Los Angeles

Ex-N.Y. commissioner selected to lead LAPD

Former New York City Police Commissioner William Bratton has been selected as the new chief of the Los Angeles Police Department, a city councilman confirmed Wednesday.

“We have been told that Bratton will be named as chief tomorrow,” City Council member Jack Weiss said. “It is a positive step forward for the city of Los Angeles.”

Bratton beat out Oxnard chief Art Lopez and former Philadelphia chief John Timoney to lead the 9,000-officer police force.

Bratton, 54, was police commissioner in New York from 1994 to 1996 before resigning under pressure from then-Mayor Rudy Giuliani.

Prior to his tenure with the New York Police Department, he led the New York City Transit Police and the Boston Police Department.

Utah

Tour bus crash leaves six dead

A bus carrying elderly sightseers on a fall foliage tour overturned on a remote forest road Wednesday, killing six and injuring 20, the Utah Highway Patrol said.

The bus’ brakes apparently failed as the vehicle turned a corner in Juab County, about 70 miles south of Salt Lake City, said highway patrol spokesman Chris Kramer.

Authorities said six women were confirmed dead and another 20 passengers injured, six critically.

The University Hospital in Salt Lake City sent three AirMed helicopters to the crash and was still assessing the injuries, spokeswoman Kara Nelson said.

Donna’s Tours, based in a Salt Lake City suburb, was taking the group on a tour of the flanks of 11,877-foot Mount Nebo, the highest peak on the Wasatch Range.

San Diego

U.S., Mexican officials dismantle drug ring

U.S. and Mexican authorities said Wednesday they had dismantled North America’s largest illegal producer and distributor of ketamine, a veterinary anesthetic that has become a popular and dangerous drug on the club circuit.

In raids in both countries and Panama, seven men were arrested and authorities said they made the largest seizure ever of ketamine, which is often referred to as Super K or Special K.

The ring manufactured ketamine at a lab in the central Mexican state of Morelos, advertised the drug on the Internet and smuggled it into the United States, distributing tens of thousands of vials in liquid form each month, said Assistant U.S. Atty. Timothy Coughlin.

The network is believed to be responsible for distributing 70 percent to 80 percent of the ketamine used illegally the United States, said Don Thornhill, a Drug Enforcement Administration spokesman.

Ketamine, a controlled substance in the United States since 1999, is typically distributed as a liquid in 10-milliliter bottles with a street value of about $100 each, according to the DEA.

The substance is heated to form a powder that can be snorted or smoked. It causes hallucinations similar to the drug PCP. It also has a sedative effect and has been used as a date rape drug.

New Jersey

Supreme Court allows replacement on ballot

The New Jersey Supreme Court on Wednesday delivered a jolt of hope to Democrats scrambling to retain control of the U.S. Senate, by allowing the party to replace embattled Sen. Robert Torricelli with a new candidate in the final weeks of the state’s pivotal race.

The court unanimously ordered the printing of new ballots bearing the name of former Sen. Frank Lautenberg, who was tapped by top Democrats to run after Torricelli quit the race Monday in a cloud of ethics questions.

But Republicans vowed to appeal the case to the U.S. Supreme Court. They will ask the nation’s highest court today to overturn the ruling.

The court sided with Democrats’ request to “liberally construe” a state law that permits ballot changes no later than 51 days before the election. Though Torricelli dropped out 15 days after that cutoff point, the court concluded new ballots could feasibly be printed in time to be sent to military and absentee voters.

Democrats will bear the cost of the new printing, which the court estimated at $800,000.

North Carolina

DNA test inconclusive in missing girl search

Police investigating the disappearance of a 9-year-old Virginia girl said Wednesday that a DNA analysis of a child’s leg bone found in Stoneville was inconclusive.

Sheriff Frank Cassell of Henry County, Va., said more skeletal remains were being shipped from the medical examiner’s office in Chapel Hill to a laboratory in Roanoke, Va., for testing.

“It’ll probably take about two days” before an identification can be made, Cassell said.

Police have been trying to find Jennifer Renee Short, who disappeared Aug. 15 after her parents, Michael and Mary Hall Short, were shot to death in their home near Bassett, Va.

Last week, hair, teeth, bits of skull and bone were found in rural Rockingham County, about 30 miles south of the Shorts’ home.

The North Carolina medical examiner said the remains were those of a child shot once in the head.

Washington, D.C.

National Zoo’s only white tiger dies

The National Zoo’s only white tiger was euthanized Wednesday.

Zoo officials said 18-year-old Taj had been treated for osteoarthritis for several years and recently was having trouble walking. He was in such pain this week it was decided to euthanize him.

Taj was born at the Henry Doorly Zoo in Omaha, Neb., in 1984 and was brought to Washington two years later. He never had any offspring.

The National Zoo said that because white tigers were not part of any conservation program, it had no plans to breed or exhibit them in the future. Instead, zoo officials plan to concentrate on their program to breed endangered Sumatran tigers, four of which have been born there since 1999.