Nation Digest
Gun foes predict run on assault weapons

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The report by the Consumer Federation of America, which favors greater regulation of the gun industry, was based on interviews with gun-industry officials and reviews of advertisements and other sales materials.

The Senate approved renewal of the ban earlier this year, but the provision was part of a broader bill that included other measures opposed by the White House. House GOP leaders have given little indication that they plan to extend the ban.

Panama City, Fla.

SWAT team takes jail after nurse threatened

Inmates holding a jail nurse hostage threatened to torture and kill her, prompting a SWAT team to storm the building, authorities said yesterday.

Inmates had taken over the six-story Bay County Jail's third-floor infirmary, and one of them was holding a scalpel to the nurse's neck when the SWAT team and armed jailers ended an 11-hour standoff that began about 9 p.m. Sunday, said sheriff's spokeswoman Ruth Sasser.

The nurse, who was accidentally shot by the SWAT team, remained hospitalized yesterday in stable condition, Sasser said. A sheriff's negotiator had won the release of three employees before the SWAT team stormed the building, officials said.

Geneva, Ohio

Sniper fires 50 shots, wounds 3, then killed

A man opened fire with a semiautomatic rifle on the town's main thoroughfare as residents headed to work yesterday, wounding three people. The gunman was killed.
 
Police Chief Dan Dudik would not confirm the man killed himself but said no one else, including police, had fired any shots.

Michael J. Harwood, 32, of nearby Madison, fired about 50 shots from a .223-caliber semiautomatic rifle fitted with a telescopic sight, the police chief said.

Dudik would not discuss a possible motive but said Harwood was aiming at a specific car, whose driver was wounded and in guarded condition at a hospital. A second motorist was wounded and listed in satisfactory condition. A pedestrian was treated for a gunshot wound and released.

Baltimore

Ex-church employee given four years for theft

A man who admitted using a copy of a stamp with Cardinal William Keeler's signature on it to steal $443,000 in church donations was sentenced to four years in prison yesterday.

Victor Puotinen pleaded guilty to theft in June for stealing the money between 1999 and 2002 when he worked as an accountant at the Roman Catholic Archdiocese and at the Basilica of the Assumption in Baltimore.