American Scene

CALIFORNIA

Lou Filippo, boxer, dies

LOS ANGELES | Lou Filippo, a World Boxing Hall of Famer who judged 85 world champion fights and had small roles in the “Rocky” movies, has died. He was 83.

Hall of Fame Treasurer Josie Mejia said Filippo suffered a stroke and died Monday at a hospital in the Los Angeles suburb of Downey, where he lived. He judged a fight only two weeks ago.

Filippo was the hall’s former president. He was in more than 250 amateur fights and had a professional record of 28 wins, nine losses and three draws before retiring in 1957.

Filippo later became a referee and judge. In 1987, he favored Marvin Hagler in a controversial championship fight that Sugar Ray Leonard won by split decision.

Filippo played the fight announcer or referee in five “Rocky” films.

FLORIDA

Officials: Mom gave infant to sitter

CHIPLEY | The mother of a missing Florida 7-month-old secretly turned her over to her baby sitter in the middle of the night, authorities said.

Washington County Sheriff Bobby Haddock said Thursday that infant Shannon Dedrick was found alive in a box under baby sitter Susan Elizabeth Baker’s bed. Investigators have been searching for her since her parents reported her missing Saturday.

Sheriff Haddock said Miss Baker asked mom Chrystina Lynn Mercer on Friday whether she could have custody of Shannon. He said Mrs. Mercer brought the infant to Miss Baker’s house early Saturday, about 10 hours before she was reported missing.

Mrs. Mercer and Miss Baker face several charges, authorities said.

KENTUCKY

Suicide eyed in census worker case

Investigators probing the death of a Kentucky census worker found hanging from a tree with the word “fed” scrawled on his chest increasingly doubt he was killed because of his government job and are pursuing the possibility he committed suicide, law enforcement officials told the Associated Press.

Two officials, speaking on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the case, said no final conclusions have been made in the case. In recent weeks, investigators have grown more skeptical that Bill Sparkman, 51, died at the hands of someone angry at the federal government.

The officials said investigators continue to look closely at suicide as a possible cause of Sparkman’s death for a number of reasons. There were no defensive wounds on Sparkman’s body, and while his hands were bound with duct-tape, they were still somewhat mobile, suggesting he could have manipulated the rope, the officials said.

Sparkman’s naked body was found Sept. 12 hanging from a tree yet in contact with the ground in a remote patch of the Daniel Boone National Forest near Manchester, Ky.

MASSACHUSETTS

New charges in alleged plot

BOSTON | A Massachusetts man has been indicted on new charges in an alleged terror plot to kill two prominent U.S. politicians and shoot people at U.S. shopping malls.

Tarek Mehanna of Sudbury is accused of conspiring with two other men - Ahmad Abousamra, who authorities say is in Syria, and an unnamed cooperating witness.

Mr. Mehanna, 27, was arrested Oct. 21 on a charge of conspiring to provide material support to terrorists.

The 10-count indictment released Thursday also charges Mr. Mehanna and Mr. Abousamra with conspiracy to kill in a foreign country, conspiracy to provide false information to law enforcement and making false statements to law enforcement.

Authorities say the men allegedly talked about killing two members of the executive branch and plotted to randomly shoot shoppers. They also allegedly talked about killing U.S. soldiers in Iraq.

NEW HAMPSHIRE

Scientist: Oswald rifle photo real

CONCORD | A new analysis by a Dartmouth College professor concludes that the infamous photograph of Lee Harvey Oswald holding a rifle in his backyard would have been nearly impossible to fake.

Oswald, who was fatally shot days after being charged with assassinating President Kennedy, claimed the photo of him holding a rifle in one hand and Marxist newspapers in the other had been doctored. Over the years, others have pointed out what appear to be inconsistent lighting and shadows in the image.

But Hany Farid of the Neukom Institute for Computational Science used digital forensic tools to analyze the photo. He said the shadows are exactly where they should be and it’s extremely unlikely the photo is a fake.

NEW YORK

Swine flu shots Wall Street issue

NEW YORK | Some of New York’s biggest companies, including Wall Street giants Goldman Sachs Group Inc. and Citigroup Inc., received doses of swine flu vaccine for at-risk employees, drawing criticism that the hard-to-find vaccine is going first to the privileged.

Hospitals, universities and the Federal Reserve Bank also got doses of the vaccine for employees who need it the most, such as pregnant women or chronically ill workers, according to the city’s health department.

In order to receive the vaccine, companies had to have their own medical staff.

“Vaccines should go to people who need them most, not people who happen to work on Wall Street,” Sen. Christopher J. Dodd, Connecticut Democrat, said Thursday.

OKLAHOMA

Elephant struck, injured by SUV

ENID | An Oklahoma couple driving home from church hit an animal, a really big one.

An elephant that escaped from a nearby circus collided with the couple’s SUV on Wednesday night when it ran across a rural highway in Enid.

Police said the 29-year-old elephant had escaped earlier that night from the Family Fun Circus at the Garfield County Fairgrounds. The couple weren’t injured in the crash, but police say the elephant had a broken tusk and an injured leg.

Authorities said the elephant’s tusk tore a hole in the SUV’s sheet metal.

After the crash, the elephant was taken to a veterinary school for an exam. The elephant doesn’t appear to have serious injuries.

PENNSYLVANIA

Worker killed on railroad

PHILADELPHIA | A packed commuter train struck and killed a rail worker during the morning rush Thursday, disrupting service for three hours and stranding hundreds of riders on a system already crippled by a transit strike.

The train was inbound from the city’s northern suburbs when it hit the worker about 8:35 a.m., Southeastern Pennsylvania Transportation Authority spokesman Richard Maloney said. More than 625 people on the train were stranded at the Melrose Park station as three of 13 regional lines have had to be shut down.

A 34-year-old rail inspector and a flagman were walking the northbound tracks when the inspector was hit from behind by a southbound train, Mr. Maloney said. The train was running on different tracks than normal because of equipment problems with another train.

From wire dispatches and staff reports