IN BRIEF: Automaker aid is being urged

Published: November 9, 2008

WASHINGTON

Automaker aid

is being urged

WASHINGTON — Democratic leaders in Congress asked the Bush administration on Saturday to provide more aid to the struggling auto industry, which is bleeding cash and jobs as sales have dropped to their lowest level in a quarter-century. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid said in a letter to Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson that the administration should consider expanding the $700 billion bailout to include car companies.

FIRE

Church blaze not hate crime

SPRINGFIELD, Mass. — A fire that destroyed a church being constructed for a predominantly black congregation was intentionally set, investigators said Saturday at a news conference. But they said there’s no evidence the arson that destroyed the building of Macedonia Church of God in Christ was a hate crime, except for the timing of the fire hours after the nation elected its first black president.

INVESTIGATION

Woman lives with 3 bodies

EVANSTON, Ill. — A 90-year-old woman apparently has been living in a house with the bodies of three siblings, one of whom may have been dead since the early 1980s, police said Saturday. The bodies were found Friday in Evanston after authorities were called by a senior advocate. The woman’s identity was not released.

CRIME & COURTS

Police look into father’s death

ST. JOHNS, Ariz. — Police were looking into the possibility that an 8-year-old boy who was charged with killing his father and another man with a rifle had been abused, the police chief said Saturday. On Friday, a judge determined there was probable cause to show that the boy fatally shot his father, Vincent Romero, 29, and Timothy Romans, 39, of San Carlos, with a .22-caliber rifle.

Parole hearing set for felon

CHICAGO — The convicted felon suspected in the killings of the mother, brother and nephew of singer Jennifer Hudson has a parole hearing Monday and could be released if an administrative officer finds no reason to hold him. Authorities have called William Balfour, 27, a "person of interest.”

Judge denies paper’s request

DETROIT — A federal judge won’t block the deposition of a Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter to answer questions about unnamed sources used in a 2004 story about the ethics investigation of a terrorism prosecutor. U.S. District Judge Robert Cleland on Friday denied a request from the Detroit Free Press that a judge in Washington decide the matter. Cleland ruled in August that there is no reporter’s privilege.

From Wire Services

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