and now a weed-grown field north of Detroit. For at least the third time in a decade, FBI agents grabbed shovels and combed through dirt and mud in the search for Jimmy Hoffa's remains or clues to the disappearance of the former Teamsters boss.
Once again, the search was futile.
"Certainly, we're disappointed," Detroit FBI chief Robert Foley told reporters Wednesday as federal and local authorities wrapped up another excavation that failed to turn up anything that could be linked to Hoffa, who has been missing since 1975.
"Right now the case remains open," Foley said. "At this point, if we do get logical leads and enough probable cause that warrant the resources to do an investigation, then we'll continue to do so."
Washington
Spokane man indicted in ricin-letters case
SPOKANE - A federal grand jury on Wednesday indicted a Spokane man accused of mailing a threatening letter containing the poison ricin to President Obama.
The indictment contends that Matthew Buquet, 37, developed the biological agent in violation of federal law, and that he further violated the law by mailing letters containing ricin to Obama and U.S. District Judge Fred Van Sickle of Spokane.
Buquet was arrested last month in connection with the sending of five ricin-laced letters from Spokane. The other letters were mailed to a Spokane post office, Fairchild Air Force Base and the CIA.
No one was hurt.
No motive has been offered for the mailings.
Buquet most recently worked as a janitor and was a registered sex offender.
He has waived his right to a bail hearing and remains in jail. Earlier he pleaded not guilty to one charge of mailing a threatening communication.
The Associated Press
