Florida

Volunteer charged with child molestation

A church youth group leader convicted of child molestation more than 20 years ago was charged Sunday with recently molesting three boys, ages 10 to 12, during sleepovers at his home, police said.

Paul Allen Fagiole, 44, was arrested on charges of custodial sexual battery and lewd molestation, said Col. Grady Judd of the Polk County Sheriff’s Office.

Fagiole volunteered at the Willow Oak Assembly of God in Mulberry, about 10 miles south of Lakeland. The victims told detectives the acts occurred since September during sleepovers at Fagiole’s home.

One of the boys told an older sister about the incident, and the sister went to police Saturday. Fagiole was arrested after he confessed to detectives in a videotaped interview, Judd said.

Fagiole was convicted of child molestation in 1981, Judd said. It was unclear whether he served prison time.

Fagiole’s first court appearance will be today.

Los Angeles

Friend says lawyer didn’t know shooter

The man who shot an attorney in front of news crews last week outside a Los Angeles courthouse had never met the victim and was not his client, according to a close friend of the wounded attorney.

On Sunday, Richard Heaton told the story of how the man he grew up with, Gerald Curry, was shot in the neck and both arms as TV crews were nearby awaiting an unrelated event.

The shooter, William Strier, 64, of Thousand Oaks, is being held in lieu of $1 million bail, according to police. He was apparently upset about being denied money from a legal settlement, and Curry was an opposing lawyer on the case, police said.

“Jerry did not know him; he did not know Jerry,” Heaton said.

The shooter asked Curry to identify himself before pulling the trigger.

Montana

Hot water frees mountain lion babies

A railroad inspector and a game warden used the age-old trick of a little hot water to free three mountain lion kittens stuck to a railroad track.

Pat O’Rourke was inspecting the Burlington Northern-Santa Fe main line on Friday near Butte when he saw three kittens frozen to the tracks. One was on its back, and one was stuck by its tail. The third had a paw on a railroad spike and its belly on the track.

When O’Rourke realized they were frozen to the tracks, he tried pouring coffee from his thermos on one kitten’s paw. That didn’t work either.

The sound of the screaming kittens roused their mother, who was on a nearby ridge. The roar of the angry female mountain lion spooked O’Rourke back into his truck.

O’Rourke called for help, and Marty Vook, a state game warden, responded. He brought the hot water. O’Rourke said the kittens left patches of hair on the steel tracks.

Mississippi

State charges issued in crash at Bush speech

A woman who rammed her car into an arena where President Bush had just given a speech was charged with aggravated assault on a police officer, authorities said Sunday.

Chief David Mitchell, spokesman for the DeSoto County sheriff’s department, said Betina Mixon was being held in the DeSoto County jail without bond and would be arraigned today or Tuesday.

Federal officials said Mixon, 29, had no intention of harming the president, and no federal charges are pending against her.

A friend said Mixon might have wanted to hurt herself.

Mixon, of Horn Lake, had her three children in her car when she crashed into a wall of the DeSoto County Civic Center on Saturday.

Bush had just spoken at a campaign rally for Haley Barbour, the Republican nominee for governor, and was in his limousine preparing to leave, a senior administration official said.

Los Angeles

Mechanics on strike consider vote

As striking drivers for a private company that contracts with the Metropolitan Transportation Authority agreed Sunday to go back to work, the leader of the MTA’s mechanics union softened his hard-line position and said he might allow his workers to vote on the transit agency’s latest proposal this week.

“My board is reconsidering its position,” said Neil Silver, the MTA mechanics union president and leader of a worker walk-off that has forced roughly 400,000 daily bus and train riders to look for transportation alternatives since mid-October. “We will be meeting (today) to discuss offering this to the members. … If the membership accepts the offer, we will return to work.”

Silver said that if his members declined the offer, he wanted the transit agency to accept a union proposal to have an outside panel of experts come up with a new labor contract.