Alabama: Suspect arrested in Blockbuster slayings

A 48-year-old man was arrested Friday in the killing of four young men in a video rental store in Aniston.

Police Chief Wayne Chandler identified the suspect as Donald Wheat of nearby Clay County. A gun found inside the video store led police to Wheat, Chandler said. He gave no further details except to say that the community “will find out during the course of this investigation that one young man was very heroic.”

The men two Blockbuster employees and two brothers browsing for videos were shot to death during a robbery Wednesday evening. All but one was shot in the back of the head.

Alabama: Ex-Klansman’s relative says suspect boasted

A granddaughter of the former Klansman on trial in a 1963 church bombing that killed four black girls testified Friday that he had once crudely boasted about the attack.

Teresa Stacy of Keller, Tex., took the stand as prosecutors neared the end of their murder case against Bobby Frank Cherry, 71.

Cherry is accused of helping plant the bomb that exploded outside the Sixteenth Street Baptist Church in the deadliest attack against the civil rights movement.

“He said he helped blow up a bunch of niggers back in Birmingham,” said Stacy, who said she was between 9 and 11 at the time and is now in her late 20s. “He seemed rather jovial, braggish.”

Defense lawyer Mickey Johnson tried to damage the credibility of Stacy, who admitted on cross examination that she started doing drugs at age 12 and was in rehabilitation by age 13.

Iowa: Journalism school reinstates employees

Two white administrators of the Iowa State University journalism school are back at their jobs, two weeks after being removed in a racial dispute among faculty.

Chairman John Eighmey and Associate Chairman Joel Geske of the Greenlee School of Journalism and Communication remained on the teaching staff but had been relieved of their administrative duties by Provost Rollin Richmond.

The removal followed the resignations of Linus Abraham, Osei Appiah and Spiro K. Kiousis, three junior faculty members who complained of a hostile environment that included racist remarks. Abraham and Appiah are black.

ISU President Gregory Geoffroy ordered Eighmey and Geske reinstated in their administrative roles while a university committee determines whether the complaints are credible.

Washington: Official downplays reports pilot is alive

The Pentagon official in charge of searching for missing Navy Lt. Cmdr. Michael Scott Speicher is playing down reports that the F/A-18 Hornet pilot likely survived and has been an Iraqi prisoner since he was shot out of the sky during the first hours of the Persian Gulf War.

“There is no evidence (Speicher) survived the crash,” Adrian Cronauer, the Defense Department’s special assistant for POW/MIA Affairs, said. “There also is no evidence he died either. The only thing we are certain of is that Iraq knows more than it is telling us.”

Iowa: Ticket hits the jackpot

One of the tickets sold in New Hampshire for the Powerball game Wednesday night matched all six numbers drawn, which were: 30-33-36-37-49, Powerball 35.

Players matching all five numbers and the Powerball have won the $78.7 million jackpot. The prize goes to an estimated $10 million for today.