California
Actress' bond extended; charges still uncertain
With prosecutors still undecided whether to file criminal charges against Winona Ryder in an alleged shoplifting case, the actress appeared Thursday in Beverly Hills Superior Court and received a judge's permission to remain free on bail.
Ryder was arrested last month on suspicion of stealing $4,700 worth of merchandise from the Saks Fifth Avenue store in Beverly Hills and of possessing pain medication without a prescription.
Superior Court Judge Elden Fox extended the bond Ryder posted and ordered her to return to court Feb. 8. Ryder will remain free on $20,000 bail until that date. The Los Angeles County District Attorney's office is still reviewing the case and plans to determine whether to charge Ryder formally by that date, spokeswoman Sandi Gibbons said.
Maryland
State worker arrested in murder-for-hire plot
Police on Thursday arrested a woman whose estranged husband was allegedly shot by the woman's close friend, a longtime State Department staffer.
Elsa Newman was taken into custody at her Bethesda home on a charge of conspiracy to commit murder, police said. A bond hearing was set for today.
Investigators said Newman, an attorney, had threatened to hire someone to kill her estranged husband, Arlen Slobodow, a film producer who had recently gained custody of the couple's two children.
Margery L. Landry, 48, who police say was a close friend of Newman, was charged Tuesday with attempted murder. She was denied bond.
Police say Landry, who has worked at the State Department since 1980, broke into Slobodow's house before dawn Monday wearing a black ski mask and armed with a gun. Slobodow thwarted the ensuing attack and discovered Landry as his attacker.
LOS ANGELES
Jewish Defense League leader, member indicted
The chairman and a member of the Jewish Defense League were indicted Thursday on charges of conspiring to bomb the office of an Arab-American congressman and a prominent Los Angeles mosque.
The indictment by a federal grand jury alleges JDL chairman Irv Rubin, 56, and Earl Krugel, 59, recruited another person to plant the bombs. That person went to the FBI, authorities have said.
Rubin and Krugel were arrested Dec. 11 and were being held without bail. The nine-count indictment supersedes charges filed shortly after the men were taken into custody.
"The government has blown this completely out of proportion and is acting in a climate of hysteria," said Mark Werksman, Krugel's attorney. "This was all talk between Krugel and Rubin and an instigator who was working at the direction of the FBI."
The alleged targets were King Fahd Mosque in Culver City, Calif., and the field office of Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Calif.
MIAMI
Plot to kill governor under investigation
The Florida Department of Law Enforcement and the FBI are investigating a possible terrorist plot to kill Gov. Jeb Bush today with a truck bomb in Tallahassee, law enforcement officials confirmed Thursday.
For about a month, federal and state agents have been conducting 24-hour surveillance of at least four South Florida men with possible Middle Eastern connections who may be suspects in the case, an agent involved in the investigation said.
The information about the plot was based on a tip from a confidential informant jailed in Broward County. The informant said the men were trying to contract someone to drive a truckload of explosives to Tallahassee and blow up the governor.
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