Body of missing 12-year-old found

Bethel, Vt.

The body of a missing 12-year-old Vermont girl was found Wednesday, hours after documents surfaced that accused her uncle of planning to initiate her into a child sex ring, authorities said.

Brooke Bennett's body was found not far from the home of her uncle, Michael Jacques, who has been in custody since Sunday on sexual-assault charges involving another underage girl. Bennett was last seen alive with Jacques at a convenience store.

The FBI said an unidentified 14-year-old girl told investigators she was present on June 25 when Jacques, 42, tricked Bennett into thinking she was going to a party and took her to his Randolph home to be initiated into a sex ring.

Southwick, Mass.

Hedge-fund fugitive turns himself in

Samuel Israel III tricked his investors, lied to his lawyers and misled police. But in the end, he listened to his mother.

The fugitive former manager of the Bayou Group hedge fund, whose faked suicide on a New York bridge and subsequent disappearance last month set off an international manhunt, turned himself in Wednesday in Southwick, Mass., just after speaking to his mother by phone.

He apparently spent the last four weeks living in a recreational vehicle at a Massachusetts campground, picking up supplies at the camp's small store.

Nashville, Tenn.

Death-row inmate freed after 22 years

A former death-row inmate who has multiple sclerosis and uses a wheelchair was freed from a Nashville prison Wednesday for the first time in nearly 23 years after an anonymous donor paid his bail.

Paul House, 46, who faces an October retrial in the 1985 killing of Carolyn Muncey, ate a candy bar and sipped a soft drink after his release.

Two years ago, the U.S. Supreme Court concluded he would not have been convicted based on the DNA evidence that emerged years after his trial, and a federal judge ordered prosecutors to retry House or free him.

Washington

Shoddy design blamed in trailers

High levels of formaldehyde found in trailers provided to Hurricane Katrina evacuees on the Gulf Coast probably resulted from cheap wood and poor ventilation in designs used by manufacturers under permissive government standards, federal scientists reported Wednesday.

An analysis by researchers for Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory found some Katrina trailers emitted the toxic chemical at levels four to 11 times as high as those found in typical U.S. homes.

FEMA supplied 140,000 travel trailers and mobile homes to victims of hurricanes Katrina and Rita in 2005. About 15,300 families are still living in them.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said their study does not apply to other travel trailers.

An industrial chemical used in adhesives found in wood products, formaldehyde can cause nasal cancer and worsens asthma and other respiratory problems. There is no binding safety standard for the chemical in U.S. homes.

Also

Energy: The U.S. Bureau of Land Management government said Wednesday it is calling off a recently announced moratorium on applications to build solar plants on public lands.

Nebraska: Former teacher Kelsey Peterson, 26, has pleaded guilty to fleeing to Mexico with a 13-year-old student so she could have sex with him.

Antifreeze killing: A Massachusetts jury has convicted James Keown, a former Missouri radio reporter, of killing his wife, Julie, in 2004 by poisoning her with antifreeze so he could cash in her $250,000 life-insurance policy. He faces an automatic sentence of life in prison without parole.

Rhode Island: A Coast Guard cutter collided with a Block Island Ferry carrying 257 passengers in dense fog Wednesday, but no serious injuries were reported, authorities said.

Seattle Times news services