Chicago

Supremacist charged with soliciting murder

The leader of a white supremacist group was arrested Wednesday on charges he tried to have a federal judge murdered.

Matt Hale, 31, was taken into custody by agents of an FBI-led terrorism task force as he arrived at Chicago’s federal courthouse for a contempt of court hearing in a trademark infringement lawsuit.

Hale pleaded innocent Wednesday afternoon during a short hearing. The East Peoria man is head of the World Church of the Creator.

Hale was indicted on charges he tried between Nov. 29 and Dec. 17 to get someone to kill U.S. District Judge Joan Humphrey Lefkow.

Lefkow has been presiding over the trademark case involving Hale’s use of the name World Church of the Creator.

She had recently ordered the organization to stop using the name and turn over all printed materials reading “World Church of the Creator” because the name infringed on the rights of an Oregon group, the TE-TA-MA Truth Foundation. But Hale refused to comply.

Los Angeles

New TV ads link SUVs, terror funding

A group hoping to lessen U.S. reliance on foreign oil on Wednesday unveiled two television ads that link gas-guzzling sport utility vehicles to terrorist funding.

The ads mimic spots that link drug money to terrorism.

One commercial features a child’s voiceover and shows a man filling his gas tank and footage of terrorist training. The closing statement: “Oil money supports some terrible things. What kind of mileage does your SUV get?”

The other ad shows people talking about their SUVs. One says, “My kids think it’s cool.” Another says, “I helped blow up a nightclub.”

The 30-second ads were created for The Detroit Project, a nonprofit launched by syndicated columnist Arianna Huffington. They will begin airing Sunday in New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, San Francisco, Washington and Detroit.

“This campaign is not designed to demonize SUV owners,” Huffington said. “We want to encourage customers to connect the dots and make socially responsible consumer choices.”

California

Avocado growers tally wind damage

The Santa Ana winds that stoked a wildfire and downed power lines gave way to rain and cool weather Wednesday, but the damage mounted as Southern California growers reported up to several million dollars worth of avocados blown off trees.

As growers’ losses were tallied, more utility crews were summoned to help restore power to the last of more than three-quarters of a million customers hit by outages.

Meanwhile, just a few fire engines remained in Malibu, where more than 1,000 firefighters had battled wind-whipped flames Monday and Tuesday. Hundreds of homes were threatened, though only three were damaged.

Avocado losses were expected to hurt growers but not consumers, industry officials said. Unsalvageable fruit will amount to less than 2 percent of the 12-month crop, the California Avocado Commission said.

Super Bowl Sunday is considered one of the nation’s biggest single days for avocado consumption.

Utah

Nearly 60 vehicles involved in pileups

Nearly 60 vehicles crashed Wednesday during the morning commute in a string of pileups along an icy, fog-shrouded stretch of Interstate 80. At least 11 people were injured, four seriously.

The injured included two firefighters. The dense fog prevented a medical helicopter from landing to pick up victims.

The Utah Highway Patrol reported 14 crashes involving 59 vehicles, three of them tractor-trailers.

At one crash site, 17 vehicles piled up and an overturned tractor-trailer tossed chairs and other household goods across the interstate.

The seriously injured included a woman in her 20s who was crushed from the chest down when her car was shoved under a burning truck, authorities said.

Washington, D.C.

Clarence Thomas agrees to 7-figure book deal

Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas has agreed to sell his memoirs to a New York-based publisher for a seven-figure advance, according to publishing industry sources.

The deal between the 54-year-old justice and HarperCollins, owned by conservative media baron Rupert Murdoch, appears to be the most lucrative ever for a serving member of the modern Supreme Court.

Patty Kelly, a spokeswoman for HarperCollins, said Thomas’ book would “trace his life from his upbringing through his confirmation to the court” in 1991 — including the battle over sexual harassment charges by a former aide, Anita Hill, about which she and others have already written books.

Kelly declined to discuss dollar figures. But industry sources said HarperCollins made a million-dollar offer to outbid several other companies. The book is go on sale in fall 2005.

Kentucky

Eighth patient receives artificial heart implant

Doctors at a Louisville hospital have implanted a self-contained artificial heart in a critically ill patient, the eighth such surgery in the United States but the first since April.

Only one of the previous patients — Tom Christerson of Central City, Ky., who received his heart in September 2001 in Louisville — is still alive.

The latest surgery took place Tuesday, Jewish Hospital said in a statement Wednesday. The hospital said it would not release the patient’s name or other details at the request of the family.

Robert Tools of Franklin, Ky., was the first to receive the self-contained heart, a softball-sized pump made of plastic and titanium and powered by batteries.

It has no wires or tubes sticking through the skin, a technological leap from earlier mechanical hearts that were attached by wires and tubes to machinery outside the body.

Tools received the heart July 2, 2001, and lived five months.