Chicago: Restaurant fire forces skyscraper evacuations

A restaurant fire prompted an evacuation Tuesday of the downtown twin skyscrapers that house the Chicago Mercantile Exchange.

Hundreds of employees of law firms and other businesses were allowed to return to their offices about two hours later.

The fire started in the restaurant’s grease chute, fire department spokesman Kevin McGregor said. Damage was mostly confined to the first-floor Rivers restaurant.

Two people were treated at the scene, one for smoke inhalation, said Deputy Fire Chief Ed Enright.

The buildings stand about 40 stories tall on the west side of the downtown Loop.

Vic Zelener, director of trading floor operations of the Chicago Mercantile Exchange, said after-hours trading continued at the commodity futures exchange. He said firefighters deemed that part of the building safe.

The building also houses the Chicago bureau of The Associated Press.

Texas: Electric chair gets new museum home

The Texas electric chair “Old Sparky,” where 361 killers met their deaths in the 20th century, gets a new permanent home today with the opening of the new Texas Prison Museum.

The outside of the museum is designed to resemble from the outside the nearby prison in Huntsville, complete with guard tower. Inside, it features the good and bad of Texas prisons over the past century and a half. The new museum replaces cramped, rented quarters in downtown Huntsville.

The electric chair, now in an exhibit called “Riding the Thunderbolt,” is what visitors come most to see, said Weldon Svoboda, museum director.

“It is the No. 1 exhibit,” he said. “For some reason the electric chair has some kind of nostalgic effect on people. It’s kind of weird.”

Washington: Winners claim jackpot; impostor goes to jail

Lottery officials in Olympia introduced the winners of Washington’s largest jackpot Tuesday, after a day of confusion involving a false claim and the arrest of the purported winner on unrelated fraud charges.

Pat and Dick Warren, a retired couple married 48 years, claimed the $93 million Mega Millions prize once lottery officials confirmed they held the sole winning ticket.

The person who claimed on television Monday to be the winner was jailed after Pierce County Sheriff’s detectives recognized the person as a suspect in a series of fraud and theft crimes.

The person called herself Hillary Walls, 27, of Lakewood.

Sheriff’s spokesman Ed Troyer said the fraud suspect is actually a man who dresses as a woman. He was arrested Tuesday as he was shopping for a new car, he said. The suspect’s real name was not released.

Arizona: Rifle that killed golfer not used in sniper spree

A rifle tied to the Washington-area sniper suspects was not the weapon used to kill a golfer in March, police said Tuesday.

Late last week, detectives determined that the Bushmaster .223-caliber rifle linked by ballistics to many of the sniper shootings was in a gun dealer’s inventory when the golfer was shot, said Sgt. Marco Borboa, a spokesman for the Tucson Police Department.

Jerry Taylor, 60, was killed March 19 while practicing chip shots by a single shot to the chest fired from long range.

Police would not release further information on the gun or ballistics evidence in the case. They are investigating a possible connection to the snipers because many elements of the slaying are similar to the random sniper killings and the two suspects were in Tucson when Taylor was killed.