Around the Nation

’Serial Shooter’ sentenced to death

PHOENIX | The main suspect in the Phoenix Serial Shooter attacks was sentenced to death Friday for six murders that put the city on edge for nearly two years.

Dale Hausner was convicted earlier this month of killing six people and attacking 19 others in random nighttime shootings in 2005 and 2006.

As the jury’s decisions were announced, the ex-janitor was expressionless, keeping his head down as he flipped through papers in front of him. Before being led out of the courtroom, Hausner thanked the judge who presided over his trial. His mother was whisked out of the courtroom through a back door by one of his lawyers.

Even though Hausner, 36, has denied any involvement in the attacks since his arrest in August 2006, he apologized to the families of the victims Thursday and said he would take his punishment “like a man.” He told his attorneys not to ask jurors for leniency.

“It’s justice as much as it can be,” said Rebecca Estrada, whose 20-year-old son, David Estrada, was fatally shot in Tolleson, Ariz., in June 2005. “The death penalty is the limit, and that’s what he deserves.”

Rich-club owner files for bankruptcy

BILLINGS, Mont. | The owner of the exclusive Yellowstone Club has filed for personal bankruptcy four months after seeking bankruptcy court protection for the club.

Former billionaire Edra Blixseth took over the millionaires-only club in the mountains of southwest Montana last August, as part of her divorce from Tim Blixseth. She now says she is personally in debt for at least $500 million, according to documents filed in federal court in Montana.

The club counts Bill Gates, former Vice President Dan Quayle and Los Angeles Dodgers owner Frank McCourt among its more than 300 members. Once valued at more than $1 billion, it is to be auctioned at an opening bid of $100 million.

State rules don’t please evolutionists

AUSTIN, Texas | State education leaders forged a compromise Friday on the teaching of evolution in Texas, adopting a new science curriculum that no longer requires educators to teach the weaknesses of all scientific theories.

The State Board of Education voted 13-2 to put in place a plan that would instead require teachers to encourage students to scrutinize “all sides” of scientific theories, a move criticized by evolution proponents.

Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills governs what teachers are required to cover in the classroom and the topics students are tested on. Because the state purchases so many textbooks, Texas has major influence on the content of the books publishers write for everywhere in the U.S.

Pro-evolutionists, who wanted the State Board of Education to drop the 20-year-old requirement that both “strengths and weaknesses” of scientific theories be taught, said the new plan uses confusing language that allows creationist arguments to slip into Texas classrooms.

But board member Barbara Cargill of The Woodlands, said the new standards were “more clear” and use “words that aren’t seen as code words.”

Democrat donor gets prison term

CORPUS CHRISTI, Texas | A prominent Texas Democratic Party donor and fundraiser was sentenced to a year in jail for falsely presenting himself as a lawyer to collect millions of dollars in attorneys fees.

A state judge on Thursday sentenced Mauricio Celis to a term exceeding the 10 years of probation recommended by a jury that convicted him of 14 counts in February. The judge also ordered Celis to pay restitution that will likely total about $1.35 million.

“You stay out of the legal business 100 percent and absolutely, unless and until you are a member in good standing of the State Bar of Texas or a foreign country,” District Judge Mark Luitjen said.

Celis, 37, is expected to be tried on other charges, including money laundering, theft and impersonating a peace officer. He is free on $700,000 bond pending his appeal.

Oakland mourns 4 slain officers

OAKLAND, Calif. | The city virtually halted Friday for the funeral of four slain police officers, with a populace still in shock jamming a large sports arena, spilling into an overflow stadium and filling the streets to pay their last respects.

The funerals for Mark Dunakin, John Hege, Ervin Romans and Daniel Sakai, who were gunned down March 21 by parolee Lovelle Mixon, shut down major freeways into and out of Oakland for much of the day as their long processions made their way to and from the Oracle Arena.

The shootings were the deadliest incident for U.S. law enforcement since Sept. 11, 2001, and the deadliest in California in nearly four decades. The entire 815-member Oakland Police Department, wearing dress white caps and gloves and black mourning bands on their badges, filled the front rows, saluting their fallen brethren as their flag-draped caskets were carried inside.

Loved ones and dignitaries, including Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, state Attorney General Jerry Brown and U.S. Sens. Dianne Feinstein and Barbara Boxer, made up the rest of the mourners in the arena, with a large overflow crowd filing into the adjacent Oakland Coliseum to watch the service on jumbo screens - more than 20,000 attendees in all.

“These four men were and are heroes, but they weren’t made of steel. They always knew the day may come,” Mrs. Feinstein told the crowd. “When the time came to make the ultimate sacrifice, their final hour was one of their finest.”

From wire dispatches and staff reports