American Scene

Polygamist sect leader’s calls halted for 90 days

HOUSTON — Texas corrections officials have decided that imprisoned polygamist sect leader Warren Jeffs will be without phone privileges for 90 days as punishment for making calls that were put on speakerphone - presumably so he could preach to his followers

Department of Criminal Justice spokeswoman Michelle Lyons said Monday that Jeffs, 56, was found to have broken the rules multiple times.

A prison system investigation found Jeffs made at least two calls on the inmate phone system on Christmas Day that wound up as sermons to followers of his Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

Jeffs is serving a life sentence plus 20 years for sexually assaulting two of his underage brides. The charges followed a 2008 raid on a Texas ranch where many of his followers live.

MONTANA

Teacher disappears while running; shoe found

BILLINGS — Authorities expanded their search Monday for a high school teacher missing from an oil boom town in northeast Montana after recovering only a single running shoe since she failed to return from a weekend run.

The search for algebra teacher Sherry Arnold, 43, focused on a 10-square-mile area north of the town of Sidney near the North Dakota border. That is in the general vicinity of the roadside ditch where Miss Arnold’s shoe was discovered Saturday along one of her running routes.

Her family confirmed the shoe was hers, said Assistant Police Chief Robert Burnison. No evidence has emerged indicating foul play and the case is being handled, for now, as a missing-person report, he said.

Miss Arnold left her home in Sidney for a run at about 6:30 a.m. Saturday. A witness reported seeing someone matching her description that morning near where the shoe was found, Chief Burnison said.

CALIFORNIA

Dad pleads guilty to tossing son off boat

SANTA ANA — A father who tossed his 7-year-old son overboard during a Southern California harbor cruise pleaded guilty to felony child abuse and endangerment.

The Orange County Register said Sloan Briles, 35, entered the plea Monday. Instead of jail, he was sentenced to a year in a child-abuse treatment program and six monthsin a residential alcohol-treatment program.

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